Scope of Part P (extra-low voltage)

Part P is supposed to ensure that electrical work is only undertaken by competent people, which can be a qualified electrician or a competent DIYer, but included advice for those who are unfamiliar with electrical installation work.

You know it makes sense 

One way to make folk who claim to be experts in a field to work competently, in the absence of state inspections, is to provide enough information for the other folk who employ them to be able to make some sort of assessment of  the job being done.  To that end the more  information in the public domain  that is accurate and neither scare-mongering & advertising  (electrical safety first) nor just plain wrong (mumsnet, some diy fora..) the better for all.

If you do not think so you may also think we do not need the onsite guide either.

Sadly when I have to take a vehicle  to a garage I get a far better job done than my wife, as I can talk on the level of torque wrenches, copperease and so forth and I know, and more importantly they know that I know, exactly what the job should entail, and worse that I will check it before I leave when I come to collect it. So  If they have to do something a bit odd, or uncover another problem I expect them to tell me.

In a perfect world all customers are equal, but this is not a perfect world, and folk are human.
"it'll be alright, they'll never know.."

I'd argue that sadly some shallow end of the market sparks are no better than the railway arch / bombsite garages - only this weekend in fact I was looking at a CU with the covers open muttering something quite rude along the lines of "what fool did this ?" - well the fool's company  NICIEC sticker was all over it. A more savvy customer should never have let him leave the property ,or better never enter it to begin with. (A double socket on 2.5mm and 60A fuse to meter tails in case you are wondering. And no, I do not think it is  worth trying to report, the system discourages that at every turn, and fixing it took me 15 mins.)

Now I know some workers do not like an interested customer who asks questions and wants to know the ins and outs, and I can see the problem of the extra time lost, but you have to ask if sometimes  there is another reason why  that is.

Could it be that behaving like understanding electrics  is like the ' secrets of the magic circle' allows a rather hollow 'wizard of oz' like under-performance to go undetected in some cases ?

I must admit, I do not see that much domestic wiring these days, it is not my day job, so it is friends and family only, and  maybe I am unlucky and only see the funny ones, but I do get a more honest full story of who did what in what order. I'm afraid what I do see does not fill me with confidence.

I'm with DZ, part P does diddly sqat for safety and fair treatment of the end user, and is  more about the safety of a few piggy banks of the scheme organisers.

(and as I m not a scheme member, in law, I'm probably just one of the scarier DIYers.)

Mike

One way to make folk who claim to be experts in a field to work competently, in the absence of state inspections, is to provide enough information for the other folk who employ them to be able to make some sort of assessment of  the job being done.  To that end the more  information in the public domain  that is accurate and neither scare-mongering & advertising  (electrical safety first) nor just plain wrong (mumsnet, some diy fora..) the better for all.

If you do not think so you may also think we do not need the onsite guide either.

Sadly when I have to take a vehicle  to a garage I get a far better job done than my wife, as I can talk on the level of torque wrenches, copperease and so forth and I know, and more importantly they know that I know, exactly what the job should entail, and worse that I will check it before I leave when I come to collect it. So  If they have to do something a bit odd, or uncover another problem I expect them to tell me.

In a perfect world all customers are equal, but this is not a perfect world, and folk are human.
"it'll be alright, they'll never know.."

I'd argue that sadly some shallow end of the market sparks are no better than the railway arch / bombsite garages - only this weekend in fact I was looking at a CU with the covers open muttering something quite rude along the lines of "what fool did this ?" - well the fool's company  NICIEC sticker was all over it. A more savvy customer should never have let him leave the property ,or better never enter it to begin with. (A double socket on 2.5mm and 60A fuse to meter tails in case you are wondering. And no, I do not think it is  worth trying to report, the system discourages that at every turn, and fixing it took me 15 mins.)

Now I know some workers do not like an interested customer who asks questions and wants to know the ins and outs, and I can see the problem of the extra time lost, but you have to ask if sometimes  there is another reason why  that is.

Could it be that behaving like understanding electrics  is like the ' secrets of the magic circle' allows a rather hollow 'wizard of oz' like under-performance to go undetected in some cases ?

I must admit, I do not see that much domestic wiring these days, it is not my day job, so it is friends and family only, and  maybe I am unlucky and only see the funny ones, but I do get a more honest full story of who did what in what order. I'm afraid what I do see does not fill me with confidence.

I'm with DZ, part P does diddly sqat for safety and fair treatment of the end user, and is  more about the safety of a few piggy banks of the scheme organisers.

(and as I m not a scheme member, in law, I'm probably just one of the scarier DIYers.)

Mike