"BigWallop" wrote in message
...

"Peter" wrote in message
...
Hi
I know that electrical work should be carried out by a "competent
person"
and I count myself as being competent though I am not a qualified
electrician
.
However how would an insurance company treat work carried out in my home
by
myself?
If there was a fire or person electrocuted even if not directly from
the
work that I had done but would the fact that I had done some work count
against me? Would the insurance company still cover a claim?

What about doing some work for a friend - putting in an extra socket,
unpaid. I would be concerned that if he had an electrical fault
unrelated to
the socket that I had put in his insurance company would refuse to
consider
a claim because I had made an alteration.

How do insurance companies treat DIY for yourself or a friend?

Regards
Peter



If it's a fire caused by an electrical fault and the fire investigator
found that it
was your work that had caused it, how would you feel ? Are you covered by
liabilities
insurance for doing this type or similar work ? If the fire investigator
found that
the fire started in a totally different room from where you had been
working, but that
the work you carried out on the circuit caused the overload because of you
didn't know
that the circuit couldn't take the load you applied to it, how would you
feel ?

Would your friend find it in his heart to forgive you because you were
trying to help
out ? Would your family say "It's OK, you weren't to know" ?

Maybe that's why the government are trying to introduce new legislation to
make it law
that any work be certificated by a qualified fully trained person, and are
trying to
stop the rot of the DIYer on this type work. It is dangerous to play
around with
electrical, gas and building installations if you don't know what and how
things work
on them.

Some of this is wise but the OP didn't disagree with your final paragraph,
he judges that he is competent and that he does know "what and how things
work". I consider myself the same but, for reasons you state further up, I
no longer do any "helping out a friend" work (not that I ever did much). You
don't know what they are then going to do and you are right, you really
don't want to be mixed up in that - it's just not worth it.

In addition, the OP may be, and regard himself, as competent. In the eyes of
the law competency is rarely (if ever) self-judged. If you have no
documentary proof that you are competent then, by definition, you are not a
competent person (no matter what level of skills or knowledge you have,
which may be considerable in excess of some "competent" people). That's just
the way it is and the situation is directly related to the instances of
completely incompetent electrical work found.

If you judge yourself to be competent, stick to your own stuff, get anything
other than minor works inspected if possible, and live with it!


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)