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Having some building done and part of it includes a dead test certificate.
What's a dead test certificate when it's at home? I've searched the internet and I can find a description of it, but nothing about what it looks like. Should the electrician have given me a piece of paper or something? I reckon it should be something along the lines of "all the cables pulled through and connected to switches by me look legit - signed A.N. Electrician" but the cables were pulled through by the builders so how would he know short of testing them with a meter or something?
My own electrician is connecting the mains. Can he not do it? Guess not, as he didn't put the cables in.
The guy was a bit of a cowboy (claimed not to know how to wire a light switch, tried to fob me off when I told him a couple of lights should be wired independently and so on, but you get bad eggs in every profession I guess.
Your electrician should do a continuity and resistance check on the installation. This will cost money.
It is not unheard of for insulation on cables to fail. If so the cable manufacturers insurance will pay for replacement assuming there is s paper trail back to them.
whoever pulled the cables should have documented how they did it. This way you know that stuff behind studs is in conduit, is it in the designated channels around switches of at 45deg along the wall, if it is running through insulation it is derated etc.
if you think the guy you are using is a bit of a cowboy sack him off and get someone you feel comfortable with. I am not sure it is still the case but if you look at the niceic website you can find members of that group. I believe that to qualify you have to have done the 5yr apprenticeship (or equivalent military one) and you get your work inspected periodically. It’s not a guarantee of competence but it can be a starting point.
whoever pulled the cables should have documented how they did it.
I've photographed all the cables / pipes I've fitted (even when I ignored the regs for expediency). Comes in handy 20 years later when I can't remember where they run...
@cornholio thank you very much for that detailed response.
My own electrician is good to deal with. So I was hoping he could do the work and I could charge this back to the company installing the building.
I've asked for the company to send someone else. They're sending one of their own round (who've been good to deal with) instead of a sub contractor. Let's see how it goes.
There isn’t a dead cert, what you should have is an eic (electrical installation cert), but as the spark never installed it he might be weary of issuing one.
If there no power, the electrician can’t complete his full range of test (RCD, loop test etc)
Thanks.
So what would an EIC cover? That the installed cables were documented. E.g: whether they were ducted etc like @cornholio98 said?
There is no such thing as a ‘dead test’ certificate. As said what you will have is a Electrical Installation certificate. This comprises of dead tests (insulation resistance, continuity) which are done to ensure its safe to energize the installation and then live tests (loop impedance and rcd) to ensure the circuits meet the required disconnection times. The qualified electrician who did the installation will complete the certificate and send it to building control usually via their part p scheme.
Am I right in thinking that you or someone not the electrician working for the builder put in the cabling then and the sparks is looking for some satisfaction that the Cabling is installed without insulation break down or dead shorts?
Tbh often electricians won’t touch work where the first fix is done by others as they have to ultimately sign the whole thing off and take responsibility for it
Adding to this I would state that unless the job is quite big and labour intensive (where it may work out cheaper to get non qualified or registered labour to pull in Cabling) then it’s not worth the hassle to install your own cabling as the cost of an industry registered contractor to undertake the testing and certify, works out more expensive than if they just did the whole job for you in the first place.
From (distant) memory we had three types of form. See below for examples
major works - house rewire - new machine install
minor works - new socket on ring main
periodic inspection - insulation, resistance, rcd check etc - these were for landlord safety Certs etc.
now I mentioned cables running through insulation before. I had a vague memory of new regs (20 years ago) that cables in insulation needed to be derated to prevent heat build up. As you cannot see underfloor or inside stud then this would be highlighted as an unknown on the form for liability. This is just one issue with certification of someone else’s work.
Same as when you get a house survey done and an massive list of things that it does not cover because they didn’t lift the floorboards etc.
@donks the people building the building run through the cables and connect it to consumer unit in the building. Their electrician then tests all the connections using a temp power supply. My electrician then lays cabling from the house back to the building. So there's a professional electrician checking all the work over at each stage.
When I built the workshop, BC specified two stages for their electrician to come and inspect, after 1st fix (before covering cables in walls) and for final test. I skipped 1st fix as I ran everything on surface mounted conduit, so it was easy to inspect / see where everything went. It all got signed off in one go and had been live for months before that.