Advice on notifiable installation(s)

[OwenF]

Morning,

 

I'm hoping for some advice from this forum, as elsewhere tends to have much less balanced opinions than here.

 

I am undertaking a garage conversion, for which I have submitted a Building Notice (more on this in a moment). Around 1 year prior to submitting the notice and starting work on the conversion, I paid an electrician to upgrade my consumer unit (including running new tails).

Now I naively assumed that this work would be self-certified and notified to BC. I received an EIC from the electrician and assumed all above board. (Yes, I didn't know I needed a compliance certificate at the time).

 

Fast forward to my Building Notice and I insisted to BC that I want to do my own installation of circuits within conversion and kitchen as part of my rennovations. They tried to dissuade me, but I said I was happy to pay the (two!) fees for their electricians to test and certify my work. I have now paid these fees.

 

However, looking further into it I've realised that my consumer unit upgrade has likely NOT been notified to BC. In fact, I cannot find the electrician I used on the Competent Person Register or by searching with NAPIT/NICEIC directly. This suggests its unlikely he can self-notify.

My suspicion is he either thought, or took advantage of the fact I mentioned I would be doing the garage conversion.

To make matters worse I am wholly not convinced by the routing of the tails internally, given my IWI plans.

AND he only installed a 10-way board when I asked for 14-way. Fobbed me off when I questioned it. Generally very unhappy about the whole affair.😠

 

So, I am now in a situation where any BC inspection of my electrical work in the garage/kitchen would likely flag the rather new looking consumer unit in the room. I am worried that I'm now in a very diificult situation.

 

My options seem to be:

 

1) do the first fix new circuits & get BC round for inspection. Hope they don't notice/don't care about the CU. If they do, I explain my situation and pray for sympathy (unlikely).

 

2) accept bringing the CU into the scope of BC inspection. This I cannot fathom, as the CU is and has been energised for well over a year. Surely if it were to be in their scope i'd have to de-energise until such time as first and second fixx + testing had been completed by their electricians?

This options feels least favourable, unless anyone can advise how this would work in practice?

 

3) enquire with local electricians holding the NAPIT third-party certification and see what they'd be willing to inspect & test. This being on the basis that IF they certified and notifed my work to BC, I would avoid difficult conversation with BC.

Issue with this is they 1) might not agree to certify my work and 2) might not agree to certify the previous electricians work.

 

Is there any other options i'm missing, or have any advice?

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

 

[joth]

A variation on #3 is they may charge you an additional fee to put right any issues in the CU install before notifying it. 

That'd be my favoured answer as then you know the work is safe and up to standard and you have the certs and BC notification you need. 

[FuerteStu]

(ignore this, didn't read your post properly) 

Edited February 4 by FuerteStu

[TonyT]

Where are you in the UK

My council (Fife) will take electrical certificates from any electrician as long as they supply a SJIB/JIB card which proves qualifications 

 

Edited February 4 by TonyT

[ProDave]

11 minutes ago, TonyT said:

Where are you in the UK

My council (Fife) will take electrical certificates from any electrician as long as they supply a SJIB/JIB card which proves qualifications 

 

Unlike Scotland, England has Part P of the building regs that requires a qualified electrician signed up with a competent persons scheme like NICEIC etc to sign it off.  In theory in England you can pay BC to do the test and certification, in practice it is almost impossible to get them to actually do that.

[OwenF]

1 minute ago, ProDave said:

Unlike Scotland, England has Part P of the building regs that requires a qualified electrician signed up with a competent persons scheme like NICEIC etc to sign it off.  In theory in England you can pay BC to do the test and certification, in practice it is almost impossible to get them to actually do that.

I’m in England. I have paid the fee for them to test and inspect (subject to my clarifications in the OP)

 

Incidentally, the reason I pursued this route is because my father did the same with his kitchen, so I know it’s possible. Back when he did it the P regulations said BC had to do it at their cost!

They seemed to have cottoned on and now charge the homeowner.

 

[OwenF]

Just want to bump this thread for any other opinions on my initial post.

 

A follow up query on responsibility…..

 

It seems to be the (general) case that notifying building control is the homeowners responsibility

 

it also seems fairly well known that BC will not accept an EIC for Part P compliance. EICRs seem to be occasionally accepted in mitigating circumstances.

The usual route is for electricians to notify works via a Part P registered scheme.

 

So, if a qualified electrician were to carry out notifiable works but NOT notify BC are they not leaving the homeowner in an impossible situation??

 

EIC not acceptable

Homeowner not able to notify via scheme

 

I can only imagine some electricians are carrying out notifiable works with the uninitiated homeowner none the wiser they’re lacking compliance paperwork (I.e. me before I researched the matter!!)

 

Edited February 8 by OwenF
Added rant