Kitchen and part P

[enzyme]

Hi

New to this group. Electricaly OK, but need clarification of a couple of reg and part P.

Doing a new kitchen and the following questions.

1 Cooker hood - If I use a 13a socket does it have to be visible or can it be hidden behind the extract cover?

2 Under counter appliances i.e washing machine, is it OK to have the plug socket behind the machine i.e under the counet out of site?

3 Oven. I am replacing the electric oven with a new one, therefor not changing the circuit. Currently it is from the fue box to a wall switch, from this runs just a leght of cable, which was conected to the back of the oven. Is this OK?

4 is it Ok to spur off from this with same grade cable to a 13a socket to alow connection of ignitor for gas hob?

Part P bits, who inforces this? and how do they know you did the work after this date? I assume this does not mean I have to have all old work inspected and if needed ripped out and new?

Thanks

 

[ban-all-sheds]

1. Visible.

2. Only if you also have a visible accessible switch above the work surface to isolate it in an emergency.

3. Depends on the size of cable and the rating of the fuse/MCB and the rating of the switch and the rating of the oven.

4. Depends on the size of cable and the rating of the fuse/MCB and the rating of the switch.

5. //www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=327999#327999

 

[enzyme]

Thanks for the reply.

Is it just me (a DIYer) who is confused my these new reuglations or is it the so called "proffesionals" as well???? because i have had some many conflicint coments from electricians for work!

Do you think people are useing it as a loop hole to charge people more?

Do you think the vast majorty of diyers do not know about part P?

THanks

 

[ebee]

Yes & Yes & Yes but then again those of us who registered have increased costs that we pass onto customers therefore we have to charge more.
follow threads on this forum for info, particularly Ban All Sheds - a mine of info, He comes accross as a little short and discoutrtseyus sometimes but with more like him we would be a world power again

 

[Pensdown]

Ebee, Just out of interest, how has PP increased your costs?

 

[ebee]

1/ The fee itself (£ 470 inc VAT) dropping to £ 411.25 via ELECSA
2/ Time off for Assessment
3? Scheme operator insists I risk assess every job (even though I only 1 man band & legal requirement is if you have 5 employees or more).
4/ Time & costs in noitifying each job
The above 1/ to 4? I think are inargueable extra costs due to Part P

The following points we should be observing without Part P however in truth most of us were probably doing this already but to a lesser extent (less frequently say or to a lesser degree) prior Part P

5/ Public liabillity £2 million
6/ Issuing minor works cert for every job not requiring EIC
7/ Currently rated test equipment
8/ Anually calibrated trest gear.
9/ 5 yearly say updating 2381 & 2391 courses & exam fees.
10/ Time off taken for 5/ above
11/ Offering insurance to customer.
12/ Current BS 7671 (as opposed to older edition plus ammendments)
13/ Current Part P doc/ complaints form/ guides


When Part P was only just a thought for the future, I belkieve MPs were told it woud cost each Electrician about £ 500 over 5 years which wasn`t a bad rise in costs however between £ 900 to £ 2000 per year is probably a more accurate reflection per firm whether a one man band or firm of 5 or 10 say

 

[Pensdown]

Thanks Ebee, nice breakdown.

As you say 1-4 are direct costs and 5-13 are probably just a little more than before.

So based on an extra costs of 2K over the year the extra cost for PP is something like £0.95/hr. My calculations are based on an 8hr day x 261 working days/year. I assume you must take at least 4 weeks holiday/year so the cost would rise to £1.03/hr.

So on average the cost of PP is somewhere between £0.50 - £ 1.00/hour.

 

[JohnD]

There aren't that many revenue-earning days in a year. When I was in business on my own, I reckoned on 220 earning days a year. Had I been an electrician I would have had non-earning time in site travel, buying stock, giving estimates, training, doing the accounts, chasing debtors, hanging out of the van window to ogle the girlies, waiting for the phone to ring, filling in my registation papers, cruising the websites...

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Is it just me (a DIYer) who is confused my these new reuglations or is it the so called "proffesionals" as well???? because i have had some many conflicint coments from electricians for work!

Well, 1, 2, 3 & 4 are nothing to do with any new regulations - they're to do with ones which have been in force at least since 2001.

Do you think people are useing it as a loop hole to charge people more?

Yes.

Do you think the vast majorty of diyers do not know about part P?

Yes.

 

[Pensdown]

There aren't that many revenue-earning days in a year. When I was in business on my own, I reckoned on 220 earning days a year. Had I been an electrician I would have had non-earning time in site travel, buying stock, giving estimates, training, doing the accounts, chasing debtors, hanging out of the van window to ogle the girlies, waiting for the phone to ring, filling in my registation papers, cruising the websites...

I can see where you’re coming from and it would be nice to recover all overheads in 220 weeks. If the last 41 weeks of work was charged at the same rate there would be loads more profit!

We have to recover our overheads based on the maximum number of normal working days in a year which is 261.

If we are under contract and have to work weekends on day work we are only allowed to charge the premium time that we have to pay the engineers + profit. We can’t charge our full overhead rates as they have already been recovered between Mon-Fri.

Non productive time is calculated separately and some is added to our general overheads. If we have too much that can’t be recovered we loose money!

I don’t know how it’s calculated in the domestic market but for the purpose of trying to work out how much PP costs per hour I don’t know any other way.

I think 50p to £ 1.00/hr is about right, certainly no more

 

[JohnD]

... it would be nice to recover all overheads in 220 weeks. If the last 41 weeks of work was charged at the same rate there would be loads more profit!

there are a lot of weeks in your years! Only 52 in mine! And no bank holidays? No sickness? no holidays? no training time?

You need a better contract negotiator to deal with your client(s)

 

[ban-all-sheds]

As soon as you go beyond 200 billable days per person per year you are into risk.

At 261 your rates will look good, but the chances of losing money are very high.

 

[Pensdown]

... it would be nice to recover all overheads in 220 weeks. If the last 41 weeks of work was charged at the same rate there would be loads more profit!

there are a lot of weeks in your years! Only 52 in mine! And no bank holidays? No sickness? no holidays? no training time?

You need a better contract negotiator to deal with your client(s)

Pitty it's not a tender....do it in 220 days...charge for 220 weeks

 

[securespark]

He comes accross as discoutrtseyus

Do what?

 

[Pensdown]

As soon as you go beyond 200 billable days per person per year you are into risk.

At 261 your rates will look good, but the chances of losing money are very high.

If I became so efficient that I charged for 261 days per year/man I would be very very rich! About 20-25% of all paid time is non productive.

You need a fixed number of days to calculate the recovery of overheads which is normally based on the working year. There are of course loads of other factors that have to be taken in account when calculating the base hourly rate.

How much extra do you think PP should costs the customer/hour?