No power in the shed - Would you do the electrical install yourself?

[madkayaker]

yes if you register with a "Competent persons scheme" or through the local council. If you have an NVQ and Technical certificate in electrical you would probably be able to get full scope.

 

[Wozzaaah]

Who knows where the legislation will strike next

We're already no longer allowed to fit our own replacement windows and doors without having them inspected and certified.

 

[madkayaker]

yup FENSA and now its no longer Corgi but run by Capita and look what they did for local councils!

 

[Paul.]

yes I'd forgotten that one "Fensa" Stuff em, if I want to fit a new door I will, and i'm about to actually,

 

[madkayaker]

and the whole time you have B&Q (others are available) selling anything to everybody with a useless panaflat that only tell you half of what you need to know anyway. But they are sometimes cheaper that the wholesalers and usually have occasional items like earth pits in.

 

[mileshc]

Locally it's £80 to building control for a window, about £130 for a bathroom or similar & £500ish for a loft conversion. The inspectors being human have subjective interpretations & judgements it would seem, as do the planning office personnel.

 

[ben8vgte]

We're already no longer allowed to fit our own replacement windows and doors without having them inspected and certified.

tell me about it if i fir windows for a company i work for no worrys, yet if i do a private job i can get a slap on the wrist. you can pay the council to have them tested and certified but it cost's £££.
But as for the electrical would do and have just go a bit over the top for the cable out there (80A i run)

 

[Wedg1e]

Thing is, all this CORGI, FENSA, Part P etc... there's a phrase 'competent person' that should be taken into account. As TIGPaul says, some of us can do stuff all day for work yet aren't allowed to do similar at home. In practice though, assuming we do the job properly we aren't likely to fall foul of anyine since it's unlikely the place will burn down due to anything we've done.

Personally I've always wanted to do away with the usual domestic distribution board and design something along industrial lines so you could have low-voltage control at light switches etc rather than 240 as it is now. Another benefit is that it's dead easy to add PC control so you can have lights, curtains etc. controlled by a program so you can simulate activity in the home when you're out, reduce electrical consumption etc etc. In industry it's all tied in to the HVAC and you have an 'Environmental Control' system. I know it CAN be done in houses but the existing format doesn't lend itself as easily.

Certainly there have been far too many monkeys doing far too many shoddy jobs (and the same goes for cars: my father used to get cars in from supposedly reputable local garages where the floors had been 'welded' with cardboard and underseal) but as it's almost impossible to buy the wrong materials you simply need to make sure of current ratings etc. and the rest will follow. Same goes to a certain extent for gas (got my combi from Wickes ) and as for windows, well I'm aghast that you can't do your own now, I didn't know that.

What a not-so-great place Great Britain is turning into. Imagine if it'd been like this in the Industrial Revolution, we'd be somewhere behind China by now.

Sorry for any muddled thinking, been on the Newcy Broon... :beersmilie:

 

[bill_gj]

It's a pity that those that are supposed to be Part P "qualified" aren't legally held to account in some way.
That would stop anyone from blackmailing the clueless into paying extortionate amounts of money for simple electrical system additions that the law says need to be checked and certified.

Sure - bad and irresponsible workmanship, carried out by the "that'll do" brigade nust be stamped out, but the law should not give to#sers the opportunity of ripping punters off.

 

[michael1703]

this looks a good thread to ask my leccy question in....


ive just built a garage and have set a bt duct in the slab to run cable through, i intend to run it alongside my path, then under the lawn, under a broken path (will concrete over afterwards, up the wall and into my house fusebox

the cable needs to be armoured and preferably 20 amp spec, is 4mm or 6mm better? which core?

how deep down do i have to lay it?

 

[madkayaker]

how long is the run. The cable should be 900mm down but if there is no risk of mechanical damage just under the grass is fine?

 

[snowcat]

It's a pity that those that are supposed to be Part P "qualified" aren't legally held to account in some way.
That would stop anyone from blackmailing the clueless into paying extortionate amounts of money for simple electrical system additions that the law says need to be checked and certified.

Sure - bad and irresponsible workmanship, carried out by the "that'll do" brigade nust be stamped out, but the law should not give to#sers the opportunity of ripping punters off.

ahh you said it bill, a couple of years ago I was absolutely fleeced, at the time I was on a schedule as we were living in one room, over wise the sparky in question would have been down the road, He did a very mediocre job, and hid behind the regs to his favour, put sockets and lights in places with no thought, didn't bother double switching things like hall lights landing lights etc, then tryed to charge list plus 50% on all of the parts, to boot when he left the fire alarms didn't work, and I only got him back because I held a snagging retainer, he was proper arsey about having to come back...I really do wish bankruptcy on the git in the resetion........It was all because I need to get the job signed off for building control.....

I know that theres no way all sparkeys are like this, but this fellow put me off ever employing another, I do think the bad ones that have been riding on the housing gravy train that are soon to be kicked to touch...

 

[madkayaker]

Hopefully with work slowing down a bit the cowboys above will disappear as demand slows up and people can be choosy about who does the work. There giving the whole industry a bad name

 

[Wozzaaah]

how long is the run. The cable should be 900mm down but if there is no risk of mechanical damage just under the grass is fine?

900mm?
When did that change MK? It was 400 last time I checked, that means I've got to do even more digging .

 

[Woody.v8]

maybe a different area to yours but a good guide

 

[bill_gj]

Snow - yep, yep and yep.

When I had my kitchen 'done' the 'fitter' was banking on making a good few bob on the electrical work, which I did myself before he turned up and got, as you say, quite arsey about it.

My work - channeled walls, conduit, double pole isolation for appliances, ring main extended (not just a bunch of spurs) and all plastered up to finish.

His work (under-cupbord lights) - shabbily done, no conduit, wires plastered directly in above worktop without conduit and left hanging where he though tI couldn't see them elsewhere.

Git. Needless to say, when anyone asks about recommendations, neither he, not the kitch co he worked for get a mention.

 

[madkayaker]

that the figure for farms and i just use that to save remembering loads of number and as the only time i dig it is with a JCB it doesn't bother me.

 

[Wozzaaah]

Ah, I thought they'd moved the goalposts when the 17th edition came into force....phew!
Just under the grass, I like the sound of that .

 

[madkayaker]

Nope they have left it alone you can use 600mm on farms if in mechanical protection but as i have all ready said i do not do digging

 

[MrFluffy]

Personally I've always wanted to do away with the usual domestic distribution board and design something along industrial lines so you could have low-voltage control at light switches etc rather than 240 as it is now. Another benefit is that it's dead easy to add PC control so you can have lights, curtains etc. controlled by a program so you can simulate activity in the home when you're out, reduce electrical consumption etc etc. In industry it's all tied in to the HVAC and you have an 'Environmental Control' system. I know it CAN be done in houses but the existing format doesn't lend itself as easily.

Google IDRATeK, its a lv hvac for houses system, although you do have to run the control networks in at first fix stage for it to be truly neat. Im hoping it will knock the abortion that is X10 powerline hvac into oblivion so I never have to work on another single badly designed underspec'd piece of rubish made by X10.inc again. We had a whole house x10 install in the last place,a nd Im running idratek in this one.

For the thread, conduit isnt there just to stop the spade going through the cable and you should take care it cant be pulled and work the wires out. We had a small fire here the other week, when a lot (60+kg lumps of stone) of masonry from ongoing works fell on the 4 wire 16mm 3 phase feed for the "consumer" unit outside from a height, it dragged the neutral out the mains side of the feed, after tearing it off a wall and snapping all the supporting saddles, and breaking the cable clamps on the box itself, a further intermittent connection on one of the wires caused arcing which went on to destroy everything with a switch mode psu. Most of the devices died quietly after throwing the elcb's or mcb's in their zone, though I did have to carry outside the digital microwave still on fire and drop it in the water filled bucket of the jcb
Could have been a lot worse, but it was all done to code etc, more a matter that there are some situations you cannot foresee or plan for.