Hi,
About 3 years ago I bought a 1960’s era house.
I now want to upgrade the kitchen, and I need to add 4 more double sockets. From what I’ve read about ‘part P’ and the IET wiring regs I need to get an electrician in to do this work.
I got a local electrician in to quote for the work, the problem is that although the work I want doing is relatively trivial, the electrician recons the house has been partially re-wired after 2005 when the part P rules came in, but there’s no sign of any paperwork for it – he did say that the wiring appears to be of a good standard, just no paperwork. The result is that he’s refused to even quote for the work!
The first question is why was this missed when I bought the house? Whose job was it to check? Should the seller have told me about this? Should the building surveyor have inspected the wiring? Should my solicitor have checked some records somewhere? Where should the records be? Should they be held by the house owner, or should they be held by the council?
The second question, is what can I do about? Can I just get an inspector in to check the wiring? Or do I need to have the house re-wired (this seemed to be what the electrician was hinting)?
The final question is what can I do to ensure that this doesn’t happen again? If I get an electrician to do some work for me in the future, what sort of paperwork or certificates do I need to make sure I get from him?
Thanks