Shower..again.

[amfisted]

I was hoping to add this to a previous thread, but its marked "no further replies", hence this.

I arranged to have my shower (the one I've been dithering about replacing for about 3 years)replaced by an electrician today. Sadly he's has taken ill over the weekend, so nothing doing. Which has got me thinking about other options in case (as I suspect) he's actually too busy to take on this job right now.

In the course of getting the place ready for the electrician's convenience, I moved stuff around in the loft and found that all the cables entering the roof space are laid on insulation in a gap at the edge of the loft boards, which in the case of the shower makes all the wiring easily accessible following the removal of just one loft board. The cables go underfloor from the CU, which is in the porch, and then travel up to the loft in a void behind the wall. So to replace the shower cable I would need to pull old cable out and feed the new cable down into the void from the loft (I'm assuming that feeding down with gravity would be better than feeding up against any potential obstructions).

I followed the existing shower cable in the loft and found that yes, its laid in 4mm from the isolator in the bathroom to the CU, but for some reason there's much heavier cable ( looks like 10mm plus) from the isolator to the shower, so the capacity of the circuit remains 4mm. If, as I suspect my electrician becomes hard to pin down for an alternative date, it seems feasible to me that I could lay new 10mm cable from a new isolator to the CU, then ask a spark to come in, install an uprated MCB, connect to the CU and test, a solution which would be cheaper than having the whole job done by a professional.

Hopefully the original electrician will be in touch with a new date for doing the entire circuit, but in the meantime I think its reasonable to explore other options because the time for twiddling thumbs is now over.

Any constructive comments/ observations welcome, cheers.

 

[ericmark]

In theory we sign to say we have designed, installed and inspect & test, there are forms which allow three different signatures, however don't think these are accepted by the scheme providers unless the spark is authorised to test other peoples work, so before doing any work yourself you need to select a spark and get him to authorise the work you are doing, clearly a spark can have an apprentice or electricians mate, so he can, if he is in control, select work for you to do, the active word is control, you would have to do what he says and no more, and not do anything on your own bat.

Remember your living in Wales, Part P in Wales is more restrictive to Part P in England, in real terms you could do it all yourself and know one would know anyway, the colours of cables changed just at the same time as Part P came in, so as long as it follows the electrical rules you can likely get away with it, but I found Flintshire were not very helpful when it came to registering work, although that was 10 years ago, they were to start with not going to allow me to DIY, my son would holds a C&G2391 and as it was then C&G2381 was going to do it, and they were insisting we got some one in, he said OK but the person you get in must be better qualified than us, and my dad has a degree in electrical engineering, at this the inspector relented, and allowed us to do the work. Last year we came to sell the house, and I could not find the paperwork, so applied to Flintshire for replacements, they said it would take 6 months and would cost at least £70 they would charge how long it took them to find them. So in other words if they can't provide replacements if you say yes it was all done but lost paperwork, they could not really prove your wrong.

To me since they never came at end of job to check, but simply sent the completion certificate in the post, Part P is nothing more than a tax, a way to make money, but if you want to sell the home, the solicitors will ask for the paperwork, but also it seems will accept it if you say it has been lost, at least our buyers did, however in the end it was found.

Flintshire is not in wilds of Wales, and I found an electrician in the Pinfold estate who was very flexible, and did allow me to do some work as DIY, however he did know I was a spark by trade.

 

[amfisted]

Thanks very much for the detailed and very interesting info, Ericmark.

I'm still hoping the spark will rearrange the work, but it sounds like his order book is full and he's travelling a fair distance to work on our shower, so I fear that I might struggle to get him to rearrange.

My short term plan, should he prove difficult to pin down, is the same as it was 2 and a half years ago: to fit the new shower I bought in June 2017 and which is still in the box, and to replace the shower pullcord switch (because the cord broke about 4 years ago and we're afraid to turn it off in case it breaks again).

I'll probably also renew the cable from the shower to the pullcord switch, because on closer inspection there's not much slack to play with, and the old shower appears to have the electrical connections at the top, whereas the new model has them either side at the bottom.

I don't think I need any particular permissions to do any of that, though I'm sure someone will tell me if that's wrong.

 

[ericmark]

Forget permission, what you want is safe, a shower can take between 32 and 45 amp depending on size, any poor connection will over heat, and since working with water, it clearly needs RCD protection as well. Be the bad connection due to faulty isolator or not tightened the terminals enough, over tightened and damaged result is the same.

I also found to get electricians quickly was a problem, wanted mothers house re-wired, and only one could do it fast while mother was in a care home. But Flintshire is not the same as Powys where I now live, there are loads of firms which can do the work within a month.

Maybe you can DIY, but I have not a clue as to your ability, I tend to take the view, if people need to ask advice on a forum, they are not use to doing the work involved. From what you have said it seems you have a routeing problem, if you think that is solved then great, but with a socket in the main it runs no where near max, so any faults are less likely to cause you problems, that is not the case with a shower.

 

[amfisted]

The electrician has been in touch and he's coming in a couple of weeks, so we are where we are before I posted the above. Nevertheless, many thanks for your valuable advice.

I think its often the case that having settled on a plan, DIYers come here hoping for validation of their existing thinking as well as because of good old fashioned cluelessness. Where electrics are concerned then clearly even a small deviation from safe practice can have very serious consequences, so I try to detail my intended approach as much as possible in order to expose it to maximum scrutiny and where necessary, correction.