by ericmark »
Sun Mar 23, 2008 10:29 am
Although we want to help the DIY person to give advice when it may be miss-read and cause danger is not really help full. I read your request and skipped it as I could not quite make out what you intended to do or what you have. So rather than say yes or no to questions I’ll try to give some general guidance.
To get 4 wires into the hole of a normal socket outlets connections is near impossible so if on a ring main you can’t really take a second spur. So normally we would look for another method this could be to add a spur into the ring main if for example the wires come down the wall into the socket adding a spur 3 or 4 inches further up the wall could do the trick and if fused spur then that would also be covered but where outside wiring is involved RCD’s are used and here we must look at what is already fitted. Two things to consider is do you want a fault outside to affect inside it may be a 10ma RCD is required to stop an outside fault from tripping supply to your freezer these items may be considered very quickly by a skilled person but completely missed by the DIY person. Then the question is the existing installation sound. There should only be one spur taken from a ring main so if there are two cables then it should be a ring but people don’t always follow the rules and the ring status has to be checked this takes a few seconds for a skilled man but to instruct a DIY person on how to check cables with a meter is not as easy as you may think. We of course all make mistakes and to reduce the chance of a mistake going un-noticed we have a set of test that have to be completed after any job. These require meters that are on the expensive side often sold as a set of three and around the £750 mark there is nothing stopping the DIY person from doing the work but because to the mistakes made in the past a law has been passed that requires that DIY work in areas where mistakes are likely to be fatal is checked in the same way as the professional work. Bathrooms, Kitchens, Major work, and outside works all now require the forms to be submitted to building controls if building controls are not sure they can then visit and check them selves this is Part P and DIY and Professional alike have to submit the forms. The only difference is the registered professional does not have to inform building controls before work starts and his forms are checked by a clearing house who in turn inform the council building controls the work has been completed. So the registered professional pays one fee per year to cover all his work but the non-registered professional or DIY man has to pay for each job to the council. The fee to the council is quite high and with a complete re-wire it is a very small proportion of total cost but to fit a shaver socket in a bathroom could cost more than having the job done by a registered professional. As time has gone on the estate agents and mortgage lenders and solicitors are becoming more aware and are asking to view the completion certificates issued by building control. As also insurance companies are also asking to see the paperwork so more and more it is becoming essential to have this paperwork for us not to tell you it exists and to cause you all the problems in the future would not be very helpful I am sure you agree. Where we can see an answer to a question we will give it but with a note about Part P. But if we think the DIY person may be doing something which could be dangerous we are a little more pushing in telling them about Part P there is a link on this site under projects to the free down loadable Part P document and the sample paperwork starts on page 23. I would down load it and if you think you can fill in all the questions asked on the installation then go ahead but if you either don’t understand what is required or don’t have the meters required then you should be thinking of at least enlisting the help of a Part P registered spark.
