timycelyn wrote:

I've been following this thread with great interest, and I must admit that
my feelings about this legislation are a mixture of rage and depression. I'm
a pretty serious DIY-er and have done all my own wiring over many years,
taking care to adhere to IEEE regs. As it happens I'm in the middle of a
pretty major (kitchen, as it happens!) project at present. I have a number

You should be ok since you started before the deadline... not that that
makes the situation any better in general however.

2. A public stink? Who knows - it could go either way really. ISTRM a
statistic quoted early on in this (?) thread that last year there were 2M
'paid' domestic electrical jobs done in the UK, and 1M DIY ones. (I may have
got the definitions wrong here, but my impression was that all tradesmen &
cowboy work was lumped into the 'paid' category.) What % of that 1M will be
seriously ****ed? - assuming that there are multiple jobs in there and so
on - my guess would be 10-25%. How many upset people does it take to make a
stink? - it really all depends on whether they have a voice and are
articulate or not. The problem here is that we are all individuals and not
represented by any official body with a voice.

I would guess there are not going to be that many people who are going
to feel passionately enough about the issue directly. Perhaps over time
when people realise it is yet another (government inflected) reason why
it is so hard and expensive to find good trades people, then you may
find some more fuss being made.

From a DIY perspective I anticipate that most DIYers will not have the
faintest idea the legislation even exists, and hence carry on as before.
Those that are aware of it I expect in most cases will ignore it. I get
the impression that many people only have a faint idea about the whole
concept of building control and BCOs etc anyway, let alone the legal
requirements. Unless you have had building work done recently (or you
read this newsgroup) then that is not perhaps that surprising.

I guess the general "problem" (from the POV of raising a stink) is that
while part P is a general PITA, but it is not generally the sort of
thing that is going to threaten many peoples livelihoods in such a way
that cannot be circumvented (unlike some of the cloud 9 tax legislation
that Gorden likes to bash small businesses with).

There is a "time of plenty" for the trades in general at the moment (and
if two jabs gets his way and does manage to concrete over the whole of
the south east, it seems likely to continue). I expect most sparkies
will simply see complying with part P as another expense and hence a
reduction in profits. (for those keeping out of the tax man's eye, a big
reduction... hey do you think....). Hence many may simply resist it
since it buys them nothing.

The more astute sparkies may be thinking of it as a potential money
winner, given that they can cough up for registration etc, but then
charge a price premium for their service. They could also start to pull
other sparkies, who do not wish to register, into their business and use
it as a way of growing the business.

The group that is much harder to call is the army of "other" trades that
also do electrical work (i.e. gas fitters, kitchen fitters, network
installers etc).

The media might get hold of it, but given their generally trivial and
brainless approach to this sort of domestic topic I don't hold out many
hopes.

I think you are right... I have yet to see many reasonable explanations
of the whole fiasco in any of the press. Much of the coverage is so far
of the mark to be even unrecognisable at times.

There are two obvious and opposite lines of attack:
i) Some poor old dear sitting freezing in her house because she can't get
anyone to wire up her boiler because no-one will touch Part P in her
locality. Would require some well informed and joined up research (!)
I) The guy in court. If he had done an A1 job and a particularly diligent
local council was prosecuting him on principle, then this could be good; but
more likely it will be a guy who has done a bloody awful job, someone got a
shock, the council prosecutes and everyone applauds and says how jolly good
Part P is.

The obvious danger is the press will look for the sensational "human
angle", "the government should protect the ....", "oh they did, cowboy
flouts the law etc". To get upset about the legislation itself, requires
a good deal more analysis and understanding of its implications and
how/why it came into being. You only need to look at the amount of time
we have spent discussing it in this forum, to know that it not going to
happen in a 20 second sound bite on the news.

3. The rebel. I'd like to get a better understanding of the powers in play
here, so here are a few questions:

i) What rights of access does yer local BCO have on private property? Are

I don't believe they have any statutery right of entry (unlike customs
and excise, or ironically, your electricity supplier).

they the same as the police where - with suitable paperwork completed - they
can insist on entry, or are they the same as - say - a planning department,
who have to be invited on by the householder? (Of course, if they are
invited on for another job, there is a risk the whole can of worms might
open up, so a prospective rebel needs to do some seriously joined up
thinking and very good work...)

Given that the majority of BCOs do not seem to come from the electrical
trades anyway, it seems unlikely they are going to be keen to get into
too much detailed discussion on the subject. They may ask questions
however and see where the householder leads them.

ii) Sale time and sellers packs. So I eventually sell this place and get all
these surveys done, and the electrical one finds something (I'd be
surprised, but you never know surveyors) that raises an issue. Do I have to
fix this before I am allowed to sell - or do I just have to negotiate with
my buyer saying 'OK, there's this item on the report, say ｣500 off for you
getting an electrician to sort it out..'?

Guess it depends on the market. You may need to pay to have the various
works that have been done without notification "regularised". If they
are all to standard however they will not be instructing to to rip out
the work etc.

(in fact that seems like the best way forward for most DIYers, do as
many jobs as you want, when you want, over however many years. Then just
pay the one fee at the end to have the proverbial building control holy
water sprinkled on it when you sell the place. If anyone tell you that
you are a naughty boy you can simply say "Part P? never heard of it gov").

iii) Means of detection. Unless I'm missing something the private
householder (as opposed to the cowboy) has very little risk of being
detected indeed. The only routes seem to be either by BCO visit (i above),
by sale (bit late by then) or by getting it wrong and having an incident of
some nature (fire/shock) which draws official attention (there is the
insurance dimension here as well, but that's another story). Am I right?

I expect so...

(other options might be being "grassed up" by a busybody neighbour etc).

--
Cheers,

John.

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