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DIY - Are you breaking the law?

According to government statistics every year in Britain ten people die and over seven hundred and fifty are injured through faulty electrical installations in the home. In order to address this the UK building regulations have been expanded to include electrical safety requirements.

Recommended initially by the Construction Industry Deregulation Task Force in 1995 ‘Part P’ became a law on January 1st 2005 and states:

• ‘Reasonable provision shall be made in the design, installation, inspection and testing of electrical installations in order to protect persons from fire or injury.’
• ‘Sufficient information shall be provided so that persons wishing to operate, maintain or alter an electrical installation can do so with reasonable care.’

• repairs and maintenance work or
• extra power points or lighting points or other alterations to existing circuits (except in specially defined areas such as a kitchen, bathroom or outdoors
  

All electrical works subject to Part P must be approved by a ‘competent person’, local authority building control department, or other approved private sector building inspector. Upon completion of the work the inspector must supply the relevant building control body (as well as the person ordering the work) with an Electrical Installation Certificate.

This means that electrical contractors will either have to be approved as 'a competent person', or have their work, on every individual installation, passed by a local authority, or Building Control. Unfortunately this incurs a fee every time they do so, which in all likelihood will be passed on to the customer.

A ‘competent person’ is defined as a ‘person (or firm) that has been approved by one of the government-approved Part P schemes as sufficiently competent to self-certify that its work complies with the Building Regulations’. These schemes include the NICEIC Approved Contractor scheme, the Domestic Installer Scheme and the Electrotechnical Assessment Scheme.

Whether you think Part P is further government meddling and red tape, or long awaited for and much needed legislation in combating rogue traders, it is now a UK law and failure to comply is a criminal offence. Local authorities will also have the power to require the removal or alteration of work that does not comply with the Building Regulations.

Information for contractors can be found at electrical test equipment.