Why do you insinuate I am a cowboy when I pose a reasonable argument that regulations are not retrospective ? (and then go on argue the very same yourself??)
Did you not see the
?
But I did drop a clanger in not reading what you wrote properly, because I was distracted by your first sentence - I thought you were saying that you
could argue that the changes in the 17th meant that people would have to have work done to bring their installations up to the standards of the 17th. I didn't say that you were a cowboy, just that if you
did argue that as a way to get more money then that would be a cowboy-ish thing to do.
ban-all-sheds said:
I've never bought into the superstition that if you change a CU you somehow become "responsible" for the entire installation.
Then please explain to me how you complete an EIC on an installation that you have just changed the CU where there are areas that were unsatisfactory before your work, e.g. a ring final circuit without continuity of the CPC.
That's a special case, as that is explicitly catered for in 131.8
You can't complete an EIC with a fail on any item.[/quote]
Well - from a generic POV you can
if you include things on there that you didn't do.
Read the declaration carefully - I'll highlight a very important part of it:
I being the person responsible for the Design, Construction, Inspection & Testing of the electrical installation (as indicated by my signature below), particulars of which are described above, having exercised reasonable skill and care when carrying out the Design, Construction, Inspection & Testing, hereby CERTIFY that the work for which I have been responsible is to the best of my knowledge and belief in accordance with BS 7671.....
The work for which you have been responsible.
i.e. the installation of the CU. You were
not responsible for the existing parts of the installation which failed.
Whether as a conscientious professional you should leave the faults unattended to is a separate issue, but the fact is that the declaration on the EIC is clear - you are only certifying what
you did.
You may put "LIM" on an inspection such as routing of cables as you cant see them within the fabric of the building.
Interesting that you should mention testing, as this is another common misconception, that you can't sign the I&T part of a 3-part EIC if the installation is dodgy.
The declaration there reads (with one minor change to make it clearer):
I/We being the person(s) responsible for the inspection & testing of the electrical installation (as indicated by my/our signatures below), particulars of which are described above, having exercised reasonable skill and care when carrying out the inspection & testing hereby CERTIFY that the inspection & testing for which I/we have been responsible is to the best of my/our knowledge and belief in accordance with BS 7671...
So you aren't certifying that the installation complies with BS7671, you are certifying that the
inspection & testing you did complies with it.
The installation might be a pile of poo, and in that case, to paraphrase the declaration in combination with the schedule of results, what you are saying is "I have inspected and tested this installation in accordance with BS7671 and I find it to be a pile of poo".
In changing the CU you have modified every circuit, and possibly the supply and earthing and bonding.
As said, earthing and bonding are explicitly catered for.
But moving away from that, let's say you found that a circuit was too long, and would not meet disconnection times. The way to resolve that and ensure that your work, i.e. the installation of the CU, complies with BS7671 is to put a smaller breaker in, not to fix the actual problem of the circuit. Again, the question of what a conscientious professional would prefer to do is separate, and it may come down in some cases to refusing the job.
But that's a personal standards issue, not a British Standards one.
