oldie electrician seeks update

I served a 5 year electrical apprenticeship in the early 70's but only worked as an electrician for a few years before moving on to other things. Now I'm semi-retired and was thinking it'd be good to return to do some part-time work as an electrician again. My original apprenticeship was in heavy engineering (mainly 3ph motor control and switchgear but I also did a certain amount of domestic wiring!). Anyway I thought I'd see what was involved in getting up to speed on the latest regs./methods etc. How interesting this has been. It's seems I am qualified to do just about nothing, electrically . My 5 year part time day-release qualification CGLI course doesn't seem relevant any more (do the electrons know I wonder!) and at the other end of the scale my B.Sc in electrical eng. seems also irrelevant. So basically I am reasonably well qualified, and experienced yet I can't seem to work at what I was trained to do. Have taken a look around the web I see these things,

CGLI 2391

16th ED BS7671 PART P NIC EIC

Would some kind soul care to put the above words into a one paragraph description of so that a mere mortal can understand what he might need to work as a self-employed electrician on domestic installations.

I do know what some of these things are but a description of how it all fits together by someone who knows would be appreciated.

Reply to
dave
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| I served a 5 year electrical apprenticeship in the early 70's but only worked as | an electrician for a few years before moving on to other things. Now I'm | semi-retired and was thinking it'd be good to return to do some part-time work | as an electrician again. My original apprenticeship was in heavy engineering | (mainly 3ph motor control and switchgear but I also did a certain amount of | domestic wiring!). Anyway I thought I'd see what was involved in getting up to | speed on the latest regs./methods etc. How interesting this has been. It's seems | I am qualified to do just about nothing, electrically . My 5 year part time | day-release qualification CGLI course doesn't seem relevant any more (do the | electrons know I wonder!) and at the other end of the scale my B.Sc in | electrical eng. seems also irrelevant. So basically I am reasonably well | qualified, and experienced yet I can't seem to work at what I was trained to do. | Have taken a look around the web I see these things, | | CGLI 2391 | 16th ED | BS7671 | PART P | NIC EIC | | Would some kind soul care to put the above words into a one paragraph | description of so that a mere mortal can understand what he might need to work | as a self-employed electrician on domestic installations. | | I do know what some of these things are but a description of how it all fits | together by someone who knows would be appreciated.

Push *harder*. You can usually get old qualifications accepted as

*equivalent* to the new versions. My old part time HNC and a bit of brass neck worked wonders for me. Got me into a Post Graduate diploma course, and that was only the beginning.
Reply to
Dave Fawthrop

Snag is the cost of obtaining the present day qualification and ongoing registration costs. Then the costs of the 16th Edition test gear. All seemed to thwart the economics of doing part time work as a sole trader.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Wouldn't we all!

IMHO the whole stinking mess was instigated by NICEIC lobbying a certain fat buffoon and his department to introduce part P in an effort to stop their members leaving in droves and cutting their membeership fee income. What we ended up with is what is sometimes kown as a clusterfuck. This restricts many small businesses or introduces ridiculous additional costs for basically no good reason. Have you taken a look at the IEE members discussion group or any of the other professionally qualified but non guild members for a clear assessment of the nonsensical situation?

I said sod it and retired from new installation work.

Reply to
John

Far more likely to stop one man bands - or even small firms - working for cash and avoiding taxation.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 18:43:34 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)" scrawled:

Far more likely to raise general prices for electrical work and leave the field wide open for a larg influx of cowboys to do the job for as much as a one man band would have done it for before he had to hike his prices up.

Winner = cowboy. Loser = customer.

Reply to
Lurch

Winner = cowboy. Loser = customer and Mr Brown!...

Reply to
:::Jerry::::

More down to this government's desire to control the population of this island, in my estimation.

Dave

Reply to
Dave

On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 19:50:05 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)" scrawled:

Quite.

Reply to
Lurch

It seems my little daydream is no more :-) soddit! I took a few more steps into this mud and it seems afaik tell that only appropriately qualified persons can do the work in the first place, well esp. in bathrooms and kitchens (Pp?) - and then some other bevvy of quals are needed to certify the work so done. The latter needs a wizzo test kit to do the appropriate testing. The £££ is the gottcha. I see what you chaps mean - it's a minefield of red tape. Is there any real point in doing cgli 2391 - I wouldn't mind just for interest, but as far as using it to do "certified" work, it probably isn't enough?

Any view on whether this whole new system will eventually fall apart - I'd have thought there woud be 1000's of electricians unemployed as a consequence of all this rt.

Reply to
dave

On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 14:43:20 GMT, dave scrawled:

Eventually yes. It'll either be scrapped altogether and some new tax dreamt up or it'll still be part P but it'll get a drastic overhaul. I can't see it staying as it is.

Yep.

Reply to
Lurch

To be fair, any electrician should have the necessary test gear - I do, and I'm not a pro.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

| On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 18:56:54 +0000 (UTC), Dave wrote: | | >Dave Plowman (News) wrote: | >

| >> In article , | >> John wrote: | >> | >>>IMHO the whole stinking mess was instigated by NICEIC lobbying a certain | >>>fat buffoon and his department to introduce part P in an effort to stop | >>>their members leaving in droves and cutting their membeership fee | >>>income. | >> | >> | >> Far more likely to stop one man bands - or even small firms - working for | >> cash and avoiding taxation. | >

| >More down to this government's desire to control the population of this | >island, in my estimation. | >

| >Dave | It seems my little daydream is no more :-) soddit!

Have you asked if you can just take the examinations, rather than sit through courses which you have done years ago? The people in charge are probably in the same boat as you.

Reply to
Dave Fawthrop

charge are

I suspect that any worthwhile FE college would be able to put together a suitable 'study programme' [1] for people like the OP that would allow them to up date their knowledge and sit the relevant exams etc. Cost might be an issue though.

[1] attending certain parts of the main stream course programme whilst not bothering with the basic / known parts IYSWIM.
Reply to
:::Jerry::::

At this point in time, I would say it's never actually caught on. Most electricians appear to have ignored it. I don't think it's resulted in any being unemployed -- there's far too much demand for them, and other than this newsgroup and some parts of the trade, there's pretty much zero awareness of Part P. Some electricians did decide to retire or to drop domestic work when it came in, which of course made the demand and supply situation even worse, and probably removed a higher proportion of better electricians from the pool than it did bad ones.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

You can still do industrial/commercial work, and new build dwellings (which will be covered by building control anyway) without worrying about Part P.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 19:49:14 +0100, Owain scrawled:

Some industrial and commercial work. There are certain commercial installations or parts of them that you can't touch either.

Er, yeah, theoretically. Not always that easy though.

Reply to
Lurch

There seems little chance of getting anything sensible to happen as far as getting the general public to become aware of just how intrusive this is into their freedom to carry out work in their own house. I've written to various newspapers letters pages on this theme and not one letter has surfaced. I had high hopes of one institution magazine but that has been conveniently squeezed out by other topics. Is there some blanket block on newspaper publication on this topic?

Reply to
John

It only takes one 'human rights act' appeal to turn the tide. Have you tried that route?

Dave

I can still install gas into my house, so why can't I put leccy cables into my kitchen?

Reply to
Dave

'Cos they might spark and ignite the gas!

Reply to
<me9

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