Dickon Reed wrote:

I've had a couple of ceilings replaced on insurance after escape of
water. The insurance company appointed general contractors who have
been project managing the repairs, and the general contractors sent
out a (further subcontracted) electrician to replace 5 light fittings
which had to be removed for the ceiling replacement and decoration.

The electrician took it upon himself to poke around the system, and
decided the house earth bonding is not up to current
specs. Specifically, the bonding to the mains water is 6mm sq rather
than 10mm sq. He then tried to get me to agree to pay him 350 pounds
to upgrade the cable (and split the lighting circuit since there are
two conductors going into one breaker on the consumer unit, on the
breaker of the circuit which he will replace lights on), and regards
this work as necesasry under Part P before any other work can be done.

The electricians verbal position is, as I understand it: "prevoious
contractors bodged it, house is really dangerous, can't put the lights
up, most other electricians wouldn't touch the job so I'm doing you a
favour, insurance company wont pay, better just agree to pay me my
reasonable fee now so we can get you sorted, I can fit you in next
Tuesday but then I'm really busy and it will take ages so you ought to
agree now". This was after I called his bluff on a number of attempts
to get even more work out of me, e.g. "ceiling roses should only have
one cable going into them" and "someone drilled into your main fuse;
the earth should be nowhere near there so obviously your earth is
shorted to the mains"(!).

I suspect the main fuse and earth bonding to the water pipes (which is
about a 5m run, currently through the ceilings and walls), was
probably to specification when the house was built in 1979, and hasn't
been touched since then. The bonding to the gas main has been worked
on more recently, and now has two separate cables, both of which look
about 6mm sq; I assume this was an attempt to get the total conductor
area to 10mm sq.

The only tricky part of the actual work I want done, i.e. simply
replacing the lights which had been removed, is that I'd like to fit
feature lights where there were previously pendants from ceiling
roses, and one of the ceiling roses has four cables (circuit in,
circuit out, two switches), and it looks a bit tricky (and against
regs?) to screw 2+ conductors into each terminal block point supplied
with the new light fixture.

People seem to like to give views in this group, so my questions:

1. Is it a legal requirement to ensure earth bonding is up to current
specifications before any electrical work can be done on the property?
(I've had other regulated electricians doing other work since 2005 who
have not commented, and also since 2005 the electricity supplier
replaced the meter).

2. Is it within current regs to leave the ceiling rose fitted and
mount a light fixture on top of it? There should be no problem
mechanically securing both the ceiling rose and the new fixture. The
ceiling rose would end up inside the light fixture, with a good few mm
of clearance from the metal body of the light fixture. Obviously the
new metal fixture has to be earthed.

3. The lights to be replaced are in the lounge, except for one
ceiling strip light in the kitchen. I'm somewhat confused by Part P as
to whether replacing a light fitting within the kitchen requires LABC
declaaration and certification. I'd have no particular concern fitting
these lights myself, but if this does require statutory paperwork I'd
probably hire a (qualified and registered) friend to, at the very
least, check my work.

Thanks,

Dickon

It sounds like you've been (rightly) alerted to this guy by his high
pressure sales technique. He's playing on your (percieved) fears of
electricity and of the rules. He's talking bull****.

A general principle of the regs is that progressive improvements in
the standards are not retrospective. There is never a requirement to
bring existing installations up to the new spec. That said you would
naturally expect to repair an obviously defective installation anyway
wouldn't you? But it's not a requirement.

The one wire in a ceiling rose thing is simply ********. Ceiling
roses are designed to act as a loop-in point in a lighting circuit -
that's why they are designed the way they are! Having two conductors
into one "hole" as you have two switches is a bit of a pain by it's
not illegal and it's not going to electrocute you or burn your ouse
down.
I can see no problem with having the ceiling rose enclosed in a
fitting. Maybe your electrician would care to cite the reg which he
thinks that contravenes, in fact that's a good idea generally - call
his bluff and ask him to quote the applicable reg for each of the
claimed contraventions.

My advice would be to suggest that do what he's being employed to or
refuse to do it and leave the site.