How to get Part P qualified?

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What’s involved in this? I’d like to learn how to become qualified to be able to do my own notifiable work.
 
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Thanks. Is my understanding correct that if you wish to do you own electrics in the garden or installing new circuits in your house then you need to be Part P certified and not just “competent”?

thanks.
 
need to be Part P certified and not just “competent”?
Anyone doing electrical work needs to be competent. There are several ways of proving that competence.
'part P certified' isn't a thing.

Some electrical work is notifiable, meaning it needs to be notified to building control.
That is done before the work starts via a building notice or plans submission, just the same as any other notifiable work such as building an extension, installing new windows, relocating a kitchen, altering drains and so on.
Members of competent persons schemes can notify the work via the scheme which saves a significant amount of money and time if doing notifiable work regularly.

There are no restrictions on who can do notifiable work - they just need to be competent and to actually notify when it's required.
 
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There are no restrictions on who can do notifiable work - they just need to be competent and to actually notify when it's required.
This is true in theory.

In practice from what I can gather the cost and hassle of dealing with building control, make it not work trying to do the work yourself legally vs paying someone to do it.

And the cost and hassle of maintaining membership in a self certification scheme are only worthwhile if you are doing electrical work professionally.
 
Thanks. Is my understanding correct that if you wish to do you own electrics in the garden or installing new circuits in your house then you need to be Part P certified and not just “competent”?
The garden is no longer a restriction in England.

This is all that is left:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/3119/regulation/6/made

As said above, it is nothing to do with Part P:

upload_2022-2-20_1-19-24.png


That's it.
 
Indeed. Part P is a building reg not a qualification.
Very true, whole idea of Part P is to have the same legal powers to ensure wiring is safe as in commercial premises under the electricity at work act.

In practice from what I can gather the cost and hassle of dealing with building control, make it not work trying to do the work yourself legally vs paying someone to do it.

That is what I found, in Wales there is a fixed fee of £100 plus vat for the first £2000 worth of work, in England not fixed by central government each council can fix their own fees, originally if the LABC sub contracted the work, it was at their expense, but this was changed, so they can employ a contractor to do an EICR before issuing the completion certificate and you need to pay for that on top of the standard fee. So the cost can be more than the cost of getting a scheme member firm to do the job.

In England you can use third part inspectors, schemes can cover people to inspect other peoples work, in the main this was to allow a plumber to install central heating for example then the company inspector would check the electrical work, although he could do it for general public that was not really the idea, and some scheme providers decided not to offer the third party inspection anyway.

In Wales that's not an option only the LABC inspector can authorise the work.

The problem is fit a new socket in the kitchen is likely going to cost less than the LABC charges. Whole house re-wire it may be worth while, but even then one will it cost less than the £2000 limit in the eyes of the LABC inspector, and also will the inspector consider you have the skill? If he does then when completed you send your installation certificate to the local authority and they send you a completion certificate, as I found out, they did not even visit the house, it was a simple rubber stamp job. However if they don't think you have the skill, they can send third party inspectors at your expense as many times as required.

As with all building control it is down to the owner to inform them, in the main builders will do it for the owner, but end of the day down to owner to ensure it is done, this means if there are extra charges the owner has to pay, OK for the electrician but not very good for the owner, seems completely daft that I am not breaking the law working on my neighbours house without telling the LABC, it is my neighbour who is breaking the law, unless I do some thing to make my neighbour think I am a scheme member.
 
Very true, whole idea of Part P is to have the same legal powers to ensure wiring is safe as in commercial premises under the electricity at work act.

Part P brought domestic electrical under the control of local councils and bears no relationship to commercial. Also, when a trading electrical works in either environment, all regulations (EAWR, HASAW, etc) apply with Part P only applying for domestic jobs.


In England you can use third part inspectors, schemes can cover people to inspect other peoples work, in the main this was to allow a plumber to install central heating for example then the company inspector would check the electrical work, although he could do it for general public that was not really the idea, and some scheme providers decided not to offer the third party inspection anyway.

The rules changed to reduce the customer cost and cut down the council overheads for administering jobs. It had nothing to do with plumbers. It just cut out the LABC from the process.

The problem is fit a new socket in the kitchen is likely going to cost less than the LABC charges. Whole house re-wire it may be worth while, but even then one will it cost less than the £2000 limit in the eyes of the LABC inspector, and also will the inspector consider you have the skill? If he does then when completed you send your installation certificate to the local authority and they send you a completion certificate, as I found out, they did not even visit the house, it was a simple rubber stamp job. However if they don't think you have the skill, they can send third party inspectors at your expense as many times as required.

If the LABC decided the installer has the skills/qualifications to do the job, there is no need for an inspector out so a house visit would achieve nothing.
 
If the LABC decided the installer has the skills/qualifications to do the job, there is no need for an inspector out so a house visit would achieve nothing.
There is a difference between trusted not to turn on power until the LABC inspector is satisfied it is OK to do so, and trusted to complete the installation/minor works certificate correctly.

I was caught out with this house, before buying I was shown a copy of the installation certificate, I did feel the readings did not match a house of this size, but seemed in general OK.

After moving in I found the certificate was for the flat under the house, not the main house, I found this out by testing, I switched off the main isolator and nothing in the main house went off.

I am sure like your self, if I wanted I could fudge up some results which would look good on paper even if I had never taken the meter out of the box, the only way to show my paper work is not a Jackanory story is to compare at least one reading.

Even the electricians mate in the Emma Shaw case was able to fudge up some results.
 
This is true in theory. In practice from what I can gather the cost and hassle of dealing with building control, make it not work trying to do the work yourself legally vs paying someone to do it.
That will obviously be the case with small (but notifiable) jobs but, there again, it may be difficult to find scheme-member electricians who are interested in doing very smalljobs.

For larger jobs, it can be different, at least financially. There will undoubtedly still be some 'hassle' to contend with, but it does not take all that many man-hours of decent scheme-member electricians' labour costs for it to exceed the costs of notification.

Kind Regards, John
 
There is a difference between trusted not to turn on power until the LABC inspector is satisfied it is OK to do so, and trusted to complete the installation/minor works certificate correctly.

I don't really understand this. LABC is only interested when installation work is carried out by a person who is not on the CPR (and not using 3rd party certification).
If the property owner is not electrically qualified and cannot provide verifiable evidence of installation experience, LABC is likely to require sign-off by their inspector.
If the property owner is qualified and has verifiable experience, LABC has the option to accept an EIC and issue the required certificate. In this case, there is no need for an LABC visit.

I am sure like your self, if I wanted I could fudge up some results which would look good on paper even if I had never taken the meter out of the box, the only way to show my paper work is not a Jackanory story is to compare at least one reading.

Even the electricians mate in the Emma Shaw case was able to fudge up some results.

This is completely off topic. There is nothing to stop anybody issuing a false MWEIC/EIC/EICR. Given your repeated referral to a case from 2007, I'd say it's not that common an occurrence.
 
Once the LABC accepts an application for work the LABC is responsible for site safety. And the LABC inspector was at first wanting to use a third party inspector at our expense even when my son and I both had C&G 2391 certificates.

My son raised the question if the third party inspector did not pass the work, and we felt it was unreasonable what would happen? For the third party inspector to be able to say our work was sub standard he would need to show he was equal or better qualified than ourselves.

So any third party inspector would need a equal or higher qualifications to our selves, and my dad has a degree, i.e. level 5, so any inspector must have that or above.

Not really the case, but we did not want to pay for a third party inspector. I say this work is for my mother, do you really think I would put my mother at risk? And reluctantly he said my EIC would be accepted, but signed by me, not my son, not what we wanted as son had insurance I did not, but we accepted it.

But prior to that job two other local authorities had accepted my sons signature. I don't think the LACB inspector knew what a C&G 2391 was, however the point is if some one with a C&G 2391 is not considered qualified enough to sign an EIC who is? My degree taught me nothing to do with inspection and testing, how to work out loading on two generators and all the other stuff, does not help in working out if an installation is safe.

OK fdEng behind my name looks good on the certificate, but an am sure my son knows as much as me as far as what is safe, if not more, as he worked as an inspector checking other peoples work.

I will admit there are some jobs where one has to make a personal evaluation as to if safe or not. The thing which has been raised many times is how safe EV charging points are, it is not a simple case of reading the rule book, one has to assess how likely is the loss of the PEN going to present two metallic surfaces which could be touched at the same time? Building regulations want 2.7 meters for fire regulations caravan to building, so TN and TT are at least 2.7 meters apart, but this does not apply with a car, so the installer needs to do a risk assessment, the same applies to any class I appliance used on a PME supply, be it a hot tub or a inferred heater, it needs some level of skill, not simply following the rule book, but these are few and far between, for most things the rules, regulations, and laws tell us what to do.

To be frank I am not happy about what has been said about EV charging points, 50 volt has been the limit for years, why for EV charging points we are allowed 70 volt I don't know, we banned ELCB-v use yet we are allowing the 207 - 253 volt detection system, it seems wrong.

But as electricians we are guided by IET and other bodies, and we have to consider what the professional bodies say, but at the end of the day the LABC inspector has to decide if you have the skill required. And I would say in the main the LABC inspector does not have the knowledge needed to make that assessment.

As to passing exams, like the driving test, it does not mean you still have that knowledge today, dementia is some thing that creeps up on one, by time one can show some one is suffering it is likely too late, so I got a degree at 60, that does not mean a 70 I have the same ability. Ask me now to use calculus and I would scratch my head, odd but imaginary numbers I can still remember what it is all about.

But during my apprenticeship and all the collage courses I never did either. I am of an age where I did 5 years, my father said that was too short, his apprenticeship was 5 + 2 years last two was a journeyman, so 7 years to become qualified. The idea was by using day release the time could be made shorter, it seems block release has further shortened the apprenticeship, but there has to be a limit.
 
Once the LABC accepts an application for work the LABC is responsible for site safety. And the LABC inspector was at first wanting to use a third party inspector at our expense even when my son and I both had C&G 2391 certificates.

My son raised the question if the third party inspector did not pass the work, and we felt it was unreasonable what would happen? For the third party inspector to be able to say our work was sub standard he would need to show he was equal or better qualified than ourselves.

So any third party inspector would need a equal or higher qualifications to our selves, and my dad has a degree, i.e. level 5, so any inspector must have that or above.

Not really the case, but we did not want to pay for a third party inspector. I say this work is for my mother, do you really think I would put my mother at risk? And reluctantly he said my EIC would be accepted, but signed by me, not my son, not what we wanted as son had insurance I did not, but we accepted it.

Read more: https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/how-to-get-part-p-qualified.587126/#ixzz7MJMO6nu1

You post this regularly and it makes no sense. As I recall this happened a long while back. The LABC inspectors were getting used to Part P. For an electrical inspector, contracted to inspect/test on behalf of the LABC, the requirement would be that he has an up-to-date 2390 qualification. There is no I&T qualification beyond 2390, so your degree is irrelevant. Your demand that the inspector is more highly qualified than you is meaningless. I don;t even have an answer to your post that you challenge the EICR because you disagree with the contents.
 
50 Volt SELV always has been based on Telephone exchanges, a nominal 48 Volt system, that when fully charged would have 56.x Volts on it, in recent years more testing and looking at automotive "Load dumps" has led to an increase to 63 Volts, I must have missed it creeping up again to 70! It is based on not being able to have a sustained arc in the dc circuit when a switch is opened.
 

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