HOW MUCH? Part-P and new sockets in kitchen costs

[Jon]

I want to put two double socket outlets on a currently bare wall in our kitchen, and one fused socket for an appliance under where the worktop will be in advance of fitting a new kitchen.

I want the downstairs ring extended to include the two new sockets, and one fused spur off one of these new sockets for the under worktop appliance outlet. We don't have a seperate ring for the kitchen, just split up/down stairs. It's a 4 bed house.

I'm competent and happy to do the electrical work and wouldn't do anything that would put our health and safety at risk. I'm also aware of the insurance implications of not doing it properly ("you're not insured mate") via Part-P and notifying my local BCO of the work and future house selling nightmare of it not being recorded. But I've just been on my local council's website and it states that if the electrical work isn't carried out by a "a competent person" i.e. a registered self-cert sparky, it will cost me =A3175 +vat on top of the fee for the BCO application in order to have the work inspected and/or tested.

Bloody hell! It's going to cost me over =A3250 before I even get a screwdriver out if I do it myself! So I'm thinking now, is it just cheaper/better idea for me to employ a registered spark to come in and do all the work for me, lifting the boards and the doing the wiring and save myself the bother? Do you think it'd be economically more viable to employ someone to find the existing wiring and do all the laborious work than spend nearly as much as it'd cost me to do it on my own and have it inspected, spending a weekend of my free time grunting and sweating for all the wrong reasons? I've got a reel of

2.5mm T&E and all the fittings needed for the work in the garage already.

Jon

[A.Lee]

.....

If you are bothered about Part P, and feel you are not competent to DIY, but want to reduce the cost, then a compromise may be to do all the hard work yourself, then get a sparky to do the connecting. You could take the floorboards up, do any chiselling into the walls, lay the cables from point A to B etc, then the sparky comes in, connects sockets to the cables, then connects to the fusebox/con. unit.

If you are competent, then DIY, and dont worry about certification. Alan.

[Exhausted]

I did not think the councils were allowed to charge extra. I believed this was an amendment to part P, as this is exactly what the councils were doing.

[Mike Harrison]

Just do it & forget about it. Who's gonna know?

[The Medway Handyman]

That was my understanding as well. I believe some try it on, worth checking out.

[EricP]

They aren't. There is a link to the gov site somewhere in here.

[Jon]

Thanks for the replys guys.

I think I'll just do it myself then. Looks like the council are charging for something they shouldn't anyway.

Can someone advise the best way to get the cable from the void beneath the floorboards above down the back of the partition wall into the kitchen? The house was built 1999/2000 and has a wall directly above the wall in the kitchen where the new sockets are going to go, so I can't drill down from the room above.

Should I cut out some plasterboard a few inches below the ceiling and drill a hole up into the baton at the top of the wall for the cable run? Or would it be better to cut off some plasterboard at the top of the wall and expose the baton, and cut out a notch of the baton with a chisel, run the cable and replace plasterboard?

Thanks,

Jon

I've obviously never hacked at this kind of wall before and I'm not

100% sure how they've constructed it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If you are competent just ignore PP. Everyone else does. It will make no difference at sale time - just how would a buyer know when work was done?

[Cod Roe]

As I've posted before, when I took this up with Cherwell they told me:

"Further to my earlier Email on the above I would explain our position as follows; The rationale on the Part P fee approach is based on Local Authorities having the authority to recover it's costs in performing its function. The £70.00 is purely an administrative charge and the £300.00 fee is based upon an inspection carried out by one of our representatives.

It would be the same situation if we used outside consultants to carry out some of our work on our behalf, we would include that cost to us within the set fee. Local Authorities have the jurisdiction to set fees to recover their costs."

and then:

"With respect to a Local Authority's legal position to fix charges I would refer you to The Statutory Instrument (1998/3129) Building(Local Authority Charges)Regulations 1998 and specifically regulation 3(1). Regarding paragraph 1.26 in Part P I would refer to what it states within every Approved Document in terms of its use, that is to say that the contents of the AD's are purely guidance and not legally binding."

[John Rumm]

This is a stud wall I take it?

If so, yes a small cutout at the top adjacent to the ceiling would allow you to drill up through the top plate of the wall and into the ceiling void. You can make good with a plasterboard patch and some filler when done.

If its wood studs and plasterboard then it is fairly easy to work with. A sharp knife can score round the hole you want, the a drywall saw be used to cutout the section. (failing that a sharp tap with a hammer would do!).

To fix the hole a small scrap of wood can be inserted into the void, and screwed in place through the plasterboard near the edges of your hole. The new bit then cut to shape, inserted and screwed to the wood.

[Tim S]

Exhausted coughed up some electrons that declared:

A letter from the ODPM (as was) says they're not. Mine does. I decided not to make an issue of it in the one case, because the BCO has stated he's not going to make an issue of lots of random things (lots of Part L stuff mostly) that he *could* be a complete bastard about, if he chose.

Quid pro quo...

I was however given a choice of get a PIR as quoted earlier in this thread or to "be qualified to the 16th". I'm interpreting this as get a VRQ for Domestic Installation work to the 17th - 4 weekends up at Waddon station for about the cost of 3-4 PIRs (mine, not the OPs). If a C&G 2382 is also required, that's another 3 day weekend, but I don't think it will come up.

He basically wants an EIC or a PIR from someone who can defensibly fill one out right.

I feel it's worth it just to get my bad habits knocked out, but then I have an entire installation to do from scratch and one chance to do it well, so on balance I feel it's worth it.

In the case mentioned, and no other building work likely in the near future, getting assertive with the LABC may be an option.

Cheers

Tim

[Tim S]

A.Lee coughed up some electrons that declared:

This is the problem. If the BCO were suitably competent for Part P, (s)he would wander round, look at the bit that was modified, bang a tester on the relevant circuit and check a couple of basic areas like bonding and call it a good'un.

Unfortunately, with the route most of them have taken, a PIR on the *whole* installation is about the only universal arrangement they can manage. And a properly done PIR takes a lot of effort. Was about 3 hours on a one bed flat. A larger house could take a day, especially if evolved weirdnesses are discovered that take extra time to determine what's going on.

Other options, apart from not bothering, is to:

a) Put in a BNA for every bit of work the OP thinks they might do in the next 10 years. I've been informed reliably that provided work is started within the prescribed time, there is not limit until completion. Wait until a suitable point and PIR then. Try not to span a change in regs, but as the

17th has only just come out, hopefully safe for a few years.

b) Take photos of everything, then put in a regularisation submission later when convenient or necessitated by, say a house sale. Riskier, but apart from the insurance angle (read the policy small print), unlikely anything will come of it I would have thought.

Cheers

Tim

[Tim S]

Jon coughed up some electrons that declared:

Sounds about right for a PIR, depending on house size.

Cheers

Tim

[Andy Wade]

Is that what your BCO said? I'm surprised. An EIC or small works cert. for alterations would usually be confined the new circuit(s) added and/or existing circuits modified, together with the adequacy of the supply arrangements, earthing and bonding. Observations on the condition of the rest of the installation can be made on the forms, but aren't central to the process. Requiring a full PIR (no limitations) when you've just added, say, one socket in the kitchen or bathroom seems a bit OTT.

[Jon]

Doesn't sound too bad then. I'll play it as you say.

Thanks for the advise, and everyone for their replies.

Jon

[boltmail]

The legislation (and the ODPM circular) does not say that Councils cannot charge extra fees for carrying out inspections themselves - it says that Councils cannot require applicants to pay third party inspection fees.

So if the Council does the inspection themselves, they are free to set up a fixed scale charging scheme which reflects their costs. What they can't do is to demand that applicants provide their own test certificates from electricians.

[Tim S]

[e-mail] coughed up some electrons that declared:

Thanks for clarifying that.

The case as I stated is the one I am faced with, but as I said, quid pro quo.

Now, if I were in the OP's position, it would be a different matter... Cheers

Tim

[The Real Doctor]

Where, as a matter of interest, is the precise layout of what's already there recorded?

Ian

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Indeed. Perhaps at sale time the surveyor will go remove every single accessory to check for the new wiring colours. But even then it's allowed to use this for repair without invoking PP.

[Jon]

Handy then, that the two near full 100 metre reels of 2.5mm T&E I have is of the old red and black variety.

:)