In article ,
Andy Hall writes:
On 27 Jul 2003 13:47:59 GMT, (Andrew
Gabriel) wrote:



I can tell you how it worked for someone I know who does work
there. BS7671 is called up by the building regs and therefore
all electrical work must conform to it. However, there is no
requirement to notify BCO's of any electrical work, and no
requirement for them or anyone else to inspect it, although
they may inspect it if they want to. Typically, it gets
inspected by the BCO if it's part of a job where other things
are being inspected, i.e. part of some construction work, and
not otherwise. If the work was done by an electrical company,
the BCO will usually just ask for the completion certificate,
and if it was DIY, the BCO will check it themselves, but they
can't demand that you get it check/tested by someone else.

I don't know how well that agrees with what's supposed to
happen, but I'm told this is what happens in practice.

Are Scottish BCOs qualified in electrical inspection, Andrew?

No idea, but I would doubt it.
My impression was that it was a visual inspection only and not
a full inspection and test, but I wasn't there and I can't
recall if the person who told me was explicit about it. I know
from talking with a number of BCO's when I did my response to
the original consultation that most English council Building
Control departments would not have anyone qualified in full
electrical inspection and test.

A quick visual inspection is not really unreasonable as you can
get a very good idea if the installer knew what they were doing
just by looking at the quality of the workmanship and some
obvious things like service bonding correct, etc. Whenever I've
done any work which required the electricity supplier to visit
and change the supply afterwards, I've never been asked for any
test certificates or similar. Again, I assume this is because
the workmanship they see is to professional standards. However,
I have heard of a number of other cases where they have asked
for certificates or similar (some in this newsgroup), and I
suspect that's what happens when they arrive and see something
which doesn't look like a job to a professional quality level.
Training BCO staff to perform a quick visual inspection on an
installation would be easy to do given their background, and
very effective in practice.

--
Andrew Gabriel