Becomming A Sparkie

[Rick]

Knowledgable People.

I have been looking at cources about becomming a Domestice Electrician. There are 2 aims, 1 wire my own new build, 2 charge for work on other peoples houses.

There are 5 day Part P cources, which have exames and stuff, and issue EAL Certificates.

There then appears to be the need to join the NEICC (or similar). At this point my work (on my own house) is inspected, and I can then issue Part P certificates. This is probably the cheepest way to wire my house, if I count my time as "free".

I then set up a company, and have a new carrear, probably doing further training - I have my own company allready, which can simply do different work.

Is this all there is too it, or is there a pile of stuff I am not being told ?

I am allready a CEng, and before Part P would happly wire a whole house, probably making a few minor mistakes.

Thanks Rick

[Owain]

To wire your own new build you don't need to be able to self-certify under Part P, as the new build will be covered by a Building Regs application anyway. .

Owain

[Tim Morley]

You must have got your CEng via a spell checker, I thought the post was from a 14 year old!

[Grumpy owd man]

Yeah, go for it! easy, piece of pi55! Took me a 5 year apprenticeship, 2 more to be approved, and f*ck knows how long for Elec Tech.. and NICEIC Oh, and the cable jointing, HV authorisation, Data, Comms, Fire Alarms. Design and test, fault finding. Even did a coded welding course. 50 in march and still learning! so if you start now you should be finished before Burns night!

[Rick]

This is the exact reason why I asked, I always thought proper qualified sparkies had years of apprentiship, not just a one week cource, and sombody check out their first job.

Rick

[Andy Dingley]

Are you planning on going full time? Because even as an occasional part time sparkie with full qualifications (maybe you're primarily a kitchen or bathroom fitter) it's still far too expensive to part with the money for NICEIC etc. that you must splash out to be qualified under Part P.

This is not merely a daft regulation for amateurs, it's a daft regulation for tradesmen too.

[nightjar]

I can see that might be difficult to do in the old colours and claim it was all done before 1 Jan 2005

Are you sure that is not a course aimed at already qualified electrician, who simply need to add the ability to self-certify? I certainly wouldn't let you near my factories if you had only done five days' training, but then they are not subject to Part P, so I can happily do them myself.

Colin Bignell

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If you Google on this topic from this group you'll get chapter and verse on the costs involved. IIRC, it's not that attractive.

[Mr Fixit]

I just wonder about "a few minor mistakes" the ability to kill injure and burn the house down relies on you making minor mistakes its either right or down right dangerous

[Stephen Dawson]

Yes you do.

[sm_jamieson]

Oh no you don't. Is the panto season over ? Simon.

[John Rumm]

Don't quite see the logic there. It depends on the mistake in question and also if you spot it and rectify it. The majority of the installed wiring infrastructure in peoples homes across the country are not going to be to current standards and hence would be considered a "mistake" should someone implement the same work today, however you don't see folks frying themselves every five mins as a result.

Generally the folks who never make mistakes are the ones who sit in their armchairs and never do anything.

[Mr Fixit]

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how can you wire a 13amp socket incorrectly and it still be 100% safe or a shower or a cooker & how many house fires start on there own ???? have a look at

On average 10 people die and about 750 are seriously injured each year in accidents involving unsafe electrical installations in the home, according to the Government. In addition, 2,336 house fires last year were caused by faulty electrical work

just because you have not fried yourself plenty have and I have seen proper electricians that have fried?

[Rick]

You don't need to be able to self certifiy, you can ask somebody else (who is qulafied) to certify it for you.

Rick

[Andy Dingley]

Got a reference for any of these figures? (because they're wrong, or at least mislabelled).

Amateur electrical installation work is _NOT_ killing large numbers of people. If it is, show me the figures. Of installation work in general, amateur work does not have a significantly higher risk than commercial work (OTOH, the accident rate in carrying the work out is far higher). The TV celeb's daughter case that gets trotted out to justify part P was carried out commercially, not as DIY

We do have an issue with electrical safety, particularly those incidents that lead to house fires - the third major single cause of house fires (after smoking and cooking) from the last figures I saw.

However take a look at these electrical accidents in more detail. They have two major causes, firstly portable appliances, secondly old installations. The first are specifically _not_ installations (and so are not improved by part P). Now PAT testing is an improvement here and I certainly welcome its increasing use in commercial premises. That's something that would be a useful and positive step for a government to take. In installations causing accidents the causes are predominantly old failed insulation and unrepaired damage - NOT faulty new installations.

Part P is not only not a safety measure (it's a tax measure) it's also an _unsafe_ measure. By making it more difficult and more expensive to repair old or damaged installations it is making it _more_ likely that they will cause an accident. Nor does it reduce accidents from fauty new installations, because the evidence is that the installations just weren't causing that many accidents in the first place.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Those figures are completely wrong -- no idea where they came from, but they aren't the Government's figures. The fires figure includes (and comprises mostly) appliance faults, rather than installation faults. Deaths due to installation faults has been falling steadily over the last 30 years, and had already reached insignificant levels (around 1.8% of accidental deaths in the home). Furthermore, the government predicts Part P will only reduce those incidents by 20%, which is only a drop of 0.3% in accidental deaths in the home. OTOH, deaths due to trips and falls which is orders of magnitiude bigger, is rising. A campaign to make people chuck out extension cords and fit more sockets would probably have had a much larger effect on reducing accidental deaths in the home, whereas Part P is more likely to lead to have the opposite effect, wiping out any Part P savings. So if you were looking to justify it on a health and safety grounds, that just doesn't even come close to standing up.

[Nick]

Yes, Rick - but would you find any sparkie willing to risk his ticket on someone else's unknown work ?

Nick

[John Rumm]

It is not his problem - it is building control that will need to find the bod to certify the work. Yet another reason why part P is such a nonsense.

[John Rumm]

I could leave the earth sleeving off - mistake certainly, but unlikely to (directly) affect safety once installed and working.

The usual case of the government not understanding their own stats (as was the case with the RIA for part P). The two thousand odd house fires include all those started by faulty/misused appliances (the majority of the cases).

The biggest risk factor with fixed wiring is *not* doing anything to improve the old/inadequate instalations that are around.

Sorry, but I am not sure exactly what you are arguing, or how it relates to the OPs question about the steps required in becoming a qualified electrician.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

But what they don't say is how many of these faults or accidents are caused by overloaded extension cables or adaptors, etc, rather than wiring covered by Part Pee. I'll guess at the *vast* majority.

Then they need re-training. Last time I got an accidental electric shock was when I was 14.