"Harvey Van Sickle" wrote in message
...
On 20 May 2004, BigWallop wrote


"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 ?

But that wasn't his question: the situation he asked about was where
the investigator established that it wasn't related to his work.

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 ?

Again, that's not the situation he was asking about -- you've premised
a situation where the cause of the fire was *related* to his work. He
was asking about the situation where the fire *wasn't* related to his
work.

Your advice is sound, but it applies to situations which, as I read it,
he was specifically trying to exclude from the discussion.

Cheers,
Harvey



But these situations can't be ruled out of this type of discussion. Peter says he
feels competent in doing this type job for himself and others, but if he is competent
enough he shouldn't be having these doubts. He'd know if the work that he carried out
was up to specifications of the current electrical installers institute codes of
practice that he studied before carrying out the work. If it happened that any
qualified person had the same doubts, then surely they shouldn't be doing this type of
job anymore.

Competency is measured in the confidence you have in yourself that the work you do is
fully compliant with safe practice. And the security of knowing that the work is done
properly shouldn't be an issue. So to ask if an insurance company would take into
consideration that the person doing the work is not competent, to me, is a stupid
question. Especially if that person is not confident in the work that they themselves
carried out.

If you have any doubt in the work that you carried out, then you should leave it well
alone. More especially where the health and safety of others is a big issue.