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

Very interested in this topic - I am involved in this on behalf of a group
of companies who perform minor electrical work as an "add on" to their main
activity. There must be thousands of such firms who will be in the sh** when
this proposal becomes law. Only those firms who are "accredited" will be
authorised to issue the required Competion Certificate - otherwise the
Building Inspector will have to test the work. Does the Gov realise what a
hole they are digging. Of the 65,000 electrical contractors in the UK,
only about 13,000 are currently "accredited/certified". The rest will be
out in the cold. The IEE is setting up a Certification Scheme to address
this. Given the scale of the problem with actual Electrical Contractors,
and that they will also have to address the myriads of other trades who also
fiddle with electrics (eg kitchen fitters) twill be a long time undeed
before they send their enforcers to check on the DIY chaps. Crazy wot?
All correspondence on this with the oFfice of the Deputy Prime Minister,
NET, CITB etc seems to be happily ignored.
"Hugo Nebula" Send-My-Spam-To: abuse@localhost wrote in message
...
From the chaotic regions of the Cryptosphere, Andrew McKay
wrote on Wed, 23 Jul 2003 23:29:38
+0100:

On 23 Jul 2003 13:36:22 -0700,
(northern_relayer) wrote:

extracted from: http://www.odpm.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN...n_id=2003_0133

Thanks for drawing attention to this, it has been expected for a
while. I notice the link at the bottom of the page to the DTLR web
site doesn't work.

The consultation paper is at

http://www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/grou...contentservert
emplate/odpm_index.hcst?n=173&l=2
or http://makeashorterlink.com/?L1F832565
--
Hugo Nebula
"You know, I'd rather see this on TV,
Tones it down" - Laurie Anderson

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 17:26:00 +0100, Andrew McKay
wrote:

On 23 Jul 2003 13:36:22 -0700,
(northern_relayer) wrote:

extracted from: http://www.odpm.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN...n_id=2003_0133

For what it's worth I printed that web document and have just written
to my MP, making a few salient points about the probabilities relating
to electrical casualties which take place:

I received a friendly reply from my MP this morning. He basically
agrees with my synopsis of this legislation and is going to take the
matter up with the appropriate minister. His words were "yet another
example of over regulation".

Just to reiterate, my main focus of attack was that implementing this
new scheme "to save lives" would do nothing of the sort, as the vast
majority of fatalities and injuries which had implications for the
electrical supply actually involve appliances and customer-side
wiring, not the behind-the-wall installation. It wasn't ever going to
stop someone being electrocuted because they drove their electric
lawnmower over the power cable.

Andrew

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