Thanks for digging out the wording.
I didn't actually mean to suggest a conflict in that sense. More querying how one relates to the other. If the law says "electrical safety standards are met" with electrical saftey standards being defined as BS7671, I can't decide if that means it needs to meet BS7671 in all regards as per a new installation or if it allows BS7671's own provisions for older installations.
Maybe I'm over thinking it....again!
You may be over-thinking it. That bit in the Introduction says that non-compliant installations do not have to be upgraded. It does not say that existing installations that have been installed in accordance with earlier editions of the regulations are deemed to comply with this edition if they are not unsafe for continued use.
What has yet to be determined by a court ruling is whether the law requiring that "electrical safety standards are met" means that an existing installation has to comply with every aspect of BS 7671:2018 or only some, and if the latter, which.
A consensus seems to have emerged that it must have no non-compliances coded as C1 or C2. Superficially reasonable, if we think it reasonable to enshrine in law the can of worms which is the significantly indeterminate nature of many C2-or-C3 decisions ¹ .
But, and this is where you may be
under-thinking it, there is no basis in fact for any determination based on C1/C2/C3. None whatsoever.
The lawmakers have done a truly abysmal job. Leaving aside the is-it-a-C2-or-a-C3 issue, they could have required landlords to have an EICR carried out which complied with the current edition of the Wiring Regulations (i.e. the
carrying out of the EICR had to be in accordance, not the installation) and that any C1 or C2 conditions be rectified within x days and a new EICR done.
But they didn't. What they did was unbelievable, really. (Or is it, sadly, all too believable?)
They required that private landlords must ensure that the electrical safety standards are met during any period when the residential premises are occupied under a specified tenancy.
And they defined "electrical safety standards" as "the standards for electrical installations in the eighteenth edition of the Wiring Regulations, published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the British Standards Institution as BS 7671: 2018".
So, what are those "standards"? What, exactly, does the eighteenth edition of the Wiring Regulations, published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the British Standards Institution as BS 7671: 2018 actually require?
The BS standard says "The Regulations apply to the design, erection and verification of electrical installations, also additions and alterations to existing installations."
Nothing, nothing at all, about them applying to existing installations where no additions or alterations are being done. They apply only to the activities of designing, erecting and verifying new installations or designing, erecting and verifying additions and alterations to existing ones.
Then, how old is the installation? Because only installations designed after 31st December 2018 are to comply with the eighteenth edition - it says so quite clearly. These are the requirements which the 18th edition imposes on installations designed before that date:
- None
- Zip
- None
- Nothing
- Nada
- SFA
- All of the above.
And oh how I would love it if a judge, who was pedantic even by the standards of judges, and who was utterly p'd off with the egregious incompetence of government law writers, and who had been having a bad week anyway even before his piles started giving him gyp were to say (in suitable judge-language)
"
You know what? In the matter of The Crown vs Mr. Hapless Landlord I find that the law does not require that his property meet any particular electrical standards. Case dismissed."
Because I too am utterly p'd off with the egregious incompetence of people whose salaries I pay with my taxes.
¹ As an aside, it isn't always a case of "
don't be ridiculous, it's a C3 at best, no way it's a C2". I was recently looking at a landlords report, where the property had a Wylex standard, and a couple of the fuse carrier backplates were missing their screws, so if someone pulled a fuse to repair it, possibly by torch or flickering candle light, it would be a case of "oh woops there's all this IP00 live metalwork".
He gave it a C2 - not sure I wouldn't have preferred a C1.
Still - I suppose it balanced out the C3 he gave for accessories having paint on them.
