Quals needed

[DPG]

I would put an argument forward if i'd said that, but i didn't.

What i actually said was:


It's not your job to notify building control. Most homeowners however won't know this, and will get a shock if they go to sell the house and find out they needed to do it and didn't, and will likely blame the electrician. This is me saying 'you should tell them they need it'.


This is where i said you should tell them that they will need building control to be notified because if they don't they will have problems when they try to sell. 'I can sort it for you.' is where i'm telling the OP to tell them to pay the extra for the electrician to notify building control.

So you see, i've said he should notify them about building control and get them to pay for it either via you or off their own back, which you've all completely misconstrued as me somehow saying the exact opposite.

I think rather than us all misconstruing you, I think rather we understand exactly what you were advising the guy to do.

 

[Electrics]

I think rather than us all misconstruing you, I think rather we understand exactly what you were advising the guy to do.

I've literally just pasted exactly what i said, where i explicitly tell him to tell the homeowners that they need it.

you'll have to get it signed off and it will cost X. I can sort it for you.

You just don't want to admit you got it wrong but that's fine.

On second thoughts, please copy and paste where i said this:

You still haven't put forward a good argument for doing notifiable work for a customer and advising them that they can just ignore notification until they decide to sell the house, and then get someone in to notify it.

 

[timhoward]

I've literally just pasted exactly what i said, where i explicitly tell him to tell the homeowners that they need it.

The problem is the idea doesn't work.

It's not your job to notify building control. Most homeowners however won't know this, and will get a shock if they go to sell the house and find out they needed to do it and didn't, and will likely blame the electrician. This is me saying 'you should tell them they need it'.

Let's play this scenario out then....
So customer wants a new shaver socket in a bathroom. For sake of argument say it's a mornings work, and imagine we're in the land of milk and honey south of Watford Gap.
Sparks A quotes £300 but tells the customer they will need to notify building control of the work. They research it and find that costs another £300. Ouch.
Sparks B says for £400 I'll do the job and handle all the red tape for you, as it's only costing them a few quid and some paperwork time to do this.
It appears this business model only works if Sparks A misleads the customer about the need to notify which puts them firmly in cowboy club for me.

In any case it's also a reality that some councils simply don't have the resources to offer the BC notification service even if you want them to and say so. I was recently told of Dudley council telling a customer this.

*All prices and time durations plucked out of thin air to protect the guilty, and in case Dusty reads this and I'm too cheap ?

 

[nicebutdim]

The problem is the idea doesn't work.

Let's play this scenario out then....
So customer wants a new shaver socket in a bathroom. For sake of argument say it's a mornings work, and imagine we're in the land of milk and honey south of Watford Gap.
Sparks A quotes £300 but tells the customer they will need to notify building control of the work. They research it and find that costs another £300. Ouch.
Sparks B says for £400 I'll do the job and handle all the red tape for you, as it's only costing them a few quid and some paperwork time to do this.

There's also scenario C where £x is quoted and accepted, job is completed and homeowner knows nothing about their obligation to notify.

It gets slightly away from the subject in hand, but surely it would be better if onus was on sparks to notify their work? That way people are standing over their work to some degree and homeowners don't find themselves with problems on down the line - it might also help clean up the domestic market if cowboys knew they could find themselves picking up the tab, several years hence.

It seems to me that the notification system employed in England and Wales fails to fulfill its intended purpose, with various workarounds available and overall lack of enforcement. Other than generating additional costs, reading this forum leads me to question what exactly it achieves (at least in its current form).

 

[Electrics]

The problem is the idea doesn't work.

Let's play this scenario out then....
So customer wants a new shaver socket in a bathroom. For sake of argument say it's a mornings work, and imagine we're in the land of milk and honey south of Watford Gap.
Sparks A quotes £300 but tells the customer they will need to notify building control of the work. They research it and find that costs another £300. Ouch.
Sparks B says for £400 I'll do the job and handle all the red tape for you, as it's only costing them a few quid and some paperwork time to do this.
It appears this business model only works if Sparks A misleads the customer about the need to notify which puts them firmly in cowboy club for me.

In any case it's also a reality that some councils simply don't have the resources to offer the BC notification service even if you want them to and say so. I was recently told of Dudley council telling a customer this.

*All prices and time durations plucked out of thin air to protect the guilty, and in case Dusty reads this and I'm too cheap ?

I know the scenario isn't going to play out in the OP's favour but what other option does he have? Just not work because he can't get certified whether he knows what he's doing and is highly competent or not?

Again, it's not actually the sparks remit to notify the council, it's the customer's responsibility as laid down by the government and council. That's a technicality i know and i would find it shady if the spark didn't inform the customer since it's obvious they are unlikely to know it themselves, but what other choice does someone have?

I so far seem to have been the only person to try to offer a solution of some sort to the OP's quandary and have been ripped to shreds for it.

There has to be another way that isn't just 'well off to college you go, and don't forget to take out a massive loan for the several grand it's going to cost' when the guy is already competent.

The only other workaround i can think of is in scenario A the spark charges considerably less to offset the cost until such time as he can become eligible for signing off his own work.

I mean how do sparks that aren't registered do it? Not everyone is registered and i've seen plenty of people even on this forum who don't register with a scheme who seem to be getting work. What are they doing, just non-notifiable?

 

[Deleted account]

Yes don’t think that would be an option. We need to bring in 2 full time wages.

I hoped for either an evening course or crash courses.
I see what you mean about the experience but I feel on domestics it’s not anything of severe difficulty and obviously I have done this umpteen times anyway.

I did it while holding a full time job. I did college training 2 full days a week then worked in my normal job 5 days.
it was hard but it’s doable.

 

[Luke105]

I can see why there are so many quals in place with electrics as it does take a lot of responsibility to sign off works in a domestic dwelling where people live and sleep. What annoys me with it is domestic wiring is pretty straight forward. It’s only really thinking how to get the right size cables to the points.

I did it while holding a full time job. I did college training 2 full days a week then worked in my normal job 5 days.
it was hard but it’s doable.

I’m not sure how I can do full days at college working Monday - Friday full time unless I cut myself in half.

tbf it doesn’t seem like there is any way of sorting this. I’m surprised it’s this difficult.
I will have to speak to a governing body I think.

 

[Deleted account]

I can see why there are so many quals in place with electrics as it does take a lot of responsibility to sign off works in a domestic dwelling where people live and sleep. What annoys me with it is domestic wiring is pretty straight forward. It’s only really thinking how to get the right size cables to the points.

I’m not sure how I can do full days at college working Monday - Friday full time unless I cut myself in half.

tbf it doesn’t seem like there is any way of sorting this. I’m surprised it’s this difficult.
I will have to speak to a governing body I think.

It really isn’t that difficult.

make a choice. Go for it or don’t go for it.

option 1 stick with your £26,000 per year job. Good decision.

Option 2 get another job that you can work round your training. Take a cut in your wages for a couple of years. Reap the rewards later. Any money you miss out on now you will get back in buckets.

hope you go with option 2.

 

[Luke105]

It really isn’t that difficult.

make a choice. Go for it or don’t go for it.

option 1 stick with your £26,000 per year job. Good decision.

Option 2 get another job that you can work round your training. Take a cut in your wages for a couple of years. Reap the rewards later. Any money you miss out on now you will get back in buckets.

hope you go with option 2.

The cut in wages plus the cost of the qualifications etc will just make it unviable.

I will check about the building control thing and also look at any night courses. Day time is not an option.

 

[Electrics]

The cut in wages plus the cost of the qualifications etc will just make it unviable.

I will check about the building control thing and also look at any night courses. Day time is not an option.

To be fair i didn't think about night courses - if you can get on one you can still work full time. Would be a great option. Obviously you'd have to pay still but i think the total would be around £4-5k spread over 2 years. Once you have level 3 you should be able to sign up to NICEIC or the like to sign off work. Might have to pinch the purse strings or take a bit of overtime for a couple of years but would be worth it - if you can get lots of regular work in house bashing you can pull £50k+ easily if you have the company structure set up right.