Finally approaching the end of the rather extended rewiring of my house.
I'm confident in the work I've done (though the garage has never been properly rewired and one or two bits could be 'marginal' I guess) but an inspection of the installation seems prudent.
what sort of things would such a report/inspection entail
This is cheap and tells you all of the basics.
Probably a visual inspection involving looking at the main intake and assesing the supply type and rating of the main fuse. Then checking the consumers unit for correct ratings of MCBs and such like. Then the inspector will do some test on each circuit in turn with special instruments testing for coninuity of CPCs,continuity off ring main conductors,Insulation resistance,Polarity and Earth Loop Impedance and finally testing any RCDs in the circuit. If all the readings comply with BS7671 the 16th edition regs the inspector will issue an electricial installation cirtificate to you the client.
If you have a multimeter you can do basic electrical test such as continuity of CPCs and ring main conductors. Anouther investment would be a plug in socket tester to cheack for polarity at each socket outlet.
For some of the test the inspector will need to de-energize the circuits to be tested and also disconnect all appliances and remove any lamps electronic equiptment from the circuits.
Jon.
It's detailed ion the On site guide.
Basically checking the installation complies with the relevant regs. Then testing and logging the results. (RCD drop out times, loop impedances, insulation resistance, conductor conductance, ring continuity.).
So is this mostly about the various tests they do?
Is there much of a visual inspection of what has actually been done?
Usually 10% of wiring accessories opended up and the wiring inside them checked for things like too much exposed copper and sleeving on CPCs.
Jon.
unless theres a fault in the accessory inspected ,then it inspect every one wiring concealed in walls or concealed under floors wont be visually inspected
Hmmm, yes!
what do you mean by this ? the sample percentage is 10% so if there`s 10 or less lights you would only inspect 1 unless you found a fault in which case you would then inspect every fitting
As for the concealed wiring , on the periodic inspection report (which is the form being filled in as the test is not being carried out by the installer)the section marked "extent and limitation of the inspection " has a paragraph at the bottom stating that .The wiring has been carried out in accordance with BS7671 Cables concealed within trunking and conduits,or cables and conduits concealed under floors,in roof spaces and generally within the fabric of the building or underground have not been inspected so that basically means the test inspects the connected accessories and the electrical integraty of the wiring and not weather it`s been fitted correctly, having said that in checking the accessories you would probably see any anomalies ,also that still won`t stop you lifting the odd board or checking the roof space if you suspect something because when the test is complete the customer is going to get a report with the inspectors signiture on it hope this clears things up a bit phil n
The thing I find difficult about inspections is the client. Of course, that's obvious, but you have several issues here:
1: He's paying you to do the job, possibly by the hour. 2: What he really wants is an "ok".3: When he gets the report, the blasted section which lists items of concern is very confusing to the layman. I mean, "1 requires urgent attention" is obvious, but I have seen 2, 3, 4 used quite inconsistently, especially the one which says "needs further investigation". To a layman this means "it's ok at the moment, but you should take a look". To the inspector it probably means "I think there's something dodgy going on here but if I spend three hours tracing it out you're going to complain."
4: When you tick the "not satisfactory" box it is hard not to feel as though some clients think you are trying it on. I recently had an interesting discussion with one client about the necessity or otherwise of main and supplementary bonding (lack of which usually merits a "1" in the concerns box), and the wisdom of ditching the overall 30mA RCD in favour of the newly available PME. Crumbs, he even moaned when I spent an unscheduled half day rewiring a birds nest of a junction box which was the main downstairs lighting switching centre (all earths twisted together outside the box).I'm probably just being naive, but I usually try my best to explain the test certificate to the client, which explains why I charge an extra hour for paperwork :-)
Hwyl!
M.
Just out of interest, what do you charge for the test and certificate?
Rob
Replace 'spam' with 'org' to reply
By the hour. A normal-sized house without anything too complicated to trace should be about an hour for the inspection and an hour for the paperwork. Some installations which have been messed-about with may take longer due to the need to identify, as far as possible, which fuses/MCBs feed which circuits.
Was in a house the other day where as far as I could tell there were four radial circuits feeding sockets, all fed from the same 20A fuse. The report pulled up a few more issues which I suppose didn't please the householder very much as he'd gone to great lengths to make the installation look good on the surface with new lights, switches, sockets and so on.
Hwyl!
M.
Which is perfectly normal and correct if I understand you correctly. A 20 amp protected radial wired with 2.5sq mm supplying sockets can be branched as much as you want. The branches can be at the consumer unit as well as elsewhere in the circuit.
The main limiting factor on this type of circuit is that it should serve a maximum floor area of 50 square metres. Also, of course, it should be capable of supplying the devices connected to it (subject to diversity).
Um, that's just one radial circuit. Shouldn't be a problem unless the loading is silly, like if it's doing a large kitchen and utility room.
But since this is the normally thoroughly sensible Martin A speaking, he probably meant precisely that the four main branches of the single radial were indeed supplying loads/floor-areas considerably in excess of the reasonable burden on a single 20A circuit (not to mention the controllability/incovenience factors), and expected us as intelligent readers to infer this from context...
Stefek Zaba wrote | Andrew Gabriel wrote: | > Martin Angove writes: | > > Was in a house the other day where as far as I could tell there | > > were four radial circuits feeding sockets, all fed from the | > > same 20A fuse.
My mother's got one of them :-) Only it feeds two house sockets, the bathroom radiant heater, and the garage socket.
4 way Wylex board. Cooker, ring, lights, immersion, none spare. ...Actually, it might do the immersion as well.
| > Um, that's just one radial circuit. | > Shouldn't be a problem unless the loading is silly, | > like if it's doing a large kitchen and utility room. | But since this is the normally thoroughly sensible Martin A | speaking, he probably meant precisely that the four main | branches of the single radial were indeed supplying loads/ | floor-areas considerably in excess of the reasonable burden | on a single 20A circuit (not to mention the controllability/ | incovenience factors), and expected us as intelligent | readers to infer this from context...
And the fact that taking 4 connections from one MCB/fuse terminal might not be Good Practice, depending on the terminal design.
Owain
On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 14:14:37 +0000 (UTC), snipped-for-privacy@hp.com strung together this:
That's exactly what I thought too!
On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 19:24:37 +0100, "Owain" strung together this:
Reminds me of my 'temporary' setup before I expanded the CU arrangements. One 20A circuit feeding the immersion, the CH, the pretty lights on the fire, two 16A sockets outside and all of the outside lighting (about 1kw fully loded)! Glad to say its been spread out a bit now though.
Aww... I don't think anyone's been that nice to me for ages...
...except the wife. I have to say that in case she reads this sometime.
Yes, sorry, I wasn't really making myself clear (or really thinking clearly). This is exactly what I meant. The sockets in the whole house (3 bed end-of-terrace) were run (IIRC, and I'm not looking the details up now) from this single 20A MCB. I'd guess a floor area of over 80sqm, but more to the point:
A washing machine A tumble dryer An electric kettle A microwave oven
Granted, not often likely to be on at the same time, but still an easy
8kW.Oh, and it was a 20A *fuse* by the way, bit of semi-enclosed, none of this modern cartridge stuff... err, and some of the 2.5mm2 was 1mm2 CPC rather than 1.5mm2. Ummm... and the earth rod (which must have existed somewhere because the earth loop reading wasn't sky-high even though gas and water weren't bonded) was nowhere to be seen.
Hwyl!
M.
Have been following this thread with some interest as I waa about to have my rewiring checked by a sparks (first time I've done anything as extensive as this, so I was slightly apprehensive - bit like going to the dentist for a check-up!).
Interestingly, the only thing I got pulled up on (apart from one apparently faulty cooker socket) was the fact that having followed the pro and con arguments in this ng, I hadn't installed any supplementary bonding in the kitchen! Oh well...
David
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