I am need to have my house rewired but do to a lack of funds (girlfriend out of work for 5 months and a costly kitcar) I am considering doing it myself and getting it certified by a 'proper' electrician. I have rewired 'rooms' myself and I am getting pretty confident with the Kit Cars wiring.

Is this possible for someone of my skill to do, or is it a job for a seasoned professional only? My house is a two bed end terrace with solid concrete floors downstairs. As far as I can tell all the electrics are distributed to the lower floor downwards from under the first floor and the upper floors electrics are distributed downwards from the attic.

Any electricians on here or does anyone have helpful advice?

The problem is finding an electrican willing to certify your own work...

I did something similar with my house, but the electrician also happened to be the builder putting up my extension so he was able to poke his nose into see I was going about things properly.

Its not a difficult task, but make sure you read and understand the relevant bits of the wiring regs.... if its designed on paper and built to regs, your sparky has less reason to fail the system...

If your not 100% sure of your abilities then dont do it... its not worth risking electric shock, fire or death..

I'm not an Electrician and certainly not an expert but before the introduction of Part P I rewired two houses getting the installation connected to the main supply by the electricity supply company who, I believe, didn't charge for this at that time.

The installation was relatively simple to do provided you understand what's required and work carefully. I was fortunate to work in a company who employed electricians so I could always get advice.

As I underastand it the Building Control department of your local council can do the inspection etc for you and the paragraph below is from Maidstone Councils web-Site:

Compliance with Part P can be achieved via:

•Submitting a Building Regulation application to the council for the fixed electrical work only. Applications must include full details of the proposed work including an electrical installation diagram and specification showing compliance with BS 7671 (the IEE Wiring Regulations) e.g. cable types, circuits, fuses/circuit breakers, earthing and bonding conductors; and fixed electrical appliances. This may be part of an application submitted for other work controlled by the Building Regulations or may be submitted as a stand alone application for the electrical work. Note: Where this option is chosen the Council will arrange for a registered and competent person (acting as our agent) to carry out an inspection of the installation before covering up; and for an inspection and test of the completed installation

The fee is approximately £200 so I guess it may not make financial sense to do the work yourself.

John.

You can just get a certificate of compliance and then do a retrospective application with building control.
I've just rewired my entire house including putting in a new CU and am heading down that path. Because of the work I was doing at the same time it worked out better than getting a spark in to do it.
The only tricky thing is you really must ensure that you comply with the current regs otherwise you won't get certification and therefore won't get building control approval. It took a lot of reading up in order to make sure it was all tickity boo but the end result's a proper job.

It still seems ironic to me that I could buy a house with the entire house on one circuit (including night storage heaters!!!), corroded wires covered in rotting rubber and old fashioned sockets nicely nailed onto the skirting boards yet if I do a rewire and don't have the compliance certificate the BCO will consider it dangerous!

But anyway.....

If you want to save money what you can do is cut-out the knock-out boxes (at the approved height please!) and chase out the wiring runs then just get a spark in to lay the wires and connect it all up. Some sparks will even let you run the wires and then they just connect up the sockets etc etc. But it's worth discussing it with a spark first to make sure they'll do that...

Re your comment above about knockout boxes at the correct height..... I believe this only applies to new build.... renovations should not be an issue keeping them at the old height...

Thanks for the info John P. I have just read the documentation regarding Part P and they seem to have made the situation very complex for a person to get the work certified. It might be easier to do the course and certify myself but at the local college that costs over a £1000 in course fees.

Seems there is no cheap option unless your best mate is a certified electrician.

@BenB

A electrician I spoke to said 3/4 of the time when wiring a house is taking up skirting boards and floor boards etc. If I find a friendly enough sparky this may be the way to go.

If you weren't so far away..... theres a few sparks part p ect joel motleria real and others further south

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Originally posted by Irony
It might be easier to do the course and certify myself but at the local college that costs over a £1000 in course fees.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Irony
Thanks for the info John P. I have just read the documentation regarding Part P and they seem to have made the situation very complex for a person to get the work certified. It might be easier to do the course and certify myself but at the local college that costs over a £1000 in course fees.

Seems there is no cheap option unless your best mate is a certified electrician.

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Speak to your building control department and make sure they will test, inspect and certify it before you get started. I could not find a sparky who would certify/test someone elses work, but the council sparky did it for £75.

There was a thread about this not long ago - do a search, and I'm sure you will find some useful info...

you could try to find a sparky thats happy to do the final wiring if you run all the cables that would save days of work.
Ray

Thanks for taking the time to advise me. cheers for the detailed post. I will have to get my thinking cap on and start doing some research.