Training as an electrician, advice please.

[RogerS]

When Part P first came out, Building Control in Herefordshire were at sixes and sevens. Huge discussion there and elsewhere as to who was going to pay for any testing. Also there was the option for the DIY'er to carry out the work and then for Building Control to get it checked. If it was part of a Building Control monitored project then Building Control were not allowed to charge any more for the electrical test. (I do not know if things have changed - this was a few years back now).

So I'd gutted an old black and white. I'd done the first fix cabling and rang Building Control to get someone to check it and tick it off. They sent round a lovely old guy - a retired surveyor.
"I've come to check your insulation" he says.

"No, you haven't", says I, "I'd like you to check my first fix cabling"

So I take him all through the house, showing him the cables in the correct zones, the trench to the garage at the correct depth etc. He turned to me and said

" You know more about this then I do". And toddled off happy.

So we then came to the final test which I knew it would pass as I'd run all the tests myself. I ring up Building Control to arrange for someone to come out.
"We can send someone round tomorrow" says the lass.
"Blimey" says I, "I'm surprised you've got electricians on tap like that"
"Oh no" she says "We send out one of the Building Control Officers. Would you like to speak to someone abut it if you're unhappy with the arrangement?"

So I did. The upshot was that Herefordshire's policy was to send out a Building Control officer to have a look. If they thought it looked OK then that would be that. If they thought it looked dodgy then they would send out an electrician who would do an inspection but would not tell me what was wrong if he found anything but would tell Building Control. Who would then do...it wasn't explained.

So next day out comes the very pleasant Building Control officer (for the record, I reckon Herefordshire have the most pleasant and reasonable BCO's around) who asked me if I'd fitted a split 17th edition consumer unit (I had).
"Oh good. It makes our work so much easier".

He looked at it. He nodded. He said "Fine".

And that was it. No formal testing. Nowt. So much for Part P. P as in Pointless.

 

[Benchwayze]

I was never prepared to be a busy fool.

I'd rather be a busy fool, than an idle expert. :wink:

John

 

[n0legs]

I understand where you are coming from but why should those of us who are perfectly competent be penalised by the stupidity of a few ?

Please don't think I'm being flippant Roger
But, those who are truly competent should be truly responsible enough to make sure anything and everything they do complies, even down to their own education, qualification and certification.

However as I pointed out earlier big business won't allow the restriction to the sale of the materials. No matter what my personal feelings are I have to accept people who shouldn't be attempting electrical work will be able to do so.
Like I said earlier, I'm not completely against people having a go themselves I hope if they do they do it safely. There are some though that shouldn't be trusted changing the bulbs in fairy lights, the trouble with them is they don't wear labels telling us this.

No formal testing. Nowt. So much for Part P. P as in Pointless.

Was it really pointless?
For you I think not.
The record will show, if god forbid you ever need it, that your installation was at one time inspected by someone duly charged to do so and obviously passed said inspection. There shouldn't be any wiggle room for the insurance company if they were ever needed, that surely must contribute to a good nights sleep at the minimum.

 

[n0legs]

I was never prepared to be a busy fool.

I'd rather be a busy fool, than an idle expert. :wink:

John

John my friend I'd love to be idle for a while :lol:
I've only got to wait a few more years though, thank god.
The expert bit though is in a far bigger field than piddly little 220v, I start at 11KV and go up and up :wink:

 

[RogerS]

I understand where you are coming from but why should those of us who are perfectly competent be penalised by the stupidity of a few ?

Please don't think I'm being flippant Roger
But, those who are truly competent should be truly responsible enough to make sure anything and everything they do complies, even down to their own education, qualification and certification.
.

Guess I'd better rip up my Degrees in Electronics and Electrical Engineering then. Clearly not good enough.

Yes, Part P is pointless. Let's look at the figures for deaths due to faulty electrical wiring, shall we? Apart from that MP's daughter who was electrocuted partly because the numpty who fixed it to the wall failed to use any form of tester to see if there were live cables behind I have been unable to find any records of deaths due to faulty wiring. RoSPA certainly don;t have this information. Yes, there are deaths due to people chopping through appliance cables or fires due to overloaded 13Amp sockets but those would still have happened Part P or no Part P.

And there are just as many incompetent so-called 'competent' electricians around as there are incompetent DIYers. I am thinking of at least one that I know of who mixed up the neutrals in a block of flats between individual flats so that if you'd isolated one flat from the mains and then started working on the wiring, the moment you undid that neutral then that wire went live as it was being fed from the adjacent flat.

 

[Benchwayze]

Hi n0,

Once you can be 'master of all you survey', you'll find that's when the time really starts to go by, but fast! Of course there are other compensations. Like plenty time to fritter on woodwork, and the UKW! (To be honest though I don't know where I found the time to go to work at all!) :mrgreen:

On the qualifications front, a good friend I have is a darn fine electrician (On the piddly stuff ) At the moment he is struggling to find work, as self-employed, and he has another twenty years or so before he can rest up! That said, I'd still advise anyone to equip themselves with as many skills as they can. And if they have talent, my advice is; don't waste it. 8)

Cheers

John

 

[n0legs]

Guess I'd better rip up my Degrees in Electronics and Electrical Engineering then. Clearly not good enough.

Roger with all due respect, do your degrees in electronic and electrical engineering truly make you a competent person to install and work on domestic electrical installations?
By your definition it would imply the tv repair man in my village is someone we should trust for a rewire.
If you feel you are competent and have a need for it go and do a 17th edition course. It's a few days and will cost you approx £400, follow that up with the necessary works to obtain Part p and you'll be good to go

My own path was to qualify at 16th edition, City and Guilds 236 I think, certainly electrical installation. My as then employer did not know what to make this apprentice into, so taught me two trades for the first three and a quarter years of my apprenticeship.
This training which I really can't be bothered to list, encompassed all installation works. Domestic, commercial and industrial.
One of my earmarked trades would have seen me looking after electrical installations in our substations and primary substations, hence the need for the 16th edition. I add, I was not a special case as a few of us did the same.
The other side of my training is what I have made my primary trade. High voltage cable networks design, installation, repair and maintenance. None of this which qualifies me or makes me competent to carry out electrical installation at a domestic, etc level.
Many of todays cable jointing apprentices don't even do basic installation anymore, they move through the training of their designated field and pass out as craftsmen or technicians only able to work on the bigger stuff.
Back to me.
I passed as an inspector when the company decided to thin out the meter men and put the installation of all but HV metering in the hands of us distribution boys. I have the certificate somewhere.
Many many internal courses and examinations followed over the years and a few external qualifications have been added as well. I am now classed as an electrical engineer.
But am I qualified and competent by today's standards to carry out electrical work in someones home, factory etc ??
I honestly say I'm competent enough and I'm still probably qualified enough, certainly by some people's standards. And to blow my own trumpet, from what I've seen from some qualified electricians of today I'd pi$$ all over them.

Here's the responsible bit.
Because I don't hold Part P accreditation and not updated to 17th edition (which for me is little more than a formality), I don't carry out electrical installation work for anyone except my self and family. Maybe in all honesty I should stop that as well.


I'm not a fan of Part P due to my earlier mentioned issues with it. It is pointless, a waste of a good tool that could have ensured decent works in peoples homes.
Unfortunately there will always be deaths due to electricity one way or another, but it shouldn't be happening. We really don't want people who learn this trade on the back of a *** packet messing about in people's homes.

Incompetent electricians, well some are going to slip through the net. Don't you think though that regulation should allow these fools to be brought to task, as I hinted at in a earlier post about losing ones "licence" ?

Anyway that's enough from me now on this subject. After all, what I have posted is my own opinion and I'm not really bothered if people agree with me or not.
People who want to have a go themselves will do so regardless of what I say, but if it goes **** up for them.... Well, I can sleep at night.

Sorry No Skills, we have managed to really twist and turn your topic.

 

[MIGNAL]

I used to know the yearly average deaths by electrocution (I've been zapped enough times!).
It's pretty low, a couple of dozen or something close. Of course that doesn't tell us how many were a result of incompetent installation. I can only assume that would be an even lower figure, perhaps much lower. I guess the mortality figures include electrocution through faulty appliances, which could easily account for the majority of them.
Oh. . . . and no doubt a few from folk trying to fiddle the meter!

 

[MMUK]

Is it possible to work in domestic electric's successfully without part p? One thing that appealed to me was being able to do the work without having to involve outside bodies/building control. If you don't mind (??) could you give a brief explanation of how that would work?

Thanks.

Yes you can. But it would mean that you can't make anything notifiable you do "LIVE" until it has been passed by an inspector.