ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Testing: Do You ?

Paul,
Sorry its taken me a couple of days to come back on this one. You've made me work for the answer!
As an apprentice in college we were told that IEE Regs (now BS 7671) had the force of law behind them in Scotland, for 20 years I had never questioned this.
The following information was supplied to me by Highland Council Building Control Dept. in Inverness:
All work requiring Building Warrant (don't know what the equivalent is in England) requires an "Electrical Completion Certificate". This is a council form, single side A4, not to be confused with the IEE cert. of similar name.
Anyone signing this "Elec. Comp. Cert." is taking legal responsibility for the portion of electrical work described within it complying with Building Regs / BS 7671.

Electrical work such as rewiring or adding extra points should technically have Building Warrant, whether or not any other building work is carried out. Therefore it is covered by the Building Regs.
This is news to me, and Highland Council do not enforce this rule.

At present anyone can sign the "Electrical Completion Certificate" if they carried out or supervised the installation, there is no requirement to be a qualified electrician. Legal liability rests with the person signing the form regardless of their qualifications or competence.
I am told there are plans to change the Building Regs, so that electrical installations where Building Warrant forms are required can only be undertaken by "Competent Enterprises", eg. SELECT or NICEIC contractors.

The Building Control Dept. of the local council are responsible for enforcing compliance with Regs. As these Building Control Officers do not have an electrical background, they rely on the person signing the certificate to have carried out the installation correctly. Only an obvious defect (eg. a 13A socket in a bathroom or live wires hanging out of the wall) or complaint would cause them to question the electrical installation.

Bottom line is:
Scottish electrical installations should comply with BS 7671, but many don't.
However the legal remedies do exist, even if rarely used.
This is not an ideal situation, but it may be marginally better than the English system.

I would like to see compulsory licensing of electricians throughout the UK, with regular spot check inspections!
That is a whole new topic though.

Here in Belgium the Electricity supplier company doesn't give you electricity before that you have a third organisation which come and do the testing and then seal the main Differential (gfi)

David,
Many thanks for taking the time and trouble to track down the information.

I've never heard the term "Building Warrant" before. As I understand the system, in England & Wales we have planning permission (or planning consent). It would always be needed for a new building, major extension, and so on, but not for many minor extensions and changes, unless located in a conservation area or something like that. Quite separate, however, are the Building Regulations which apparently apply to all works, whether planning permission is needed or not. But as far as they go, they seem to make no mention of electrical systems whatsoever. So basically, residential wiring isn't regulated by anything or anybody.

If I've got my facts straight, there are really only two legal issues which might apply. First, if a contract specifies compliance with BS7671 (which most will), then obviously any works not in compliance would be breach of that contract. Second, if somebody were hurt due to dangerous wiring, there could be a lawsuit against the installer on the grounds that if he weren't competent to carry out a safe installation then he shouldn't have done it at all.

It sounds as though your Electrical Completion Certificate just puts on record who was actually responsible for the wiring so that if there are any problems down the line it's easier to trace who to hold responsible. Here, I see dozens of dangerous situations, but by the time I find them, in most cases nobody has the slightest idea who did the work.

Belgian,
Is your main GFI owned by the power company, or by the house owner? In England only equipment up to and including the meter itself is PoCo property. The main GFI (RCD) is not sealed at all.

"Is your main GFI owned by the power company, or by the house owner? In England only equipment up to and including the meter itself is PoCo property. The main GFI (RCD) is not sealed at all."

No, the GFI is here too, owned by the house owner. It's the inspector-not the company- which put a seal. It's so that the owner doesn't tamper with the electricians work. So, that the responsibility of a eventual fault cannot be blamed on the electrician.