[footprints]

Since around January of this year it was made a criminal offence to install new supplies or outlets for use in kitchens, bathrooms, or for external supplies.

No problem with the extention lead, plug in RCD makes good sense. Want to fit something a little more permanent and its not just a qualified spark you need, the sparky also reeds to be registered under the part P scheme. This is now controlled by the local authority building control. All work that is "notifiable" has to have the appropriate paper work issued and copies sent to building control. Don't do it, and you have broken the law. You are liable to a hefty fine and in addition to this, should you have an accident or a fire, and you had taken the short cut, your insurance company will dismiss your claim.

There is an alternative if you think that your competant to do the work yourself. You first notify "building control that you are going to make additions/alterations, then on completion they will come out and test and inspect the work. (where I live it is currently about £65) If they find fault with the work you will have to either remove it or rectify the fault, and they will come out again for a retest, and another fee.

Legend has it that this change in the law was brought about 'cos a ministers daughter drilled an incorrectly installed cable and managed to kill herself.

I'm a kithen fitter (and a qualified spark) and @ 50 have just had to go back to college to sit my C&G 2381, so that if I want to register for part P and have the privelidge of paying about £500 a year, I can do so. I'm not happy, can you tell?
At the time some wag suggested that the sales of double adapters and extension leads would go through the roof.

Well I have to say that I thought that things had got bad, then I heard that you will possible need a licence (costing a fat annual fee) if you have a muck pile. We have horses. Again I'm unhappy!

Somebody somewhere is taking the pxxx.

[halloween]

WHAT THE ????

[footprints]

WHAT THE ????

[Treacodactyl]

Is it actually criminal? I thought it was along the lines of other building regs and could cause problems when you come to sell the house? True about the insurance companies but they also wouldn't pay out before the regs if they thought there was anything dodgy with the wiring.

I know the regs are a real pain as I tried to find out some details and there seemed to be a large number of confused people and upset sparkies.

As an armature one thing that's always puzzled me is the design of many of the electrical components such as sockets. The method of attaching wires by just shoving the ends into a hole and hoping the grub screw grips all the wire without any pulling out just doesn't work that well. Surely something more elegant would have been invented by now? Then there's the question of to twist or not to twist wires together before inserting.

[footprints]

WHAT THE ????

[footprints]

Is it actually criminal? I thought it was along the lines of other building regs and could cause problems when you come to sell the house? True about the insurance companies but they also wouldn't pay out before the regs if they thought there was anything dodgy with the wiring.

I know the regs are a real pain as I tried to find out some details and there seemed to be a large number of confused people and upset sparkies.

As an armature one thing that's always puzzled me is the design of many of the electrical components such as sockets. The method of attaching wires by just shoving the ends into a hole and hoping the grub screw grips all the wire without any pulling out just doesn't work that well. Surely something more elegant would have been invented by now? Then there's the question of to twist or not to twist wires together before inserting.

[footprints]

For mains operated electric fences in the UK, see regs

605-14 (605-14-01 to 605-14-06

Then get a battery operated one

[Blue Sky]

Leads are available for exterior use with caps fitted over the outlets similar to those used on some campsites. (see below) I wouldn't leave one out in the pouring rain but they should be most suitable for an outbuilding / greenhouse (temporary use only of course)

[Blue Sky]

Sorry, I think we might be at cross-purposes. The solar power thing was a reference to the "electric fencing" comment.

[Treacodactyl]

Many thanks for the links footpritns. I'll be doing some more work one day and I was going to go down the building regs approval route. Even before I knew of the regs I was going to complete the wiring and then try and get it all professionally checked, now hopefully the new law may help. I bet it will cost a fair bit more to have a whole house checked but I'll see what my council says now the regs have been running for a while.

If they stop DIYers I also hope the qualified people are up to scratch as the people I have had in to do stuff have all made mistakes. They have all been from large companies though.

[footprints]

Many thanks for the links footpritns. I'll be doing some more work one day and I was going to go down the building regs approval route. Even before I knew of the regs I was going to complete the wiring and then try and get it all professionally checked, now hopefully the new law may help. I bet it will cost a fair bit more to have a whole house checked but I'll see what my council says now the regs have been running for a while.

If they stop DIYers I also hope the qualified people are up to scratch as the people I have had in to do stuff have all made mistakes. They have all been from large companies though.

[Jb]

So when some guy turns up, measures up and has amongst all his stuff a big book of references do you take that on face value or do you ask around anyway. Just a purely hypothetical question from some who purely hypothetically has some purely hypothetical five figure renovation bills looming on the horizon you understand.

[Lloyd]

Stick it in the ads Moogie, I may pop down and snap it up!

[Treacodactyl]

I'm not the best person to ask as I tend to do everything myself, including laying drains and rebuilding outside walls! (With full building controll approval I may add but they just turned up for about 1 minute and didn't even look at the drains )

I'm considering getting someone in to do some more building work and I've noticed the company working around the area and kept a keen eye on their work.

The trouble with references is how do you know the relationship between the workman and the person giving the ref?

[jema]

Always a good idea i think to do this. If you appear on the ball, there is a much lesser change of people taking the piss.

[Bugs]

JB, this hypothetical person might want to hypothesise about checking out this board - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.html?s=&daysprune=&f=94

Description from the site's weekly newsletter:
"ARE YOU PAYING THE RIGHT PRICE FOR HOUSEHOLD WORK? It's a nightmare question, so I've set up a new chat forum board allowing MoneySavers to ask other consumers and possibly tradesmen whether they think the quote's fair."

Very new and not explored it myself yet but certainly worth investigating if one were ever to find oneself in the position of deciding on quotes...

[Jb]

Ta for that. That looks like just the sort of forum I need.

[Blue Sky]

Sunshine here!

[Blue Sky]

Hat was a temp while I got another pig pic ready

Hope you hit it .... If you liked it that much I could email it ya