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[aaronjb]

I forgot to add - in my case I was lucky that the third electrician I found was happy to work 'with' me on stuff, initially the idea was he'd supervise as I worked .. though the way it ended up - I pulled the boards off the walls in the garage one night, he ran all the wiring while I was at work, I put the boards back up and drilled holes for the cable exits the next night, and then he attached all the sockets, CU etc while I was at work again..

I thought it would have taken longer, but apparently either I work slowly or he works very quickly :lol:

[tigers_gonads]

Another closed shop that stops competent people from doing their own electrical work. After completing an electronics apprenticeship which included doing wiring for aircraft, which had to passed by inspection, so you made sure you got it right and also having an HNC in Electrical and Electronic engineering, I'm not allowed to work on my own electrics.

I looked into getting a part P certificate, but it has been designed to make it not practical to obtain unless you are working as an electrician as you have to be doing work regularly and have annual competency checks at your expense of course. Fortunately all the changes I made to my house were done in the 1990's and I don't need to do anything further.

At the time the regulations were brought in somebody did a law on unintended consequences and worked out due to the extra mileage that electricians would be doing, more of them would be killed in accidents on the UK's roads than lives would be saved from electrocution and fires through faulty electrical wiring. 

Your in a similar position to me Rod 

I left school at 16 and did a 12 month YTS scheme ( electronics / welding / machine work ) and walked out with a city in guilds part 1 in all of them.
Joined the RAF as a lecky mechanic at 17.
Went back to RAF college to do me tech course.
Left after 6 1/2 years and did my 15th edition and set up in business.
The 1st 14 years doing domestic electrics / alarm systems / cctv.
2004 I put most of the electrics on the back burner and throwed myself into the alarms / cctv.
Never bothered doing the 16th edition or part rather P.  I just got the regs update book to see what has changed and applied it to any jobs I did

Lost the business ( officially  ) last May and currently running down 12 months of bankruptcy ( thats why im a stress head on here because its doing my head in  )
Hopefully back working for myself next May.

To round it off, i've been told that I now have to go and sit in a classroom with a bunch of kids and totally redo the lot including the new 17th edition 

[Marks DTM Calib]

I looked into getting a part P certificate, but it has been designed to make it not practical to obtain unless you are working as an electrician as you have to be doing work regularly and have annual competency checks at your expense of course.

Exactly. It's primarily another "jobs for the boys" protection scheme with safety a long way down the list of priorities. Just another LPGA/UKLPG, although with a few less cowboys, thankfully.

Sadly not and I would say potentialy more from some of the work I have seen!

None of the regs guarantee compitency as do none of the organisations that these contractors sign upto

Part P states: Reasonable provision shall be made in the design and installation of electrical installations in order to protect persons operating, maintaining or altering the installations from fire or injury

Work affected by Part P is subject to notification to, and inspection by, building control bodies. However, calling in a building control officer takes time and costs money. The solution to this problem is self-certification.

This is where the compitent persons scheme comes in and why electricians opt to join at cost one of the organisations which oversees it (as they could quite happily use the building control service at greater cost).

NONE of this gives any guarantee that the install is good and upto standard (any anybody who thinks it does is living in cloud cuckoo land).

However, the Part P regs are actauly pretty slack and many of them you can drive a bus through.

In summary, its as much use as Gas Safe.......and we ALL know how crap they are at meeting the regs!

[aaronjb]

To round it off, i've been told that I now have to go and sit in a classroom with a bunch of kids and totally redo the lot including the new 17th edition 

But if you didn't you might do something totally heinous like put your cable clips at the incorrect spacing...

[Marks DTM Calib]

Another closed shop that stops competent people from doing their own electrical work. After completing an electronics apprenticeship which included doing wiring for aircraft, which had to passed by inspection, so you made sure you got it right and also having an HNC in Electrical and Electronic engineering, I'm not allowed to work on my own electrics.

I looked into getting a part P certificate, but it has been designed to make it not practical to obtain unless you are working as an electrician as you have to be doing work regularly and have annual competency checks at your expense of course. Fortunately all the changes I made to my house were done in the 1990's and I don't need to do anything further.

At the time the regulations were brought in somebody did a law on unintended consequences and worked out due to the extra mileage that electricians would be doing, more of them would be killed in accidents on the UK's roads than lives would be saved from electrocution and fires through faulty electrical wiring. 

Your in a similar position to me Rod 

I left school at 16 and did a 12 month YTS scheme ( electronics / welding / machine work ) and walked out with a city in guilds part 1 in all of them.
Joined the RAF as a lecky mechanic at 17.
Went back to RAF college to do me tech course.
Left after 6 1/2 years and did my 15th edition and set up in business.
The 1st 14 years doing domestic electrics / alarm systems / cctv.
2004 I put most of the electrics on the back burner and throwed myself into the alarms / cctv.
Never bothered doing the 16th edition or part rather P.  I just got the regs update book to see what has changed and applied it to any jobs I did

Lost the business ( officially  ) last May and currently running down 12 months of bankruptcy ( thats why im a stress head on here because its doing my head in  )
Hopefully back working for myself next May.

To round it off, i've been told that I now have to go and sit in a classroom with a bunch of kids and totally redo the lot including the new 17th edition 

Would have thought you could just do the conversion course plus the electrical test one

[tigers_gonads]

To round it off, i've been told that I now have to go and sit in a classroom with a bunch of kids and totally redo the lot including the new 17th edition 

But if you didn't you might do something totally heinous like put your cable clips at the incorrect spacing...

 

Its funny, swmbo always said I could never estimate lengh   

To be honest, If someone offered me a job for 300 quid a week doing anything, i'd snap there hand off.

Trouble is, i'm rather 46 in January and the chances of me getting employment when there are 1000's of unemployed 18 - 30 year old out there is slim on a good day 

Anyway, i'm a right stubbon tinker and hate looseing so its back to working for myself next May 
The thing is, I just know if I will have a business to go back too 

Can but try 

[tigers_gonads]

Another closed shop that stops competent people from doing their own electrical work. After completing an electronics apprenticeship which included doing wiring for aircraft, which had to passed by inspection, so you made sure you got it right and also having an HNC in Electrical and Electronic engineering, I'm not allowed to work on my own electrics.

I looked into getting a part P certificate, but it has been designed to make it not practical to obtain unless you are working as an electrician as you have to be doing work regularly and have annual competency checks at your expense of course. Fortunately all the changes I made to my house were done in the 1990's and I don't need to do anything further.

At the time the regulations were brought in somebody did a law on unintended consequences and worked out due to the extra mileage that electricians would be doing, more of them would be killed in accidents on the UK's roads than lives would be saved from electrocution and fires through faulty electrical wiring. 

Your in a similar position to me Rod 

I left school at 16 and did a 12 month YTS scheme ( electronics / welding / machine work ) and walked out with a city in guilds part 1 in all of them.
Joined the RAF as a lecky mechanic at 17.
Went back to RAF college to do me tech course.
Left after 6 1/2 years and did my 15th edition and set up in business.
The 1st 14 years doing domestic electrics / alarm systems / cctv.
2004 I put most of the electrics on the back burner and throwed myself into the alarms / cctv.
Never bothered doing the 16th edition or part rather P.  I just got the regs update book to see what has changed and applied it to any jobs I did

Lost the business ( officially  ) last May and currently running down 12 months of bankruptcy ( thats why im a stress head on here because its doing my head in  )
Hopefully back working for myself next May.

To round it off, i've been told that I now have to go and sit in a classroom with a bunch of kids and totally redo the lot including the new 17th edition 

Would have thought you could just do the conversion course plus the electrical test one

To be honest Mark, every person I ask gives me a different answer 

In a way, i'm lucky because I'm ex Raf, the Royal British Legion have said they will fund it for me if i'm on job seakers allowance so I have to go through all that cr*p every 2 weeks to qualify even though I don't get a penny out of them because swmbo works 30 hours in a supermarket.

It would be great to get a streight answer of somebody someday 

[aaronjb]

Its funny, swmbo always said I could never estimate lengh   

Ah the old "that's six inches, trust me dear!"

Anyway, i'm a right stubbon tinker and hate looseing so its back to working for myself next May 
The thing is, I just know if I will have a business to go back too 

I'm pretty sure there's always work for good tradespeople The only trouble is how long it might take to get a steady income stream built up..

The builder next door & decorator the other side of me don't seem short of work, though, that's for sure!

[tigers_gonads]

Its funny, swmbo always said I could never estimate lengh   

Ah the old "that's six inches, trust me dear!"

Anyway, i'm a right stubbon tinker and hate looseing so its back to working for myself next May 
The thing is, I just know if I will have a business to go back too 

I'm pretty sure there's always work for good tradespeople The only trouble is how long it might take to get a steady income stream built up..

The builder next door & decorator the other side of me don't seem short of work, though, that's for sure!

Back in 2006/7, we had some foods and alot of property was damaged round here 
Everybody who could lay a brick or wire a plug left there nice secure jobs and setup on there own and started to rake in the money off the insurance companys.
As the work dryed up and these people found themselfs with little too do, most of them went back to there old bosses and tried to get there old jobs back, only to be told to break off because it came at the time of the banking crisis and most firms was sh*tting themselfs over it 

Bottom line is that we are tottally over stocked with sparkys, builders and plumbers round here 
I only know of 2 people who managed too get back on somebodys books 

They was offered minimum wage plus 1 pound    Take it or leave it 
These lads had no choice but to take the job because they had morgages and familys to support 

Once one firm did it then nearly all firms did the same.
I even know of 2 firms that laid off all the lads only the ring them up a month later to offer them there old jobs back at minimum wage plus 1 pound 

[Kevin Wood]

I looked into getting a part P certificate, but it has been designed to make it not practical to obtain unless you are working as an electrician as you have to be doing work regularly and have annual competency checks at your expense of course.

Exactly. It's primarily another "jobs for the boys" protection scheme with safety a long way down the list of priorities. Just another LPGA/UKLPG, although with a few less cowboys, thankfully.

Sadly not and I would say potentialy more from some of the work I have seen!

Maybe, maybe not. The reason I said that is that practically every "professional" LPG conversion I've ever seen has been a mess, with some potentially dangerous issues. I can't say the same about (recent) electrical installations. Most I've seen might have not been done how I would do it, occasionally I find something I'd consider unsafe, but on the whole I'd say there's a reasonable level of competence.

None of the regs guarantee compitency as do none of the organisations that these contractors sign upto

This is true, of course. If you find competence it's been through luck, because the guy was diligent on the day. Tomorrow he might have a bad day. The organisations concerned are far too busy collecting money from their members, and thinking up new barriers to protect their trade, to police the quality of work that's carried out.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Thats the capitalist world.

Its was obvious some 5-10 years ago when every man and his dog was rushing to train as a plumber/ sparky/gas fitter that there would come a point when supply outstripped the demand and the result is ALWAYS going to be wage drops and hourly rate reductions as the competition increases.

[aaronjb]

Most I've seen might have not been done how I would do it, occasionally I find something I'd consider unsafe, but on the whole I'd say there's a reasonable level of competence.

The highlighted part covers something I found while the work on the garage was being done.

After the electrician ran the socket circuit around the room I found he'd drilled through about 4 of the upright steel beams and had the cable going diagonally down the wall to the last socket.. I have no idea why - he wasn't short of wire - but in his mind that was perfectly acceptable.

In my mind it was an "oops I drilled through a cable" waiting to happen.. so I moved the cable to run horizontally across the top of the wall space (as all the other cables he'd run were) and vertically down the stud to the socket position.

That's why, when I finally have the cash to rewire the house top to bottom, I'll be the one chasing all the walls out - so I know where the cable runs are (obeying the rules of the 17th Ed as they stand at the time - or later if it's been superseded of course), and I'll know they're all done right, to the right depth with no short-cuts taken.

[fiend61]

had the cable going diagonally down the wall to the last socket

no no no no no no 

he'd drilled through about 4 of the upright steel beams

no no no no no no 

something that should never be done in any circumstances  no common sense and no pride in his job, be out on his ear if he worked for me 

[fiend61]

oh and figureman52 see what you started and you only wanted a cooker point 

[Figureman52]

Not wanting to stir things up again, but I have been given a quote of £150 + VAT over the phone today.

Is this reasonable for a "professional" electrician.

Job entails a cable run of about 20m around the outside of the kitchen extension to power a 5.6kW oven. No new consumer unit required.

Mother in law not keen for me to do the job as she likes everything all nice and "legal"