double glazin electical certs

[jane]

I had double glazing installed in my house 7 months ago. When the double glazing was installed I was told by the installation company that the certificates would arrive within 8 weeks. However, all I have to date is a note posted to me by "FENSA", on which it refers to an installation date of

3 months ago and stating that certificates are due to be sent to me in the near future. I get the feeling that the installers did not bother to fill in the required paper work until I threatened them with Trading Standards, at which moment they quickly notified FENSA about the windows (whilst claiming that they had been recently fitted!). Just how long do these certificates take to be issued?!

On a related topic of certificates and regulations I'd like to mention my dealings with electricians. Recently I had an electrician come to my house to carry out an inspection for purposes of issuing an electrical certificate. He carried out the inspection, gave me a report detailing the reasons why it had failed to comply with various regulations and charged me £72. The work that he reckoned needed to be done would cost £845. I looked at the web site of NICEIC, and they recommend getting a second quote on the cost of any work needed to be done prior to issuing a certificate. NICEIC provide a list of qualified electricians that will carry out certificate work. I called 5 of them, each one said that they could not carry out the work (as described on the first electricians report) without first carrying out an inspection and charging me in excess of £60. In all their opinions, the interpretation of the regulations would differ according to which electrician had carred out the inspection. Weird. I thought it was all about setting standards.

We are hoping to sell our house next year, but we are apprehensive about the new requirements for sellers to have all sorts of documentation that has to be provided to potential buyers.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Hum, I wonder if they were not actually FENSA when they did the installation?

For what reason?

What did he say needed fixing?

[jane]

Yes, maybe they were not FENSA at the time when they carried out the installation of the windows, but I was under the impression that it was a legal requirement that certificates of some kind had to be issued with all double glazing. Still, it seems that I will get them in the end. However, the company that fitted them appears to have told FENSA that they were fitted in October whereas they had been fitted 4 months previously.

As for the electrical work, I was considering letting my house out and wanted to make sure it was compliant with all rules, regulations or recommendations that might have been applicable. The £72 was for carrying out the initial inspection. The details of the work that I was told to carry out was not really relevent to the story as the other NICEI electricians were not interested in what the first electrician had said. They simply said that they would have to make up their own minds what needed to be done and were not prepared to trust the other electricians recomendations. As a non technically minded member of the public it annoyed me that regulations did not seem to be regulations as their interpretation appeared to depend on the individual electrician. However, I guess its better than no regulations....

[Malcolm Stewart]

I'm sure you wrote your last sentence above with tongue in cheek!

Call me a cynic if you like, but I reckon it's all about the NICEIC seeing what CORGI did for the plumbing trades, and wanting some of the action and easy money. Many of us in the IEE are simply disgusted at the way the IEE Wiring Regulations have been hijacked by others for their own ends. The real test will be in the future, and whether, proportionally, more or less people die and properties burn down, as a result of electrical faults than before these changes took place.

Good luck.

[Palindr☻me]

Call me a bigger cynic - but my view was that it was HM Treasury inspired. Under the guise of H&S (which no one can argue with) they closed off a lot of opportunities for cash in hand work on domestic systems.

Often the poeple doing these jobs, for family or friends or as additional income, were commercial and industrial fully qualified and experienced electricians. Now, even the guys that wrote the IEE regs can't do such work unless they are employed by a company that has Part P. "Merely" being a member, or a fellow, of the IEE, a Chartered Engineer,etc isn't enough...

So, now householders will have the choice of DIY or NICEIC. Whilst the latter is going to be the best, the only safe, answer for most - I can see many DIY'ers attempting jobs that otherwise they would get someone in to do.. The result could easily be more disasters, rather than the very few that have happened.

As I started off by saying, tax revenue protection under the guide of H&S..not a lot to do with safety.

[ARWadsworth]

"Malcolm Stewart" wrote in message news:dp5h5j$dc3$ [e-mail]...

The difference is CORGI is a closed shop. There are other optons to the NICEIC.

Adam

[reddisparks]

unfortunately you could / should not expect a second electrician to certify the installation without carrying out his own inspection and test. it would be a mistake for him to copy the original report verbatim and then sign to say the installation was safe therefore accepting responsibility for the installation. He could as I would do, carryout the rectification works and then issue a certificate for that work which you could append to your failure report which would indicate that the comments on the first report had been rectified.

Larry