The thing that is bothering me is why I should have to notify my LABC for putting in say the kit from B&Q.
You don't have to notify that, it's a prefabricated assembly etc. It is without doubt part of your installation - I don't see how anybody can argue that electrical equipment which is fixed to the wall is not fixed electrical equipment, but it is exempted from notification in item 3(c) in Schedule 2B.
This is a DIY kit and is no harder to fit than a plug.
Neither are many electrical accessories, and some become notifiable or not depending on what room you fit them in.
Yet you are saying (ban-all-sheds) that because the outside socket is 'fixed' to the wall it comes under part P.
Yes I am - it does come under it because it is part of your electrical installation by dint of it being fixed, so it has to be done safely. But Part P is not synonymous with notification, not everything for which it imposes a safety requirement is notifiable, and that Armadillo set is not.
However if I was to plug an extension lead in my kitchen and run it out to a 6plug in my leaky old shed 60 feet down the garden so i could power my 3 freezers, tumble dryer and power tools i'm ok because at no point is it 'fixed' to anything.
If this is true then how exactly is the part P protecting anyone?
It's protecting the jobs and commercial interests of electricians and organisations such as NICEIC and the ECA, which is what it was intended to do. Well - actually it isn't doing much for electricians given the venal hypocrisy of NICEIC with their 5-day wonders, but there you go.
I just want to put a plug socket in my shed (not leaking, not 60 feet away) to power a drill or inspection lamp and I want to do it safely and without having to remortgage my house. My consumer unit is at the front of the house and there is no practical route to the back of the house to take power from it.
Armoured cable clipped along the side of the house? Or up the wall, through the loft and down again? But I'm glad you said you want the job to be safe, because that it what Part P requires you to do.
I was originally thinking of the armadillo kit to stay within the regulations but as you are saying this is 'fixed' and therefore under part P. However on their website it states that you do not have to notify because it is not permanently connected to your main house circuit or not 'fixed' to it.
They too quote Part P regs
As I said above, Part P applies to it but it is not notifiable. But you were talking about buying individual, and slightly different parts and putting them together, so they would fail to gain an exemption from notification because they wouldn't be a prefabricated set.
The question then is do the Building Regulations, and therefore Part P, apply to what you want to do. It's difficult to see how a buried cable supplying sockets and lights in a shed is not part of your fixed installation, so it does come within the scope of the Building Regulations, therefore Part P applies, which means you have to comply with P1:
P1 Reasonable provision shall be made in the
design and installation of electrical installations
in order to protect persons operating,
maintaining or altering the installations from
fire or injury.
The easiest way to comply with that is to comply with BS 7671 - the IEE Wiring Regulations for a job like yours - with the prefabricated CE marked product from B&Q the reasonable provision would be to follow the manufacturer's instructions.
So as the Building Regulations apply, do they require you to notify LABC? Unless what you're doing is one of the things in Schedule 2B of the Building Regulations you have to notify.
We know it's not exempt via Paragraph 3 of Sched. 2B, and it's also not one of the items in Para. 1.
It would be exempt via Para 2 if (a), (b) and (c) all apply. (a) and (c) definitely do if you're spurring from an existing circuit.
(b) applies if sockets in a shed do not count as an outdoor power installation. It's arguable that they are not outdoors - they are in a building. The guidance in Approved Document P talks about "garden lighting or power installations", not "outdoor" so again you can argue that a socket in the shed is no more a garden power installation than one by the back door etc. Others might argue that "outdoor" and "garden" mean that if you take a circuit out of the house to supply a building that's outdoors or in the garden 2(b) does not apply.
IANAL - you should read the law yourself and decide whether you believe you should notify the work.
Surely any issues would only be brought up whan I come to sell the house say with the survey. One surveyor could say its ok because its not fixed and the next could say it is.
Or one could say it's outside and therefore notifiable, and the other could say it's not outside.
