Age of these electrics?
- Thread starter telecamo
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Indeed - and that's why so much electrical work was allegedly undertaken in 2004
'New colours' cable was available in 2004, although its use was not then compulsory - so, regardless of how late the work was actually done, people could claim that the fact that it used brown/blue cables did not 'prove' that it had been done after 1st Jan 2005!
Kind Regards, John
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Did not matter when the work was done, it was when it was planned that mattered, I have a load of planned work for my house.
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That's true in terms of compliance with BS 7671, and it presents some opportunity for regarding it as a 'loophole' in as much as the meaning of 'when work was planned' is not defined.
However, I am far less sure that it applied to the introduction of Part P and notification, did it? As of 1st January 2005, the following applied to electrical work (except for the few non-notifiable works which then existed), just as to any other building work...
The Building Regulations said:
I see nothing there which says or suggests that notification was not required if the work that one 'intends to do' was planned prior to 2005, do you (the remainder of Reg 12 contains no such exemptions)?
Kind Regards, John
That's a 21st century (or 'near 21st century') consumer unit.
True - 'not great' - in other words, not compliant with current regulations (which require, for new installations/work, the majority of circuits to be RCD protected). However, current regulations are not retrospective, and that sort of 'split load' CU was the norm, and compliant with the prevailing regs, at the time it was installed. It's quite possible that it could be adapted to provide RCD protection of the rest of the circuits (with a second RCD) or, if that were not possible, most/all of the circuits currently without RCD protection could have their MCBs changed to RCBOs. ... so a new CU is not necessarily the only option to bring that one 'up to current regs', if you wanted that.
A conscientiously-undertaken EICR should certainly answer all your questions. I usually advise people commissioning EICRs (or any similar 'inspection' in oither fields) to make it clear from the outset that, as a matter of principle, they would not employ the person/company who did the EICR to undertake any remedial work that might be necessary - thereby perhaps reducing to some extent the risk of things being flagged by the EICR 'to create work for the electrician'!
Kind Regards, John
Well, it was in that work planned before the introduction of Part P was not subject to Part P.
I think it did; what else was there to define "prior to Part P".
I don't have a copy of the BR before 2010 but surely it must be the case as the work, planned before Part P, will be ongoing since before Part P and the notification rules, so it would have been impossible to notify before the work started and also it might not comply with the regulations at the later time.
AS you quote, I was talking about compliance with BS 7671 (and what I said was equally true before anyonbe even dreamed of Part P), not abou Part P.
The issue with BS 7671 conformity/compliance is that "planned" is not defined. When eric wrote ...
.. I though he was talking about things that he has vague 'plans' to (possibly) do at some point in the (possibly distant) future. I don't think that one could argue that new work does not need to comply with, say, BS7671:2018 (or even BS7671:2008) because one had 'been planning to do it' since, say, the 1990s!
I believe that the Building Regulations 2010 were preceded by the Building Act 1984 (for full version - click here) .
There obviously could not have sensibly been a requirement to notify electrical work that had been commenced prior to 1st January 2005, even if the work were ongoing after that date. However, if the wording about 'notification' was similar (to that in the 2010 Act) in the 1984 Act (I haven't yet found precisely the right bit), then notification may well have required (at least technically) notification of any work not actually started until after 1st Jan 2005, even though it may have been 'planned' in 2004, or maybe even earlier.
I don't fully understand that. Which regulations did you have in mind - "Part P"?
Kind Regards, John
Ok. not defined, as such then, but equally, there was no way to check when it was done.
I presumed Eric was talking about Part P because that was what 'planned earlier' referred to.
Logically, you are probably correct but if that is what it said regarding earlier planning then...
Wasn't Part P introduced because prior to that there was no check on electrical work - i.e. it was not subject to BRs and notification.
I was talking about Part P and notification as that is what was introduced in 2005.
I'm sure he was (talking about notification, not really Part P per se).
I introduced BS7671 only to provide a contrast - i.e. I was saying that, although it is explicitly stated in each edition that conformity/compliance with the new regs was only 'required' for work which was 'planned' after the new regs came into force, I am far from convinced that I have seen any corresponding 'dispensation' in relation to requirements for notification (when that requirement was first introduced).
Well, I'm sure there is scope for debate about "why" Part P was introduced but, yes, as you know as well as I do, there was no explicit specific regulation of electrical work before the advent of Part P. However, as I said, we both know that - sop what was your point?
I would actually say that it was the notification which implicitly came with Part P that was more important than Part P itself - since, as for "Part P", I imagine that, even without it, we already had adequate legislation to deal with people whose electrical work resulted in injuries or fires.
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OK tongue in cheek, I am sure even if I have detailed plans for work designed before Part P came in, that work should if notifiable be notified before starting the work. However it would be for the courts to decide, and unless some one is injured due to the work, it is unlikely the courts are interested in it.
However as to age, yes colour change was around same time as Part P came in, I got that wrong, and to be frank the old European Brown, Black, Black was a pain to work with replacing the second black with grey was a good step forward, of course we had red to red, yellow to yellow and blue to bits, to adopt blue as neutral was silly, should have been an unused to date colour.
Things have improved, don't know when open knife switches went out, couldn't give a dam about Part P, but I am all for safety. And in 2004 the kitchen fitter was going daft, the Near enough kitchen fitters dot com was getting daft, some thing was required. Alarms, kitchens, central heating all were doing what they wanted with no control.
At the same time water and gas supplies were moving to plastic, with many homes being left without any earth. Having worked abroad I returned to UK to here electricians quoting the 16th Edition as it was then, where in 1980 when I left UK no one seemed to worry about regulations. And we started to see meters being used daily, one started to wonder if there would be a British standard for going to the loo?
However it is the RCD which caused all the problems, the idea of ali-tube never seemed to catch on, but the home owner is left with the situation if no RCD every job becomes so much harder and expensive. Started in the garden then slowly came to include every wire after the consumer unit. I think their great, however if not fitted then the smallest job becomes a problem. And the attitude of the courts, one reads the court cases I think there by grace of good goes I, so one has learnt how to such through ones teeth and come out with standard phrase. "Jobs Worth" can't blame workers, it is the courts who pushed it. However a simple job of fitting a new socket has gone from an hours work if that, to whole day as CU is changed before one can start on socket.
However as to age, yes colour change was around same time as Part P came in, I got that wrong, and to be frank the old European Brown, Black, Black was a pain to work with replacing the second black with grey was a good step forward, of course we had red to red, yellow to yellow and blue to bits, to adopt blue as neutral was silly, should have been an unused to date colour.
Things have improved, don't know when open knife switches went out, couldn't give a dam about Part P, but I am all for safety. And in 2004 the kitchen fitter was going daft, the Near enough kitchen fitters dot com was getting daft, some thing was required. Alarms, kitchens, central heating all were doing what they wanted with no control.
At the same time water and gas supplies were moving to plastic, with many homes being left without any earth. Having worked abroad I returned to UK to here electricians quoting the 16th Edition as it was then, where in 1980 when I left UK no one seemed to worry about regulations. And we started to see meters being used daily, one started to wonder if there would be a British standard for going to the loo?
However it is the RCD which caused all the problems, the idea of ali-tube never seemed to catch on, but the home owner is left with the situation if no RCD every job becomes so much harder and expensive. Started in the garden then slowly came to include every wire after the consumer unit. I think their great, however if not fitted then the smallest job becomes a problem. And the attitude of the courts, one reads the court cases I think there by grace of good goes I, so one has learnt how to such through ones teeth and come out with standard phrase. "Jobs Worth" can't blame workers, it is the courts who pushed it. However a simple job of fitting a new socket has gone from an hours work if that, to whole day as CU is changed before one can start on socket.
How imaginative, what a marvelous way to build a trusting relationship.
As I said, I am far from convinced that (unlike BS7671) the Building Regs ever said anything about work which had been 'planned' before 1st Jan 2005, so it's very likley that the courts would have nothing to 'decide' - if I'm right in my suspicions, anyone who started work on a notifiable electric job after 1.1.2005 would, without any room for debate/discussion/decision, have broken the law.
I may be wrong, but I'm not at all sure that, even when someone has been injured or killed, and the Courts have become involvedas a consequence, that they have even bothered to prosecute people for failure to notify electrical work - long before we had even dreamed of Part P, there were plenty of laws one could use to prosecute people whose work/actions had resulted in injury or death to others. There are at least couple of cases you are always mentioning - do you know exactly what crimes people were prosecuted for in either/any case?
Kind Regards, John
I'm afraid we live in an imperfect world. If one already has good reason to trust a particular electrician (or 'electrician') to undertake a totally objective EICR then, fair enough, but if one has to go to a relative stranger for an EICR, then the only sensible course is (in my opinion) to 'assume the worst' - and adopt whatever approach one feels would be appropriate in the event that one was 'unlucky'.
If you don't believe that there is a potential problem, you need only to look into the archives of this forum to see countless examples of electricians (or 'electricians') telling people that they needed a re-wire, a new CU or whatever when the truth was that a much simpler and cheaper course would be quite adequate (and, in some cases, even that no work was really needed at all!).
If you were considering buying a house off someone who happened to be a surveyor, would you be happy to make a decision as to whether or not to buy (and how much to pay) on the basis of a structural survey undertaken by the seller? More generally, would you be happy to sell something to someone (whom you didn't know, well or at all) who had just valued it for you?
Kind Regards, John
John ward will be proud of that. One socket circuit for the whole house.
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