RE: New Regs to kill DIY HA?

["Dean Barrett" <dean@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I can feel an opening in the market occuring.

BUT, unfortunately you're right. I've got 40 Electricians working for me at
the moment, and not one of them would know what HA is...

As an NICEIC firm, we have not had to do anymore work to become Part P
ready, though i've heard of a lot of little people (conservatory electrics,
extension wiring) saying they're going to do something else as Part P for
them is too much hassle.

At the end of the day the only thing i can see happening is more people
DIYing as they wont want to pay our sort of prices for an extra socket
added. It'll take a while before it really hits home, but as soon as you
move house and the solicitors ask for certification thats when it'll have
an
affect on things.

Perhaps i should consider training one of my guys in HA, then i can send it
out to everyones house to certify their work :)

A few are familiar with CBus now, but when i try to explain X10 i get a lot
of blank expressions.




Dean.


_____

From: Stuart Grimshaw [mailto:stuart.grimshaw@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 18 December 2004 13:03
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx; uk_selfbuild@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] New Regs to kill DIY HA?


I read a post on the now defunct(?) ukha_1wire mailing list about
controlling lights with 1-wire stuff, and it struck me that from
January, this kind of project is ging to be neigh on impossible in the
UK.

With the new regulations coming into force that requires all
on-trivial electrical work to be certified by a qualified electrician,
we wont be able to undertake projects such as this. The LD11's I
fitted to control my external lights for example would become illegal.

Where are people going to be able to find an electrician who is
prepared to certify projects like that, because your average sparky in
the yellow pages wont even have heard of X10, never mind seen it.

The other option that was mentioned a long time ago was to become self
certified, so that you can certify your own work, but that was the
last I heard of iy, I've not seen any details of any courses being
run.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnell, the governments
webpage states:

"You do not need to tell your local authority's Building Control
Department about:

* repairs, replacements and maintenance work; or
* extra power points or lighting points or other alterations to
existing circuits (except in a kitchen or bathroom, or outdoors)."

So you could argue that replacing your existing lighting with a CBus
installation comes under "repairs, replacements and maintenance"
but I
think somehow that refers to replacing a lightswitch that's faulty.

When the new regulations started, there was talk of
self-certification, but this was mis-interpreted by many as meaning
you could go on a course and self certify your own installations,
however it means that an electrician who is a certified competant
person can certify his own installations without requiring inspection
by the building control people.

It's not just lighting that's going to be effected either, many HA'ers
interface their controllers with their boilers, via a relay, and I
guess that this kind of work would also require inspection. Which BCO
or sparky is going to certify that kind of work? You could argue that
it's "alterations to existing circuits", but the regulations are
a bit
vague.

I very much doubt you'll be able to find any sparky who would certify
any DIY HA installations, as they wouldn't want to risk the liability,
should anything go wrong, and that's what signals the end of DIY HA in
the UK to me.

--
-S