Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 40 replies
  • Subscribers 40 subscribers
  • Views 5677 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Scope of Part P (extra-low voltage)

WireWeHere

I'm trying to understand the scope of Part P as at the extra low voltage end of things it seems a bit contentious. Below is an extract from Approved Part P and it includes extra-low voltage. That raises some questions:

  1. Would 48V DC be in the scope of Part P as extra-low voltage appears to have no bottom end, just a top end at 50V AC and 120V DC? As an example, installing house wide lighting 'through the fabric of the building' run with a plug in 48V supply (plugged into a socket outlet).
  2. Lots of people are retrofitting under unit lights into their kitchens which are 12V. They have a plug in transformer, but in many cases the wires are then routed 'through the fabric of the building'. Why isn't this in the scope of Part P if a house wide extra-low voltage lighting system would be?

The second case could arguably be an 'electrical installation' too as although it is plugged in to an outlet, the wires and lights are fixed.

Is it that both of these would be in the scope of Part P, but if both plugged in to existing outlets, they wouldn't be notifiable? If that's the case, in theory they could also both have wired in transformers spurred off an existing circuit as that would only be notifiable if it's an 'addition or alteration to existing circuits in a special location' which if it didn't include a bathroom it wouldn't be. Am I understanding that right?

There's a bit of a can of worms here, but LEDs are becoming so efficient that house wide extra-low voltage systems may start to become more of a thing.

Parents
  • 0

    Napit always struck me as the operator of the better scheme in all this actually, catering more fairly for the truly competent one man band with a varied portfolio of work. Niciec seemed more keen on the idea of larger companies with as far as I can tell a minimum of one fully one competent person, and lots of installers in the field whose work gets signed off by someone, who may be keen and visit every job, or may just review them from the office. It relies on most people being good, and of course most people are.  But to be successful a scheme to improve standards needs to be more than trusting.However all these schemes are not without cost, to the electrician and eventually the customers, and the problem, as described above, is that the good guys get bypassed by the cheapskates, and always have actually, part P or not.

    But the killer is not who has an up to date City and Guilds cert, or whose supervisor at a distance has paid up the membership fee this season, but actually who knows what they are doing and has enough pride not to do some terrible hack-job today. To that end having a logo that shows some one made a recurring membership payment is less useful than insisting on a personal pass certificate of any kind for the person actually on-site holding the wire cutters. Especially if that cert could be revoked for poor work. But showing a certificate does not create a regular source of income for someone else so that is not what we have.

    And as the figures quite starkly show that pre- and post part p incidents follow  more or less the same trends , it is very hard to claim it has done any good 17 years or not.

    Mike.

Reply
  • 0

    Napit always struck me as the operator of the better scheme in all this actually, catering more fairly for the truly competent one man band with a varied portfolio of work. Niciec seemed more keen on the idea of larger companies with as far as I can tell a minimum of one fully one competent person, and lots of installers in the field whose work gets signed off by someone, who may be keen and visit every job, or may just review them from the office. It relies on most people being good, and of course most people are.  But to be successful a scheme to improve standards needs to be more than trusting.However all these schemes are not without cost, to the electrician and eventually the customers, and the problem, as described above, is that the good guys get bypassed by the cheapskates, and always have actually, part P or not.

    But the killer is not who has an up to date City and Guilds cert, or whose supervisor at a distance has paid up the membership fee this season, but actually who knows what they are doing and has enough pride not to do some terrible hack-job today. To that end having a logo that shows some one made a recurring membership payment is less useful than insisting on a personal pass certificate of any kind for the person actually on-site holding the wire cutters. Especially if that cert could be revoked for poor work. But showing a certificate does not create a regular source of income for someone else so that is not what we have.

    And as the figures quite starkly show that pre- and post part p incidents follow  more or less the same trends , it is very hard to claim it has done any good 17 years or not.

    Mike.

Children
No Data

Community Rules & Guidelines