Should I accept an electrician without current registration?

[akist]

I have met with a new electrician, and from the outset I had asked for his registration number for the purposes of signing off the necessary documents for building control, at the end of the works. I agreed to pay him for an initial visit and inspection after he said he would sign all documents.

But when he came over it transpired he does not have his own registration and instead he has a "partner" who sits in an office and signs off on his behalf, based on the reports and the installation he (the electrician) makes.

I feel this is a bit deceitful from him.

I need to consider if this is an acceptable practice in the industry and whether to hire him, or hire a genuine electrician with all current qualifications.

I also feel a bit "scared" because there is nothing to stop any electrician from resigning at any stage prior to signing, and then where does that leave me? It is the same with, say, fitting a new gas boiler, except the gas boiler is a few hours work, whereas the electrics could be many weeks.

I presume the "strength" of the final certificate depends on who has signed it, lest for example there is a future insurance claim, and they go over all documents and discover work was carried out by unregistered tradesmen and not even further inspected or tested by registered tradesmen.

 

[Loofah]

Personally I'd find another sparky

 

[flameport]

It's something that goes on, as the NICEIC operate a 'qualified supervisor' model where there can be one person who is responsible for notification and compliance within an organisation, and that organisation can employ others to do some or most of the installation work.
It can work if used properly, but is often misused, usually by dubious organisations employing someone as a scapegoat to sign off everything regardless, with the rest of the workforce comprising unskilled labourers.
It's something that should have been stopped years ago.

As your installation has already started, employing any electrician to notify it for building control is a dead end.
They can't do it unless they lie on the documents and claim all of the work is their own.

Also note that there are two different things here.
Production of an electrical installation certificate, minor works certificate or EICR is one of them.
Notifying work to building control is another.

Any competent person can complete an electrical certificate. Membership of a scheme is not required.
For notification to building control they must belong to a scheme such as NICEIC or NAPIT, but they can only notify work that they have done themselves.

 

[ericmark]

Anyone can sign the installation certificate, what is important is if the people who as you put it sit in an office, feel they trust that person.

So as electricians we sit exams, and the office guys look at our qualifications and decide if they are good enough.

There are three routes, in Wales two routes, either the electricians pays a scheme provider, or the owner pays the local authority building control (LABC) the problem is the electrician pays the scheme provider, by the owner pays the LABC, and the electrician shows his qualifications direct to scheme provider, but since he does not inform the LABC as owner does that, there is a problem knowing if the LABC will accept his qualifications.

At the start of Part P my son was known by Cheshire LABC and they would accept his signature, but Flintshire did not know him, and wanted the owner to pay for some third party to inspect the work.

Although it is in theory down to the owner to tell the LABC, in practice often the electrician or builder will do this for the owner, so there is no real problem the LABC know the tradesmen and know which ones need carefully watching.

In England it seems electricians can be permitted by their scheme provider to inspect other peoples work in the same way as the LABC inspector, although some scheme providers will not permit any of there members to do this. But the law is there to allow it. But not in Wales.

Where some one else is to inspect and test, they must be in from the start, except for emergency work, it is permitted for an electrician to do emergency work, for example renew a smashed consumer unit on a Saturday, then inform the LABC on next working day, but only for emergency work.

In theory the inspector must be in control of the work, he does not need to do the work, he can have an apprentice, or labours working for him, but he says at what stage he wants to visit and see the progress, but be it the LABC inspector or any other, they can get lazy, I know I saw the LABC inspector before I started work at my mothers house, but when complete I submitted the installation certificate and the completion certificate arrived in the post, the inspector never looked at the finished job, he clearly trusted me.

Be it a guy working for a firm of electricians as an inspector or the LABC inspector, it seems they are free to trust people doing the work, but that is not the same as some one allowed to ask the scheme to issue a compliance certificate asking them to issue it, when he has not been in control.

But how does one really know, OK if something goes wrong, then they may, but that's too late.