adding new kitchen sockets without part P

[Robert Laws]

I cannot find the answer to this in my "guide to eletrical regs" book. i wonder if someone here can advise.

I want to add some sockets to the kitchen of our new house. I want to do this in the next day or so (before we fully move in). I am not part P certified so I am not allowed to install a new circuit connected in to the ring main, nor even, I think, to wire up a spur from an existing socket.

Am I allowed to add sockets in the kitchen and wire them up to a 13A plug which I then plug in an existing mains socket? Can I legally do this without building control notification/approval?

This would be a temporary measure: My plan is to have a pro check them and wire them in to the ring main in a few months time (upgrading the CU and doing other stuff at the same time).

Of course, there are unofficial ways to do this, but I wondered if my proposed way is legally acceptable.

Robert

[stevelup]

The 'pro' would not be able to certify the work you have done yourself under the Part P self certification scheme.

That leaves you with several options:-

1) Just do it anyway and forget about it 2) Notify building control 3) If it's only temporary, why not just use some mains extensions. After all, this is the kind of messy bodge that Part P was clearly designed to encourage!

Steve

[meow2222]

Unless I mistaken, I believe youre allowed to do all those, but must also get the part p required paperwork for them.

It turns out that less than 1% of notifiable diy electrical works is currently getting notified.

NT

[John Rumm]

You are "allowed", to do all these, but they would be notifiable.

Not really. If you rig up something that looks like permanent wiring, then it is permanent wiring even if it plugs in.

[Owain]

Better make it look like a right temporary lash-up then :-)

Owain

[Robert Laws]

thank you, that is very useful.

Robert

[Grumps]

So, if you screw a 4-way extender to your wall, and clip the lead to the skirting (still terminating in a 13A plug), is this notifiable?

[ARWadsworth]

No.

Adam

[Roger Mills]

No - and you could daisy-chain several of those together if you wished!

The *total* load from all the sockets would have to be less than 13A though.

[John Rumm]

You are probably ok with extension leads. However if you wired up sockets with T&E cable, chased them in etc, then fitting a plug would not make them "temporary". Same would apply if you wired a fixed appliance that way (like a boiler).

[Roger Mills]

Indeed. So what happens? Lots of people adopt solutions which don't require Part P notification - but which are inherently less safe! Why can't the bunch of comedians who purport to run our country *understand* that?

[Probably for the same reason that they can't understand that reducing waste collection frequency - and installing chips in wheely bins - will encourage fly tipping and lead to untold health hazards].

[David Hansen]

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 22:52:52 +0100 someone who may be "Roger Mills" wrote this:-

Perhaps someone funded their political party.

I am not aware of anywhere where waste collection frequency has been reduced. In many places the frequency is greater than it was.

What has been changed is what is collected on a particular collection. In the bad old days everything was collected and put into a hole. In the 21st Century we need to be rather more intelligent than that.

[manatbandq]

The end result is that frequency of collection of certain types of waste (e.g. food waste) has reduced in some areas.

In some cases, introducing a recycling scheme at the same time, (here none previously existed, allows the reporting of healthy recycling figures as a justification. What we are not told is what the recycling rate would be had it been introduced in parallel with existing waste collection.

MBQ

[Rob Hamadi]

Indeed. As the stench emanating from the bins in my village will likely testify to, once it achieves sapience (which won't be long at this rate...).

-- Rob

[David Hansen]

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007 03:40:25 -0700 someone who may be " [e-mail]" wrote this:-

It has. Generally people have found that this is not as great a problem as they thought it would be. Some people do complain of problems, though if they bought less food they would save money and not throw so much away.

Anyway, wormeries, green cones and compost bins deal with all or most food waste.

What we do know is that where residual waste collections have been reduced to fortnightly this has encouraged many people to start using the recycling collections.

[manatbandq]

Not everyone has somewhere to put a compost bin, nor use or store compost.

So the recycling should have been in place and encouraged anyway (e.g. through the use of smaller general waste bins), not used as a justification for reduced frequency collection.

MBQ

[cynic]

with such attempts by contributing to the Macro carbon cycle and burn my rubbish after dark if necessary. In 50 million years or so it will be back in the ground waiting to be mined as coal.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I think some people have got themselves horribly worked up over this. It takes me 6-8 weeks to fill my non-recyclable wheelie bin, and I only put it out when it's full. This has never been a problem. I do wonder if the fuss is rather more about a perceived reduction in service with no reduction in costs, which is in effect a rise in taxes? If there had been even a tiny reduction in council tax to compensate for the reduction in service, I suspect none of this fuss would ever have arisen.

[Huge]

... thousands of people would have been hurt as they fell off their chairs with shock.

[David Hansen]

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007 07:38:44 -0700 someone who may be " [e-mail]" wrote this:-

Which is why I didn't just mention compost bins.