Communal areas of flats commercial or residential.

So a couple years ago I decided to drop my NAPIT cover as I found I was doing more commercial work and the amount of profit I made from notifiable jobs was about the same as the cost of membership so I would be better off not bothering doing those jobs..

I had a job the other day where there was no lighting in communal area of flats, turned out the DNO cable was dead, DNO have temporarily connected it to a flat supply but they want to run a new cable and potentially move the position of the head, there is only 4 lights (Total 8 flats) over 2 floors in the communal area so the communal supply is just one circuit. Potentially looking at new board near the new head then adaptable box in place of current consumer unit and extend lighting circuit to new consumer unit.

Can anyone say with certanty is this Residential and so needs a building compliance certificate or is it commercial and not needed?

According to this it falls under the scope of Part P.

I'd be be classing it as a Dwelling with it forming part of the habitat space and therefore covered by Part-P. So your board swap is notifiable.

westward10 said:

According to this it falls under the scope of Part P.View attachment 118295

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Thanks for this.. I think the way round is to put a fused isolator from the head and put in a 16A HRC fuse then just run some 2.5mm to the existing consumer unit, that way it avoids having to issue a building compliance certificate..

The new switch fuse and circuit will fall under notification.

westward10 said:

The new switch fuse and circuit will fall under notification.

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It won't be notifiable though as its not a new circuit, if you change the the tails from 16mm to 25mm is that notifiable? No, if you add an isolator into the tails is it notifiable? No.. if you fitted a FCU with 3a fuse on a ring to go to say an outside light that would not be a new circuit.

Generally a circuit would be from the consumer unit, if you saw a fused isolator on the supply to a consumer unit that had just one lighting circuit how many circuits would you put on an EICR? Answer 1. The other is part of the supply. It also arguably has a supply so its alterating that circuit rather than creating a new circuit.

Part P notifiable if:
Installation of a new circuit - Its not a new circuit
replacement of consumer unit - Nope
Addition or alteration within a special location - Nope