Health & Safety become usually become involved with anything which is not owner occupier. Socket positioning usually for convenince and baby safety.
There's never any slack - Leccys don't think that way.
Junctions must be accessible for inspection
Yep, also put in a modern split CU which has RCD protection
Lighting must have earth wiring, old conduit (trunking) wiring usually relies on the conduit itself to provide the earth and it's often done very badly.
The 16th edition wiring regulations for starters.
Could I respectfully suggest you get a qualified sparky in to take care of this job? Reason being that as the house is being leased out you will want/need the comfort of certificates confirming that the installation meets the 16th edition regs - the insurers may insist upon that anyway.
Now you could do the work yourself and then call in a sparky to do the certification, but I'm perhaps slightly concerned that if you aren't familiar with the regs then this might not be a good option.
Nothing wrong with inviting a qualified sparky round for a quote anyway.
Andrew
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Assuming you have metal back boxes and large holes in the skirting board, I wouldn't expect to be able to reuse the boxes, and you will also want new skirting board. Making a route for the cable with the old skirting in place might be time consuming.
BS7671:2001 Requirements for Electrical Installations (IEE Wiring Regulations Sixteenth Edition).
Height of sockets AND switches governed by Building Regulations part M - to be installed between 450mm and 1200mm above floor level, though there are excemptions for rooms such as kitchens where sockets are installed above worksurfaces. Part M concerns itself with "access", e.g. for disabled persons, and also insists on things like "level" access to the main entrance, and a wheelchair-accessible downstairs loo in newly-built or renovated houses.
If you have no experience of electrical work, and *especially* if you are planning on letting out the house you *must* get advice (and preferably help) from a competent person.
Possibly, but bad practice and much easier to install new circuits from scratch:
Absolutely. Install a new CU as well.
If the earth is provided through the trunking then the chances are that over the years it has become non-continuous, especially if d-i-y work has been done. Modern lighting circuits must have an earth. Oh yes, and all your switches must be no more than 1200mm above the floor (see above).
If the intallation is relatively old (as you suggest) you *might* find that you also need to;
Install RCD protection of some or all circuits (depends on your earthing arrangements - take advice).
Install mains powered, linked smoke alarms. Possibly even a fire alarm if this is to be a commercial venture (ask the housing association).
Upgrade the earthing and bonding of the premises - electrically connecting metal items in kitchens and bathrooms and gas and water services.
Install ventillation equipment (extractor fans) in kitchen, bathroom and downstairs loo.
Get the entire installation tested, checked and certified by a competent person using the appropriate test methods and equipment.
And probably a lot of stuff I haven't thought of.
Overall, the best thing to do would probably be to get the whole place rewired. You may wish to give this job in its entirety to an electrical contractor, but you may wish to d-i-y some of it. If the latter is the case then see if you can find a small local contractor who is willing to do the design and the "important" stuff but leave the pulling of cables and lifting of floorboards to you.
But speak first to the housing association to find out what their minimum standards would be.
HTH
Hwyl!
M.
This applies to new buildings only. You can place the sockets at any height you wish when doing a rewire as long as they can be used safely (i.e. not usually on skirting as it causes the cable from the plug to be under stress).
Adam
Realised it didn't apply to simple rewires, but I thought it did apply to renovations. Mind you I've only just downloaded part M (12 meg!) and haven't read it yet.
Is it possible that the housing association have in mind the possibility of putting tenants in the house who need some of these adaptations? It was just that apparently *they* mentioned it so I thought it might be relevant. If you're going to rewire and as part of that move sockets, why not make sure all the switches are also within the band?
Hwyl!
Martin.
Building Regulations, approved document M, 1999. I haven't read it yet, so I know no more. It is available to download from
What it says in the On Site Guide (to the 16th Edition Wiring regulations) is:
"The Building Regulations require switches and socket-outlets in dwellings to be installed so that all persons including those whose reach is limited can easily use them. A way of satisfying the requirement is to install switches and socket-outlets in habitable rooms at a height of between 450mm and 1200mm from the finished floor level... Unless the dwelling is for persons whose reach is limited the requirements would not apply to kitchens and garages but specifically only to rooms that visitors would normally use."
This probably lets you off the hook unless you or another family member who is likely to use the study/office has "limited reach", or visitors make use of the study.
More than that I cannot say, though if switching access (for emergency use or otherwise) is a problem to you, have you considered wiring the office with remote switching of the sockets somewhere more accessible? You could use the switchbanks such as are commonly used for built-in kitchen appliances, using the outputs of the switches to feed sockets. Shouldn't be vastly more expensive. It doesn't solve the problem of access should you wish to unplug something though.
Having said that, if the desk is to go against a wall, a: aren't you running the risk of kicking a socket placed at skirting board height and b: why not simply remove the modesty panel?
Hwyl!
M.
The sockets you want are above the skirting, I see no problem. When sockets are mounted on the skirting they are usually so low down (they had some great ideas in the 60's) that there is no way to insert a normal plug without stress on the flex connected to the plug. The M (disabled) regs came into use in 2001 I think. Adam
"Martin Angove" wrote | Building Regulations, approved document M, 1999. I haven't read it yet, | so I know no more. It is available to download from |
They should supply you with a text or otherwise accessible format pretty quickly if you point out to their webmaster the Disability Discrimination Act.
Owain
Ah, a loophole :-) Nope, no-one here with "limited reach" and the door will bear a sign, "Off-limits to the female of the spieces", so that just leaves me.
I've got size 11 feet so the modesty panel should protect the sockets from them.
As for removing the panels, all the desks (it will be a corner desk) I've (dis)assemled use them to brace the legs; remove them and the desk will sway, plus the fact I intend to put a shelf on the inside of one for the computer and clip all the cables (anyone remember the good old days when PCs had only 3 cables?) to the face of the panels to route them neatly.
Well you can of course obtain copies of the approved documents in paper form from HMSO, but the thing is that they cost loads of money. If I dial in after 6, even 12M is effectively "free" unless I choose to print it out :-)
It just means no-one can ring in for the 30 minutes (or so) it takes to download at 33k6.
Hwyl!
M.
Thanks for the link.
I just grabbed a copy (fortunately I've got ADSL so it only took ~3 mins), and it appears that I won't have any problems as section 0.3 states:
"0.3 If an existing building, other than a dwelling (note extensios to dwellings are excluded from Part M), is extended....."
So none of it applies in my case :-)
Funnily enough we've just had an electrical test done on a house we're going to let and this was marked, however the people doing the test said they don't consider it a problem per se since it depends on the age of the house in question and the size of the skirting. The reason they gave was modern electricals tend to have moulded plugs (or 'wall wart' style transformers), and if the socket is too close to the floor whoever is in the house may try to force a moulded plug into the socket resulting in possible damage to the plug and/or fitting.
In our case we were deemed OK because the distance from socket to floor wasn't too small, but I can see the problem in houses with modern skirting.
cheers
witchy/binarydinosaurs
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