Whole house inspection / certification

[onlinegamer]

When we moved into our current house we received (amongst other things) a whole house electrical inspection form / certificate.

Since then my Father-in-law who is an electrician from Ireland had replaced the consumer unit, and I have rewired the sockets in to rooms all the way back to the consumer unit, and set up a new bathroom.

We are about to have a new kitchen including an induction hob and separate oven installed, and while I feel competent of running the wire from the consumer unit and installing the cooker switches I'm concerned that I'm missing out on some of the regulations required - such as sign off by a certified electrician!

I've also seen that many electiricans won't sign off somebody else's work, which is why I'm wondering about having the whole house re-inspected.

Any pointers in the right direction appreciated!

 

[ricicle]

Did your father-in-law or you notify the CU change and was the socket circuit notified at the same time (post 2005)

No sensible Electrician is going to sign a cert. for work he hasn't done. Best advice would be to use a registered one to do the works.

You may be able to chase the walls and/or fit the back boxes for the new kitchen circuits but you would have to discuss this with him first.

When they sign off their work it should also include the suitability of the main parts of the existing installation (Earthing, bonding etc)

 

[MalcofArabia]

When did you move into your current house and when did you FIL change the CU and when did you change the sockets.

From April 2005 Part P was introduced and all electrical work then had to be either certified by an electrician in a competency scheme or notified to the Local building Authority.

If your CU was changed before July2008 there is a chance that it was done to the 16th Edition or is it done to the new 17th.

What I would suggest is get a sparks or a company in that carry out what is called a periodic inspection report for you. The chances are that if your CU was installed to the 17th they will comment on this especially as it wasn't notified or "signed off". You can always declare ignorance of this and tell them that is the reason you called them, as you wanted to make sure your installation was safe. As it was just recently you heard that all electrical work had to be certified, and the person who changed the CU did not give you anything.

They will give you a report outlining any remedial work needed to bring your system upto date with the new regs or if there is anything needed doing urgently they will tell you. If you wasn't doing new work then don't worry if they only put code 4's on the report, that just means that your installation does not meet the new regulations, but is still safe. A code 1 or 2 is what you need to address urgently, a lot of not so professional people use any variations to produce work.

When you have this report you can then call in a sparks who will quote you for all remedial work and the new work to be done. He may well let you chase walls and even run cables as long as he can inspect your work and see the runs before you make good, it really does depend on the sparks, but to be honest there are so many pitfalls now that perhaps the most you could do is cut chases.

Having said this there is nothing stopping you doing the work yourself and notifying the local authority building control (LABC) but they will charge you over 100 pounds for that. Even after you complete the work they may insist on calling in an approved company to carry out the tests which you will now have to pay.

It really is your choice, best advice is to get someone in, you know then that the work is done safely and it will be fully certified. What you save on a few pounds is lost with the hassle.