No longer competant

[Mr Magoo]

After being self employed for the last 5 years and paying the NIC scam ransom i got fed up with the hassle of it all so took a full time on the books job and i am pleased i did,having a young family and mortgage its nice to know how much i have coming in each month,i have still been doing the odd job as i was still registered which has now rum out,so i am now no longer classed as competent as i aint registered,i have been asked by a mate to change a consumer unit i explained to him i aint registered anymore and he said he aint bothered as he knows my work will be safe and he would rather trust me than some clueless muppet out of the local rag (his words)so i guess i will have to notify my local LABC,will they charge me the full building notification fee or will they accept my certs(green)as i have 2391 been doing it for years and as of yesterday i was deemed competent by a scam provider.

Something just aint right with this Part P.

 

[alarm man]

has any spark actually been up in front of the beak for not following part p.ive searched and cant find anything,it wouldnt stand up in a court of law with a half descent solicitor imo,i do my own work in my own home as many non part p do..and i will continue too..and im certainly not paying for the privilege to do so.

 

[ExArmy]

But to do the change they pull the DNO fuse and cut the seal.... You see what I'm getting at

the seals on all my jobs are already cut or broken......it's very hard for the DNO to prove otherwise. where as it's not so easy to make a living as a domestic spark without notifying work

 

[Poptasticdave]

I've just joined this forum because I wanted to ask a question myself, and in fact by chance it looks like this thread might be a good place to ask it. PLease forgive me if it's not "the done thing" to ask a Q in someone else's thread.

My question was going to be: "Which of the Professional Bodies would most of you recommend that I join?". To put this in context, I've been a qualified Electrician since 15th Ed regs, but I've not done electrical work as my employment since 16th Ed regs were still in force. More or less for my own personal satisfaction I've kept myself up to date and done my 17th Ed conversion exams. Now redundancy in my present work looms and I'm considering going back to electrical work. NIC (who I was with back in the 80's and ear;y 90's) seem to be extortionate now, but other organisations, which I've little experience of and previously considered to be a poor second choice, are not much cheaper.

I'd be grateful for folk's opinions on which body / bodies is / are best.

Whilst I'm at it I might as well ask if anyone has any 'favourite' insurers too, as that scene is equally changed from when I was last a sparky.

And, just to keep on topic, IMHO I would rather not risk doing work I could not certify, but I do agree that Part P is an absolute joke and I know for a fact that at least 3 sparks I know very well have dropped NIC membership and stopped doing mains work in favour of doing alarm systems instead because they resent paying for Part P reg in the full knowledge that Joe Cowboy is still going out and doing illegal and unsafe work just as much as ever before. (One of these being a guy who tested and signed off a full rewire for me on the very last day he was reg'd and wished me luck saying that he'd never choose to become a spark in today's environment.)

 

[sedgy34]

all as bad as each other just pick one

 

[Dave 85]

I use elecsa (ECA). Im very satisfied with them, all I want is a quiet life and to be left alone and that is more or less what they give me.

I have to say, it does baffle me the amount of people who gave up electrical work as some kind of pathetic protest at the introduction of part P. Lets face it, £400 a year is nowt considering a well established sparky should me making 100 times that.

Also did none of these guys predict the rather obvious fact that earnings for a domestic spark shot up sharply after the introduction of part P? Ok they didn't neccesarily stay up as high as 2006/7 in all areas but in my experience there were plenty of self employed electricians working for £10-£12 an hour on private jobs in the late 90's early 00's and by 2006 the standard was more or less double this. In fact a lot of domestic electricians have been making huge amounts of money since the introduction of part P.

 

[Spazz]

Out of interest is there any harm in putting down that he was a contractor for the tester electrician.
That way you can put down that Mr Magoo did the work (he signs the installer) and Tester did the testing and they sign that box?

 

[gutterball]

Let's face facts the average client just wants the work done as cheaply as possible. They aren't interested in having someone from the council sticking there nose in. Better you doing it right rather than some bodger from the pub.

 

[sedgy34]

yes but the bodger is a couple of pints of guinness a trades man is a cpl of barrells

 

[Guest55]

I use elecsa (ECA). Im very satisfied with them, all I want is a quiet life and to be left alone and that is more or less what they give me.

I have to say, it does baffle me the amount of people who gave up electrical work as some kind of pathetic protest at the introduction of part P. Lets face it, £400 a year is nowt considering a well established sparky should me making 100 times that.

Also did none of these guys predict the rather obvious fact that earnings for a domestic spark shot up sharply after the introduction of part P? Ok they didn't neccesarily stay up as high as 2006/7 in all areas but in my experience there were plenty of self employed electricians working for £10-£12 an hour on private jobs in the late 90's early 00's and by 2006 the standard was more or less double this. In fact a lot of domestic electricians have been making huge amounts of money since the introduction of part P.

The rapid increase in the number of electricians since part p and Electrical Trainee came about has actually driven down wage levels , not as you say , shot up.
You cant move for electricians in my home town , they roam the streets in part p packs lol.

 

[sedgy34]

biff55
sparky vans are everywhere, theres not many time served driving them though

 

[LukeBuckaz]

A guy at my place has never done a days college and is on the same wage rate as me, I'm fully time served with 2391. Makes me sick!

 

[Dave 85]

The rapid increase in the number of electricians since part p and Electrical Trainee came about has actually driven down wage levels , not as you say , shot up.
You cant move for electricians in my home town , they roam the streets in part p packs lol.

I appreciate things have changed now but am I not right in thinking that the whole Electrical Trainee thing didn't really take off in a big way till a few years after part P? Also this is an inevitable consequence of the recession, degrees arn't worth crap anymore, a rumour went round a few years back that plumbers and sparks make a killing (which some did and still do) everybody thought "well there'll always be work for sparkies/scummers so I'll retrain, ooh look a 5 week course"

 

[brav]

If there was a top year cut off this wouldnt happen, i.e if your certs/invoices/assesments/exams/jobs prove uve been a time served electrician for ten years or with a scheme for say six years then u no longer need to be with any scheme to do notifiable work. I think tht way it would be more generally accepted.
Also this could only be for full scope electricians, not a plumber doing part p.
At least then full time electricians could see the light at the end of the scheme tunnel and wouldnt think of it as an endless scam, more of a competency proving phase before being approved to take on notifiable without having to notify anyone.

 

[DurhamSparky]

if it was me,

i would change box, issue friend with relevant certificate (just in case he sells house)

and say no more on the matter...!!

 

[telectrix]

as above^^^