DIY Electrical Work

[RJH]

I've just done a couple of minor electrical bits and pieces following replastering - refitting sockets and ceiling lights, plus added a spur to an existing ring. I've been pretty careful as regards cable locations, connections and wiring, and checked everything with a polarity/earthing plug-in tester.

This caused a mate to have something approaching an aneurysm, who stated this was not only illegal, but likely to bring down the house in flames.

On the 'illegal' part,

seems to suggest that I'm within my rights, as as far as I can tell the work is not notifiable. It should, however, be "be designed and installed, and inspected, tested and certificated in accordance with BS

7671" (quote from that page). How can I ensure this? And 'certificated'

- I take it I can self-certificate?

On the 'flames', my best reassurance was that I've done most of the plumbing, so hopefully the two should catastrophically fail together, one sorting out the other.

[Tim Watts]

You do not need to do testing or certification for the trivial works you have described - and you are right, not notifiable.

It's arse covering and needless wording.

What matters is you did it properly and to the regs.

As far as this works goes, that means you used suitable wire, secured it where necessary, kept the sheath on into the accessory and did the terminals up correctly.

All of which I'm sure is true!

Treat it like it's 1970 and just carry on.

It's less likely you'll get "flames" as you have enough nous to check your work and occasionally check stuff is not getting warm.

It's the new breed of "clueless and frightened" that the above wording encourages who are more likely to as they never check anything until it does actually melt/smoke/catch fire.

I agree that installing a whole new circuit requires a certain amount of knowledge, but it is not beyond the DIY realms, though at that point you should have access to a tester instrument. But having said that, if it's dead standard install and you choose the right cable and check the continuity of L-N and L-E with the far end shorted to match (or the figure-8 test for ring mains), there's not a lot to go wrong.

I have never had an insulation test fail on new stuff (not surprising). I have had an end-end ring test fail once - it highlighted a neutral that broke as I replaced a socket front. Quickly traced and fixed - so there is value in basic testing, even if with a multimeter (dead circuit tests only of course!).

[newshound]

+1

If you are doing quite a bit of rewiring and want to take it a bit further, a Megger is useful and not too expensive second-hand. I have a Robin earth resistance tester which only comes out once in a blue moon, but which was (I think) around £50 on eBay.

[Andy Burns]

yep, I have one of the wind-up Robin ones, decades out of calibration, but good enough for me ...

[Tim Watts]

I do wonder why people get so hung up on calibration certs too.

I have a "CalCard" (basically hi and low resistance-box in credit card format). The only thing that does not check are the Earth Loop Impedance of the supply and RCD measurements (and the voltage).

If you are so on the edge of a threshold that even 10% accuracy matters, I would suggest it would be better to fix the installation to get more margin anyway as it is bound to drift in time for the worse anyway.

[tabbypurr]

Tell him to go back to sleep. If you run the mains wire inside the water pipe, you should have a self extinguishing system :)

ok... just in case anyone actually is retarded enough, the above is not advisable

NT

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , RJH escribió:

Tell the silly sod to mind his own business.

[ARW]

If you were to treat it like 1970 then the OP would be removing sockets so that there was only one single socket per bedroom (two in a posh house) and converting the downstairs sockets from doubles to singles.

[Tim Watts]

You had downstairs sockets?

Luxury...

[dennis]

As long as the pipe is the harmonised colour it would be fine. 8-)

[Adam Funk]

...while wearing flares.

[ARW]

I did some work at a 2 bed bungalow near my parents the other day. The customers bought that house as a newbuild in 1969 and gas CH was a £300 optional extra (the coal fire was fitted whether you wanted it or not - coal was almost free in those days in Barnsley).

[ARW]

I assume your mate is either a manager or just a bloke down the pub:-)

You could of course had paid a pro to mess it up for you.

Tim had it spot on with his reply.

Sure there could be latent defects within the existing installation or on the supply to the house but nothing you have done is making matters worse or more dangerous and your work is non notifiable.

[charles]

I know it was the 60's but the house we moved into had 4 power outlets. One in each bedroom and one in the kitchen.

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

No lounge? Our 1960s 3 bedroomed house had one socket in two of the bedrooms, none in the box room, one in the lounge and one in the kitchen. I put one in the box room and converted the single one in the lounge to a double one. I think I did something with the kitchen one but can't remember. It was so very cold in that house. Heating was a second hand gas fire which I installed and was always on low.

[Tim Watts]

You know they're back in some places, at least on girls...

Along with "short back and sides" straight from 1940.

[Bill Wright]

When I was 11 I used to go round helping my dad fit TV aerials and install tellys. It was part of my job to extend the TV set's flex and clip it up the wall and across the ceiling to the ceiling rose and fit an adaptor there to take the flex and the bulb. The adaptor had a switch for the bulb.

Bill

[charles]

yes, there was a lounge which had one 2A socket off the lighting fuse. This was fitted to the side of a dresser unit. Presumably this was where the previous owners had their wireless.

[charles]

you could buy those in Woolworths.

[John Rumm]

Sounds like your friend needs recalibrating ;-)

You could, but who were you proposing to show it to?

Ideally you should do the work in accordance with BS7671, and then test it. You could keep you test results for future reference should you wish.

Part P of the building regs has slowly been watered down since introduction such that now there are few jobs that are notifiable, and there are additional ways of working that reflect what most people did anyway.