Inspection & Testing

Hello Derek, I would think that an Inspection and Test course and exam say City & Guilds 2391 or whatever it is called these days would give you a good insight to testing requirement procedures and the form filling and therefore a good understanding of what the EICR/Periodic form should mean. Coupled off course with the last regs exam (18th Edition) unless you already have that one. That would be your starter for 10 so to speak

Good for you, if only more people took that approach and wanted to know more about what they were paying for/ supervising .

I think you may be in for a surprise how many folk doing testing are quite shaky on the underlying principles and come unstuck in non-standard situations. 

We sometimes see extracts from paperwork that are clear works of fiction, or perhaps more charitably, competence limited operatives over-reaching. Mostly the folk who receive such offerings are in no position to challenge the conclusions, and may be either duped into unneeded remedial works  or left with un-spotted weaknesses in their installation, or indeed on a bad day, both at once.

assuming you do the Cand G course, or indeed even if not, this forum is a good place to ask apparently ‘silly’ questions and discuss stuff in a non-formal setting (think of it as a bit like chatting in the pub - and perhaps if appropriate, treat those of us here and the advice given with the same level of caution.)

Mike.

Hi Mike, thanks for getting back. 

I recently started to look into the electrical inspection and testing side of things on our projects and yes I did get a very big surprise. Our company has an operations and maintenance (o&m) directorate who among other things, receive our NICIEC certs and continue with the periodic inspection and testing. The staff that look after this have the appropriate training and experience to know the significance of the certs and if they have been completed appropriately. When I spoke to them, I was shocked. There are so unhappy with what they have been receiving from us, they have decided to employ an independent third body to verify the certs.

As I have said, I have a good understanding of electrical science and principles, but do not consider myself an electrician. In fact my degree course was very mathematical, which I enjoyed, and did not cover anything to do with the Wiring Regulations, which means I have always tended to shy away from such work. I contacted NICIEC organisation themselves to find out what range of courses they provided. Obviously they provide a comprehensive list, but said their courses were meant for electricians.

I have no desire to become an electrical designer, installer or tester, but would like to have a qualification that says I understand the importance of the certificates and can check/verify their contents.

Regards, Derek

Derek Eccles: 
I have no desire to become an electrical designer, installer or tester, but I would to able to have a qualification that says I understand the importance of the certificates and can check/verify their contents.

The difficulty with a C&G I&T course is that you need to demonstrate (or had to demonstrate) an aptitude for testing against the clock. I would suggest that you get a copy of Guidance Note 3 and if you stick around in here, you will learn a lot. I have. ?

The correct course would really be the Level 4 C&G 2400 Design, Erection and Verification, but that’s probably more than you have in mind.

Sparkingchip: 
 

The correct course would really be the Level 4 C&G 2400 Design, Erection and Verification, but that’s probably more than you have in mind.

I think that's a spot-on observation. When I finished my electrical engineering degree back in 1992, the first thing I did was enrol in the predecessor [well, probably distant ancestor] to this … C&G240 … to get some recognition of the practical experience I already had.

It was 10 weeks of night school, and included a design project, practical examination of initial verification (and if I remember some fault-finding but not quite to the detail of the 2391 I did back in 2007), and a 3-hour, closed-book, examination covering design, erection, and inspection & testing.

Number of people passing the course was excruciatingly low, around a third if I remember correctly.

The college tutor asked me why I wanted to do the course when I had a degree in the subject. 
At that point I had to tell him something similar to the OP … the degree had too little practical content. Great for furthering the theory and analysing stuff though.

Some good stuff on youtube

Not a course but a useful book: