Part P - Elecrtics Help - Please!

[ban-all-sheds]

Any chance of you IDing the council? Would love to see what they say on their website....

 

[dingbat]

So i think i am left with getting a part p registered person to do a periodic insp to cover the testing of the DU as well as all the other parts of the house that haven’t yet been checked for safeties sake!

Smooth, you keep mentioning this, so you obviously believe it's an option.

Part P is a very small part of the Building Regulations. As B-A-S has already told you, there is no such thing as a 'Part P Qualified/Registered' electrician.

Periodic inspections are not a concern of the Building Regs - Part P is concerned about the standard of new work carried out, not whether an existing installation is suitable for continued service.

Pay for a PIR by all means, but be aware that it will be of no use to you to certify the work - it is a report not a certificate.

In some cases the local authority will commission a PIR - at your expense - as part of their process of satisfying themselves the work complies, but there is nothing to be gained by you doing this for yourself.

You should have been given a certificate by the installing electrician and any contractor who does not do this is a charlatan - installation certificates have been required since the 11th Edition, which came out in 1939!

 

[chapeau]

hi

I have had a quick chat to the council.........

............
............

So i think i am left with getting a part p registered person to do a periodic insp to cover the testing of the DU as well as all the other parts of the house that haven’t yet been checked for safeties sake!

cheers

If that's acceptable to the council and acceptable to you then just do it and they will issue the certificate you need to be legal. Put it down to experience.

 

[smoothcrm]

BAS
The website basically says the three options I have written but in a few more words

Chapeau
Thanks I think that’s where I am at !

dingbat

i suppose my reasoning is basically - i don’t want to get the original chap back to get me a certificate, as i said he didn’t have the test kit etc etc etc and i don’t want to get him back round in any case!

so do I have any other options to get it all sorted ?

I don’t know ?

Also None of the other parts of the house electrics have been checked since I purchased it.
So I though a periodic insp would get me safe on one hand and legal on the other as it seems the LABC seems to think that’s ok ??

 

[Paul_C]

In some cases the local authority will commission a PIR - at your expense - as part of their process of satisfying themselves the work complies, but there is nothing to be gained by you doing this for yourself.

But he has notified the work to LABC and paid the fee. The council has no authority to then demand any sort of inspection at his extra expense. (If he wants to get a PIR for his own peace of mind, that's a different matter, obviously.)

 

[smoothcrm]

paul

yeah thats still the bit im a bit confused about ?

if i had told them at the start that the chap i used to fit the DU wasnt going to be able to get me the certificate (if i knew that) would they have told me something different??

 

[ban-all-sheds]

BAS
The website basically says the three options I have written but in a few more words

1) use a registered person under a part p scheme

2) pay the council and fill out the forms etc and get a sparky who can complete a 7671

3) or pay the council and fill out the forms etc do the work myself or by an unregistered person and get another sparky to issue the 7671 form

So you they told you before you submitted your application what the 3 options were, and you didn't pick any of them.

As Mr. Hat says - you are now going to have to stump up whatever is necessary, and chalk it up to experience.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

But he has notified the work to LABC and paid the fee. The council has no authority to then demand any sort of inspection at his extra expense.

Indeed not, but the time to kick back against that would have been at the start, not after having implicitly agreed to their rules, no matter how flaky.

Now, in reality, his only course of action would be to take them to court.

Do you feel strongly enough about it to underwrite his legal fees?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

if i had told them at the start that the chap i used to fit the DU wasnt going to be able to get me the certificate (if i knew that) would they have told me something different??

They would probably have referred you back to what they had already told you, and maybe pointed out to you that you were not following any of the 3 routes they had prescribed.

But it's all speculation - you did not follow any of the 3 routes they prescribed, so you're up River Excrement with no means of propulsion.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

if i had told them at the start that the chap i used to fit the DU wasnt going to be able to get me the certificate (if i knew that) would they have told me something different??

They would probably have referred you back to what they had already told you, and maybe pointed out to you that you were not following any of the 3 routes they had prescribed.

But it's all speculation - you did not follow any of the 3 routes they prescribed, so you're up River Excrement with no means of propulsion.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I should clarify.

If I seem unsympathetic, it's largely because I am. Not in a yah-boo-sucks-serves-you-right schadenfreude kind of way, but because I simply don't have much sympathy for you.

You were stitched up by a cowboy, you weren't the first, and you won't be the last, it's unfortunate, and I genuinely wish you had not been, but people like you exasperate me because you allow the cowboys to operate.

Just what did you do to choose your electrician? Did you find out what the laws/rules/regulations were? Did you seek references and recommendations? Did you ask him if he could comply with the requirements which you knew your council demanded? Did you get several quotes?

I'm shortly going to have external wall insulation installed on my house as it has solid walls, no cavity. Apart from a general understanding of insulation from an internal or cavity POV it's something I know SFA about.

So I'm looking into the various products and systems on the market, and how they work. I'm looking to see what trade bodies there are, and what their membership and ongoing validation requirements are. I'm looking to see what BS numbers apply to the systems, materials, and methods of installation. I'm looking to see what laws and regulations apply. I will be looking for references and examples of work to inspect.

What did you do, apart from ask your council and then ignore them?

 

[Paul_C]

if i had told them at the start that the chap i used to fit the DU wasnt going to be able to get me the certificate (if i knew that) would they have told me something different??

Judging from the three options they suggested, it sounds as though they're one of those local authorities refusing to carry out their legal obligations in this regard. In other words, they'll tell you about how you have to follow the regulations and are quite happy to take extortionate amounts of money from you, but they refuse to abide by the law themselves. Unfortunately, this seems to be happening all over the country with regard to Part P.

So you they told you before you submitted your application what the 3 options were, and you didn't pick any of them.

They may have given three options to suit their own aims of grabbing as much money as they can for as little actual work as possible, but they neglected to include the option which they have a legal obligation to provide, didn't they?

If they have collected the full building fee, they have a legal obligation to test & inspect themselves, or get somebody else to do it, at their expense out of the fee paid. In this regard Part P is no different from any other part of the building regulations.

The ODPM's office (before the name of the department changed again for the umpteenth time) issued a circular on this:

There have been reports that some local authorities are asking householders to have electrical installation work inspected, tested and certificated by someone other than the person carrying out the work. Section 33(2) of the Building Act 1984 (which would give power to local authorities to require persons carrying out building work to carry out such reasonable tests, at the person's expense, of or in connection with the work for the purpose of enabling local authorities to ascertain whether the work complies with the requirements of the Regulations) has not been commenced. This means in our opinion that local authorities do not have the power to require householders to retain an electrician to test and certificate the work in accordance with BS 7671. Local authorities which have adopted such a practice should discontinue it immediately.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/plann...ionalcircularletters/buildingregulationspart/

 

[dingbat]

Judging from the three options they suggested, it sounds as though they're one of those local authorities refusing to carry out their legal obligations in this regard. In other words, they'll tell you about how you have to follow the regulations and are quite happy to take extortionate amounts of money from you, but they refuse to abide by the law themselves. Unfortunately, this seems to be happening all over the country with regard to Part P.

It's not just Part P. Self-certification schemes exist for a wide range of building work. As the building regulations have become more complex, building inspectors rarely have the expertise to carry out all the inspection work necessary, especially for technical services. And this trend will continue as more and more aspects of buildings become subject to increasing technical difficulty and regulation.

Although you have an option to carry out notifiable work via the building control route this places a burden on the inspection staff that is beyond their ability to cope. The LABCs cannot cope - if you asked them, most would prefer you give the work to a company registered to self-certify.

It's not surprising then, that many LABCs opt to make notifying DIY/unregistered work either expensive or complicated or both.

 

[davelx]

The ODPM's office (before the name of the department changed again for the umpteenth time) issued a circular on this:

There have been reports that some local authorities are asking householders to have electrical installation work inspected, tested and certificated by someone other than the person carrying out the work. Section 33(2) of the Building Act 1984 (which would give power to local authorities to require persons carrying out building work to carry out such reasonable tests, at the person's expense, of or in connection with the work for the purpose of enabling local authorities to ascertain whether the work complies with the requirements of the Regulations) has not been commenced. This means in our opinion that local authorities do not have the power to require householders to retain an electrician to test and certificate the work in accordance with BS 7671. Local authorities which have adopted such a practice should discontinue it immediately.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/plann...cularletters/buildingregulationspart/[/QUOTE]

The problem here is that the ODPM do not make or interpret the law. Look more closely at the last sentence of your quote. There are two key fragments:

"in our opinion " and " should discontinue it"

not "the law states that" and "must discontinue it"

so the only way to force LABC to follow this would be to take them to court and win the case, thus establishing case law in this area.

 

[smoothcrm]

But it's all speculation - you did not follow any of the 3 routes they prescribed, so you're up River Excrement with no means of propulsion.

I think you will find BAS that I did the options listed - I just didn’t do the option you would have chosen, but it didn’t know that at the time and if the options were so bad and not the best way to carry the work out - why are they even options that the council suggest there would just be one wouldn’t there –

again to clarify

1) use a registered person under a part p scheme

this may be your best option or suggestion - but it wasn’t mine at the time for lots of reasons- including it was the most expensive by far and yes I did get quotes.

but if this was the one and only best option - why do they offer these other two……..

2) pay the council and fill out the forms etc and get a sparky who can complete a 7671

This is the option i took - despite your opinion - this was my route for various reasons- my only problem was I suppose, was that I assumed that the sparky could test it, which I found out too late that he couldn't.

3) or pay the council and fill out the forms etc do the work myself or by an unregistered person and get another sparky to issue the 7671 form

Now this is the option I am left with
so inadvertently I am doing option 3 although at the start I thought I was doing option 2.

SO all I need to do now is the latter part and get another sparky to issue the 7671 form or in my case I think a full house inspection may be more worth while.

What did you do, apart from ask your council and then ignore them?

I think you really want to stop and read the posts before kicking of and having a rant...

I didn't ignore them in the slightest

This is your profession so you are going to know more about it than me,

I’m not telling you what I do for a living, but I know for a fact if you were ever in a situation where you needed my services -
and did what you could to help yourself out, did your research, phoned any authorities, and then asked me the best course of action it would be different to what you had done i know it, as unless you have gone through the training I have and learnt all the laws you are not going to know about it all !!

But the next time you required it, after learning from the issues you faced the first time you would not make the same mistakes again.

That’s where I am now !

Also AGAIN i must stress that my research included getting quotes etc, and I phoned the authority in charge - the council and asked exactly what to do as well as reading their web page. They just didn’t say, get the chap to prove he can do the certification and testing before I hire him, but I should have maybe asked ? perhaps, but I didn’t really know that at the time, but I do now !

They did not mention at any point about the fee should cover them inspecting it or not or their prefered or best course of action, the only deviation from my original plan was the fact that the chap who came round wasn’t fit to get me the certificate, which I didn’t know to ask at the time and maybe I naively thought that he could do it before he installed the new DU.

My rant over !