Fuse board / consumer unit change - EIC / EICR required?

[ericmark]

All work which needs registering will need a completion or compliance certificate, the latter can only be issued by a scheme member so what they pay for membership has nothing to do with the issue, if they display a scheme name or logo on any sign writing, web site, or paperwork, then they must supply a compliance certificate, they do not have the option of not supplying it, if they are not a scheme member, they can't supply a compliance certificate. So would need in England to use a third party inspector or the LABC in Wales only the LABC so in Wales non scheme members supply a completion certificate, or rather the LABC supply it, and in both cases in England they need to apply or more to point you need to apply before the work is started for a completion certificate or compliance certificate if a third party inspector.

In real terms the third part inspector is used within firms so plumbers can do some electrical work, it is rare to find one who will inspect for an installer they don't know.

And yes if you have an EIC you don't NEED an EICR as well.

 

[ebee]

Eric, if you for example fill in the details of a CU change then all those details of the EIC only apertain to the work done and the connections to it, Ze being one but what about R2 and Zs and insultion resistance for example ? They could only beforthe CU itself and not for the circuits connected to them because the circuits themselves are not actually part of the work being done, only the addition of the CU is.

You could alter/make a note on the EIC for the CU to that effect in order to make it crystal clear exactly what has been done and what has not and (Personally) I would consider that to be appropriate if it is crystal clear but i have net some pedants who claim you must not do that because it needs an EIC for the CU change and an EICR for the existing circuits.

Can I Ask any of the tradesmen on the forum if they have been told that this is the case?

 

[Murdochcat]

OK update here, FB change over the weekend, looks good.

Discussed EIC and compliance cert, suggested waiting for the EICR but suggested that all was required was the EIC, still pushed for EICR checks then issue cert.

Suggested that local building control will be coming this week to check other work alongside this, which they are, and they will ask for EIC and compliance cert and then suggested EIC cert there are costs involved, although this is a free document completed in 5 minutes.

I will ask again for the completed EIC along with compliance cert although the compliance cert will cost him around £60 due to being a member of a registered board costing circa £1000 per year.

This is a private job he completed for me not through his firm, if this makes a difference.

Membership of a CPS does not cost £1000 per year

Notifying a job is less than £5.00

So as a private job can he actually notify this work ?

Say no to the EICR and request by writing the EIC and notification

 

[flameport]

Membership of a CPS does not cost £1000 per year

Annual fee £600 or so, plus at least half a day for the annual assessment, and even with 20 notifiable works per year that's another 100 so £1k per year is entirely possible.
Those 20 notifiable works would cost around £50 each, so charging £60 for them isn't far off either.

 

[ebee]

Yep. I had the same dilemma. How much was being a competent person costing me and how do I pass on that cost. I decided upon a mixture of putting a small amount on my hourly rate then putting a fee. On notifications. I did not show this on invoices because I just totted up the totals when making estimates and invoices, every year I worked out how the extra I charged in total covered my costs . No it did not, it fell quite short so I put it up up each year and eventually it drew level, a couple of years I actually made a gain. When I worked out what part p was costing me I was careful not to include any cost that I decided any decent electrician should already have in place anyway. For instance insurance and completing certificates. I know some added the whole lot on but I considered that unfair and unreasonable

 

[Murdochcat]

I show a cost on my estimates for a nominal £10 to confirm test, certification and Part P. More so to confirm that they will get them as part of the agreement. As I've only done about 12 notifiable jobs in the last year its obviously costing more!

Just highlights to customers that they will get them

 

[baker332]

Membership of a CPS does not cost £1000 per year

Notifying a job is less than £5.00

So as a private job can he actually notify this work ?

Say no to the EICR and request by writing the EIC and notification

Well membership that his firm is paying is my assumption, thanks for the insight here.

 

[JohnW2]

Annual fee £600 or so, plus at least half a day for the annual assessment, and even with 20 notifiable works per year that's another 100 so £1k per year is entirely possible. Those 20 notifiable works would cost around £50 each, so charging £60 for them isn't far off either.

I don't think the arithmetic is quite as simple as you imply.

The ability to 'self-notify' is by no means the only reason why people join a CPS. Very commonly, it is used as a 'selling point' to attract customers (who, rightly or wrongly, regard CPS membership as an indicator of competence and reliability).

A proper calculation would therefore probably offset the £600+ (or whatever) with the income/.profit resulting from additional work which was 'attracted' by being able to boast about CPS membership - and it would take little such 'attracted extra work' to more than cancel the cost of CPS membership!

 

[flameport]

Notifiable electrical work and Part P has been a thing for the best part of 20 years now, and most domestic customers still have no idea that it's even a thing, and those that do just believe they need some kind of certificate in the event they sell the house. They don't know what certificate it is, what it covers or where it comes from.

It's still a rarity to find that any kind of certificate has been issued for previous work, and even less likely that it was actually kept by the property owner.

Notifiable work is 100% a money making effort for the various scheme operators, paid for by those who want to comply with what's required.
Dodgy builder types and the rest slinging in consumer units and other notifiable work do not care in the slightest, and they know that the chance of anyone actually doing anything about it is zero.

 

[JohnW2]

Notifiable electrical work and Part P has been a thing for the best part of 20 years now, and most domestic customers still have no idea that it's even a thing, and those that do just believe they need some kind of certificate in the event they sell the house. They don't know what certificate it is, what it covers or where it comes from.

Quite so - and, as I wrote, all they think CPS membership means is (rightly or wrongly) an indication of competence and reliability, hence it effectively becomes a 'marketing tool' for electricians (and is 'boasted about' by a good few of them )..

Notifiable work is 100% a money making effort for the various scheme operators ...

That's about all it achieves, but it was not, of course, scheme operators who invented the need for notification...

 

[Murdochcat]

I thought Part P had more to do with taxes

 

[JohnW2]

I thought Part P had more to do with taxes

Which taxes would they be?

 

[ericmark]

It does seem to vary county council to county council, in Wales where I live the fee is £100 plus vat for first £2000 worth of work, but with Powis I can look up all work registered, so not registering work is easy to show, but Flintshire seems very poor with jobs I know were registered not showing up. I know it was registered as I did it.

It does not matter what route is taken, with Powis can all be looked up on the internet, be it completion or compliance certificate. With Flintshire when I asked for replacement documents they told me it would take 4 months and cost however long it took their workers to find them.

I believe there is a time limit, and they can only go so far back with certificates, but only started in 2004 so not so sure. It does seem if you can't find the documents one can take out insurance instead when selling a house. What seems rather odd EICR is not registered, and looking at the documents I have one can't really work out what covers what, as there were no links between the EIC and the completion certificate. And it seems with a compliance certificate the EIC is not sent to the LABC so it is rather vague reading the certificate as to what has been done and by whom. The ones I have the signature is some ones name typed into the document there is no real signature.

So mothers house there were three certificates, and nearly impossible to work out which ones covered what work, so @Murdochcat comments are not so far off, as the record is hardly worth keeping.

 

[ebee]

I think that the only good outcome from Part P was.
1/ More contractors got test gear (hopefully some of them actually use it and use it properly and understand it!)
Cost of that test equipment went down, so a win there.
2/ More folk went on courses (hopefully some of them actually learned something).
Prices of those courses went up and up, cash cow in some cases?

I remember a gas fitter (registered) said to me, he was talking about gas requirements but I think it applies to electrics too "The only person who is being policed is the bloke who is trying to do it right in the first place,!"
I think he might have been right on that one.

 

[Murdochcat]

Which taxes would they be?

Tax on income