[Closed] Electrics - what can I / can't I do?

For a full rewire it needs to be certified by someone with the correct certification IIRC and all done to the correct standards I have done full and part rewires by having a friendly electrician with whom I discussed it before hand and then he checked, tested and certified it afterwards but I was lucky to find someone willing to do this. Effectively I worked under his supervision. He was well fussy as well - made me redo parts of it!

There is a surprising amount you can do yourself that doesn’t require formal certification. Of course whatever you do you need to make sure the work you do conforms to all the standards, but that’s not hard to look up. I’ve had to redo electrics in my home myself that ‘professional’ electricians have done due to crap work that was not always to code so getting a pro in is no guarantee you’re getting a good job done. Not sure if you can do a full re wire - well you can but might need to get it signed off. You’d have to look into that yourself in the part p regs.

Also if this is for a rental then check if that means additional things are required. My rental despite not being an HMO is done to HMO standards partly because in Scotland there is pressure to make rentals higher standard and partly because the agent I want to use wants everything done to the highest standards.

So that means full interconnected fire alarm and CO detector system which is much easier to do as apart of a rewire than as an add on, all appliances to have remote off switches, all light fittings fully fire rated etc etc

Not sure about Scotland, but in England you can do everything yourself and building control will inspect and certify it for you afterwards (for a fee). That's how I did our workshop.

TJ that wiring is much the same as ours with the exception of the wired CO detector, all had to be brought up to spec when we got our extension a few years back.

OP you can basically do as much as your electrician is willing to sign off on, that can range from running the wires up to connecting everything before he does the final connection and testing. FWIW the point about the quality of work is a good one, the regs aren't difficult to follow but when time is money corners can and will be cut by lesser tradesmen.

My layman's understanding (Scotland may be different):

You can do everything yourself on your own house.

However it must conform to the regulations. If it doesn't, then who knows what would happen if your work was faulty. I don't think it's been tested in court.

Major work e.g. rewire, new circuits and kitchens/bathrooms etc you are supposed to notify building control at your council first.

They will want to see that it conforms to regulations and sign it off - the way they do this is by someone qualified to issue a certificate sees it and signs it off.

You will need this sign off to sell the house (otherwise a buyer may not trust it and knock the price down) and it will help to prove to insurance companies the work was good if the place burns down.

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You can do a complete rewire yourself short of connecting it to the meter. As the meter is the electric companies property they will need to give permission, and would probably only give permission to an electrician.

Once you have rewired the house (leave EVERYTHING exposed) ring building control at your local council. They are bound by law to provide someone to come to your place and inspect it and issue a certificate.

You will have to pay for this. It will be on their timescales.

This may or may not be cost and time effective.

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I would find a local electrician who will plan the install, do final connections and let you do the donkey work of cutting in cable routes and laying wires.

OP - you can do as much as you want, wire the whole thing if you want as long as the person doing the work is "competent" - how that is actually defined is a minefield.

If you are going to do it yourself and you feel you are competent then have a look on the IET website, they have lots of good literature, such as the most recent wiring regulations (BS7671 18th Edition) and a good book the "onsite guide" which will help translate the regulations into the practical application.

Because you are in the People Republic of Scotland Building control wont want to know, its nothing to do with them, they wont come and inspect. Part P does not apply to you and there is no central body who you need to certify to. If you are applying for a building warrant then this is a completely different matter altogether.

It should have an installation certificate, which you may or may not be able to complete, depending on your knowledge, skills and access to the test equipment. If you are not able to do this then (as you are renting) as a minimum you will need to have one of those competent people perform an inspection and provide you with the EICR (Electrical Installation Condition Report) which you will need for renting and this will need to be renewed at a minimum of 5 year intervals.

Its likely that people will tell you that the person doing the testing has to be a member of SELECT/NICEIC/etc thats simply not correct. However it all comes back to competency.

I have seen so many installation certificates and EICR's that have been issued by people who are members of all of the various trade bodies that are pure fiction and bear no resemblance to the actual installation, its horrendous! when the professional bodies are contacted, the are not interested, first of all the person who requested the work is the only person who can complain, then the contractor has to be given the chance to rectify their work??? and only after that will the professional bodies think about getting involved.

As for the fire alarm system, it is now acceptable to install entirely battery operated radio interlinked alarms, as long as they are the correct ones. This probably wont be suitable for HMO.

Just remember if it all goes pear shaped, the onus will be on you to demonstrate your competency and in Scotland I believe you address the Judge as "M'laud", not "Your Honour"

As has been mentioned above, if you can find a friendly electrician who might feel they want to advise you or do part of the work or test it at then end that might be an option. Though why an electrician would want that risk for a few quid is a mystery - unless you know them on a personal level.