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Why should I use a Registered Electrical Contractor?

2011

There has been much discussion on this forum about the pros and cons of employing the services of someone other than a Registered Electrical Contractor (REC) to do electrical work in the home. Other than RECs home owners (rightly or wrongly) can choose from:
⦁ DIYer's, "handymen"
⦁ Builders
⦁ Plumbers
⦁ Unregistered electricians
⦁ Registered Gas Installers (RGI)
⦁ Alarm installers
⦁ Technically skilled people (such as electrical engineers) with recognised qualifications

There is also some confusion about what is and is not permitted from a legal perspective.

If this thread is successful perhaps it could become a sticky (it may need a bit of tidying up) people could be referred to this thread rather than repeating the same points over and over again.

Here are a few headings that could be discussed:

1) Electrical safety
2) Familiarisation with the most current wiring rules
3) Insurance
4) Certification
5) Cost
6) Standard of workmanship / quality / aesthetics
7) Technical expertise
8) Recourse should something go wrong
9) Design
10) Impact on the value of the home

Discuss and please keep it friendly

Edit: For the record I am not a REC. I am not a fan and of anyone other than a qualified electrician doing most electrical work. I have extensive experience dealing with RECs and it has been overwhelming positive.

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antiskeptic

I'd make some general comments, which a) might not dovetail neatly with your thoughtful list b) might introduce some left field items.

1. When it comes to electrical installations, a chief concern is human safety / cost if something goes wrong (e.g. a house goes up in flames). There is a tendency to prioritise human safety without considering the cost of achieving same. In reality, and in many other areas of life, a cost is placed on a human life (it can become too costly to save a life and the money isn't spent. Which drugs are and aren't provided for by the health service being a case in point)

Since evermore stringent regulation incurs a nationally born cost (e.g. getting an electrician to do the electrical element of a home heating control install, currently permissible for a plumber to do), consideration needs to be given to the cost benefit.

2. I recall an American uncle recounting a tale where a woman fell over on a pavement in New York, jumped up and said "who will I sue". We all fell around laughing at the idea. Fast forward 20 odd years and that's the situation we find ourselves in here in Ireland. Childrens play parks closing because of compo culture and the exhorbitant insurance rates arising from it (and the fact that insurance companies, who make their money on the stock market, struggling to make profits in a troubled stock market).

The focus on insurance above reflects the present day reality. The question, however, is whether that present day reality is a good thing (e.g. children's playgrounds tending towards utter sterility and not functioning as places to explore and, yes, experience and learn about danger). By going the path of ever more stringent regulation, because of insurance considerations is merely further creep in the insurance-uber-alles direction. A questionable movement.

3. The move towards ever more specialisation and evermore sophisticated focus on safety doesn't gel with a larger looming reality. The world has gotten to be a very complicated place - such that, for example, a trade qualified electrician isn't sufficient to do residential electrical work - it has to be an electrician registered with RECI.

It is becoming clearer by the day that this world is on a headlong collision path with an immovable object: resource depletion and climate change. It is not unreasonable to conclude that the ever onwards and upwards trajectory (reflected in ever onward and upward regulation of electrical work) can't be sustained. We will be forced to abandon these levels of sophistication and return to a simpler way of life. Aesthetics, for example, will be a luxury no longer affordable. The move will be more towards fixing and making do, than ripping out perfectly good faceplates in order to fit the latest fashionable chrome jobbie.

In this event, it won't be sustainable to subdivide an area of activity (such as electrical work) into any number of sub-specialities. More likely, a person will work in multiple areas where they have skills: the "handyman" elevates whilst the "specialist" declines in a simple survival of the fittest scenario. Simple economics will drive such a movement - regulation won't be able to resist the pressure. Indeed, deregulation will be required to fit the new, overwhelming paradigm.

I think we are at the fag end of what in many ways has been a great time. The range of products, the sheer wonder of what can be achieved technologically, aesthetically, safety, speed wise etc is a wonder to behold. But it is unsustainable and like all empires, has to crumble. And is crumbling, before our very eyes.

And so, with all respect, the discussion has a sense of arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It misses a more significant, overarching reality.

BDI

Case study: A person allows his father who is a plumber to wire a pump in his hot press for his mixer shower.

Is this allowed anymore?

2011

BDI wrote: »

Case study: A person allows his father who is a plumber to wire a pump in his hot press for his mixer shower.

Is this allowed anymore?

Assuming the pump is wired from an existing spur outlet this like for like replacement is permitted by a competent person under current legislation.

2011

@antiseptic: Some well made points especially with respect to the litigious world we find ourselves living in.

antiskeptic wrote: »

And so, with all respect, the discussion has a sense of arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It misses a more significant, overarching reality.

Does it though? It gives you the opportunity to express your view.

I find it incredible how some of those with little or no electrical understanding are so supportive of having electrically incompetent people carrying out extensive work on a mains voltage system.

I think that the message that those of us that work in the electrical industry need to get across is that it is easy to get most electrical systems working, the trick is to get them working safely and this is not always possible with the budget available. Expensive things like equipotential bonding, earthing, RCDs, are only required when something goes wrong, as such some see these as "luxuries".

antiskeptic

2011 wrote: »

Assuming the pump is wired from an existing spur outlet this like for like replacement is permitted by a competent person under current legislation.

Isn't the case that someone can add a socket (and presumably a spur) to an existing circuit?

antiskeptic

2011 wrote: »

Does it though? It gives you the opportunity to express your view.

Indeed. It also gives the opportunity to spread fake news. Every silver lining has a cloud.

I find it incredible how some of those with little or no electrical understanding are so supportive of having electrically incompetent people carrying out extensive work on a mains voltage system.

The question arises as to competency. The bar has been set at RECI reg, which precludes a whole lot of competent people doing work according to their competency.

As I say: the level of the statutory response seems out of kilter with the level of the problem. We are talking about an expense applied to a whole nation when the level of damage appears comparatively miniscule.

I think that the message that those of us that work in the electrical industry need to get across is that it is easy to get most electrical systems working, the trick is to get them working safely and this is not always possible with the budget available. Expensive things like equipotential bonding, earthing, RCDs, are only required when something goes wrong, as such some see these as "luxuries".

There is a difference between setting down standards that must be adhered to (on pain of prosecution) and ring fencing who it is who might do the work. What is the extra cost of splitting a home heating control into plumber + electrician vs. the current plumber only scenario. That cost is born by the nation. The alternative (say a life lost once every 10 years due to faulty home heating control electrics) has to be weighed in the balance.

antiskeptic

[quote=2011[/quote]What do you mean "isn't covered by current standards"? It is.[/quote]

There isn't any legislation forbidding the existence of crap connector blocks or ancient rubber wiring in residential homes. Yet these are eminently more dangerous/fire causing than work done by a competent DIYer.

Yet the latter is legislated against. Which begs the question as to motivation for the regs.

Personally I don't see an increased risk just because an electrician is not registered. My view is that the real risk is down to how conscientious the qualified electrician is. Whether he is a paid up member of RECI or not will have no bearing on the quality of work produced in my opinion.

This is self evident. But take it a step further. I've got 25 odd years engineering management experience in industry. I'm not an electrician but as the person with whom the buck stopped when stuff stopped working I became a better fault finder than any electrician in that setting. I've also done more residential work than the average industrial electrician, having renovated a couple of my own houses.

It would appear I'm in better stead than a straightforward trade electrician. Yet the current (pun) rules bar both me and an electrician.

Hence my querying the whole direction things have gone in.

antiskeptic

I would add that in that 25 years as an engineering manager, I must have had thousands of external maintenance contractors over the doorstep. It got to the stage where I would be able to assess the ability of a contractor the minute I walked into reception to greet them and bring them to the job. Something about the stance, the eye contact, the handshake .. I dunno.

I understand the idea of a certification like RECI reg is a broad brush way to try to achieve a set level of competency. But it is a broad brush and in itself has little practical relevance.

I would much prefer to stand in a shower wired by someone I deemed competent rather than someone RECI deemed competent.

antiskeptic

I would add that in 25 years engineering management, I watched H&S go from something peripheral to near total dominance. By H&S I mean "avoid insurance claims" - for that is the sole motivation of business, especially multinational/large corporation business in promoting H&S.

But current H&S isn't commercially implementable. That is, if you adhered to H&S regs you would go out of business - production would come to a halt, drowned out as it would be by the halts and impediments imposed by H&S rules.

The solution has been to turn H&S into a box tick exercise. Since paper records are the currency of insurance claims and court cases, the aim is to ensure the paper is in place. There hasn't been anything like an equivalent step forward in H&S on the ground.

I smell the same thing at work with the current regs and RECI's vested interest. The big bogeyman of electrocution (and house fires), probably a miniscule problem, allied to insurance claims is the rationale for the regs.

We used to laugh at stories eminating from heavily unionized plants like Cadbury's and Guinesses. You know the one where the forklift mechanic has to fix some hydraulics. But has to get the electrician down to disconnect the forklift battery. After which the heavy lift engineers come down to remove the heavy battery to provide access to the hydraulics.

We all saw the way that kind of thing goes. Business's go out of business. Now the nation of Ireland won't go out of business as such. But it will be damaged nonetheless.

Bruthal

antiskeptic wrote: »

It would appear I'm in better stead than a straightforward trade electrician.

For a person to be unqualified, but in better stead than many of today`s electricians, is not all that high an accolade, while being possibly true.

I did know one fella a few years ago who did not finish his final exams, but was one of the best id seen.

Its a revenue exercise really. Cut out the cash jobs.

alta stare

antiskeptic wrote: »

I would add that in that 25 years as an engineering manager, I must have had thousands of external maintenance contractors over the doorstep. It got to the stage where I would be able to assess the ability of a contractor the minute I walked into reception to greet them and bring them to the job. Something about the stance, the eye contact, the handshake .. I dunno.

I understand the idea of a certification like RECI reg is a broad brush way to try to achieve a set level of competency. But it is a broad brush and in itself has little practical relevance.

I would much prefer to stand in a shower wired by someone I deemed competent rather than someone RECI deemed competent.

100% agree.

Iv seen lads who were/are in the trade or similar trades a long time who are not reci and i would have them do work hands down over some of the lads iv seen come out of fas in the time i was in there. Some who end up becoming sparks have no business ever picking up a cable nevermind terminating one.

I agree with regulations and rules and it has helped weed out some cowboys but to be fair these regulations and rules can be easily circumvented so in essence anyone can pretty much do what they want when it comes to hiding dodgy work.

The regulations book can be said to be one big book of vagueness. Some of the content in there is ridiculous and not very clear. I am not a spark but i do work in the security industry and i was in fas when 3 blocks of sparks were coming through so iv seen whats being churned out in that industry.....makes me worry about our future electricians. They wont have a patch on any spark in the last 30/40 years

BDI

You think we should give competency tests based on eye contact and handshakes?

To be honest I think this and the rgi are both credentials which have a money grabbing aspect to them to think they should be replaced by shaking a mans hand who claims to be an engineer manager is madness. Surely we can meet somewhere in the middle.

For example by not having to pay a fortune every few years to re-register/ re-test.

Bruthal

antiskeptic wrote: »

I would add that in 25 years engineering management, I watched H&S go from something peripheral to near total dominance.

It has become the absolute driver now, listening every week about how we have had 2 million etc man hours without incident. All lies and cover ups to look good to the client. A person gets injured. Get them to clock in and head off, even though totally unfit for work.

It has become a box ticking exercise alright. But there is no doubt, many involved actually believe it.

Bruthal

Anyway, if I had to replace a faulty MCB in my board, I would do it myself.

I wonder would I be safer getting an REC in though? Will my insurance be voided?

What if I add 3 sockets. Or 1 every 6 months?

How many lives have been saved so far?

2011

antiskeptic wrote: »

There isn't any legislation forbidding the existence of crap connector blocks or ancient rubber wiring in residential homes.

I see your point, you may well be correct. If you were to get a periodic inspection done this would be picked up and no doubt you would be encouraged to part with a large sum of money in return for a rewire. In the event of your house burning down and the insurance company finding out that you were made aware of the condition of the wiring they may try to wriggle out of paying out some portion of the claim. I was recently involved in a car accident during which I was stationary yet the insurance company had the thread depth on my tyres measured!

Yet these are eminently more dangerous/fire causing than work done by a competent DIYer.

Agreed.

Yet the latter is legislated against. Which begs the question as to motivation for the regs.

It is more about Restricted Works Decision Paper. I believe that the fact that non-RECs are permitted to carry out work in far more dangerous and complicated electrical installations is because this the true aim was to deal with the loss of tax revenue from domestic electrical "nixers".

I've got 25 odd years engineering management experience in industry. I'm not an electrician but as the person with whom the buck stopped when stuff stopped working I became a better fault finder than any electrician in that setting. I've also done more residential work than the average industrial electrician, having renovated a couple of my own houses.

As someone that has worked as a time served industrial electrician for over 10 years and as a degree qualified E & I engineer for over 10 years I feel I have a better insight into this than most. My view is that a talented electrical engineer will not necessarily have the practical electrical skills to be able to carry out electrical installation work. This is not always the case but unless we have something in place to ensure that a particular engineer is "good enough with his / her hands" engineers should keep away from the tools for all but minor works.

It would appear I'm in better stead than a straightforward trade electrician. Yet the current (pun) rules bar both me and an electrician.

Maybe you are, but how can each person that argues this be assessed?

antiskeptic wrote: »

Something about the stance, the eye contact, the handshake .. I dunno.

That does not sound very scientific, but I know what you mean

:D

This reminds me of conversations that we have during tender negotiations with RECs. They never believe this when we tell them that the cheapest tender doesn't always win. They need to convince us that they are up to the job.

I would much prefer to stand in a shower wired by someone I deemed competent rather than someone RECI deemed competent.

Agreed. one of the areas that there is increasing interest in is how competent the electrician on the coalface actually is and how to assess this. Having said that the views I express on this forum are my personal views.

Just to add I still firmly believe that only REC's using qualified electricians and supervised apprentices should carry out major electrical installation work and work on distribution boards. The only exception is that I believe that a qualified electrician should be permitted to carry out any electrical work on his / her own home.

What we need to avoid at all costs is a "free for all" where everyone just decides to give electrical work a go. Unfortunately it has proved very difficult to achieve this without a very blunt instrument.

I do not agree with the system we have in place at present where persons that are completely devoid of any electrical qualification whatsoever are permitted to install electric gates and security lighting etc. just because they are members of the PSA. The advertisement campaign is very misleading as it strongly suggests that these people are uniquely qualified to install electric gates which is not the case.

alta stare

2011 wrote: »

I do not agree with the system we have in place at present where persons that are completely devoid of any electrical qualification whatsoever are permitted to install electric gates and security lighting etc. just because they are members of the PSA. The advertisement campaign is very misleading as it strongly suggests that these people are uniquely qualified to install electric gates which is not the case.

The PSA is another toothless body. Another organisation more interested in money than anything else.

Pay your fees and you can do what you like in the security game.

kramer1

If there was any real interest in the quality or safety of electrical work then we should have proper building control. Self certification is nonsense. The idea that a qualified electrician can't take the cover off a fuse board or stick a few extra lights into a bathroom is ridiculous. It's also being ignored all over the place, I m a registered contractor in the city centre, doing mostly maintenance work for residential /rental properties, some of the work we re repairing is quite recent and frankly appalling, no way it was even done by a sparks, never mind a rec. We've become too expensive and people are just hiring anyone who's cheap and then paying a rec to fix it when something goes wrong

alta stare

kramer1 wrote: »

If there was any real interest in the quality or safety of electrical work then we should have proper building control. Self certification is nonsense. The idea that a qualified electrician can't take the cover off a fuse board or stick a few extra lights into a bathroom is ridiculous. It's also being ignored all over the place, I m a registered contractor in the city centre, doing mostly maintenance work for residential /rental properties, some of the work we re repairing is quite recent and frankly appalling, no way it was even done by a sparks, never mind a rec. We've become too expensive and people are just hiring anyone who's cheap and then paying a rec to fix it when something goes wrong

Yeah iv come across some seriously bad electrical work and security systems in my time out on the job. Im afraid these things will always be there irrespective of what body is supposed to be issuing certification.

I know a few lads who are very good sparks who are doing nixers all the time. They arent reci and wont be because of the cost involved. None of them have caused a death nor has their work burned a building down.

There should be a better system in place, one which is more focused on electrical safety than money and it needs to be looked after by an independent body.

Tuco88

Before you could call RECI to come out and test the installation for you, and issue a cert when all is well.

At least that was an option for a fella who wasn't registered.

Its just to clamp down on Cash jobs.

kramer1

Tuco88 wrote: »

Before you could call RECI to come out and test the installation for you, and issue a cert when all is well.

At least that was an option for a fella who wasn't registered.

Its just to clamp down on Cash jobs.

Yeah but it'd just be some lad you'd know and he'd take your word for it that everything was grand. We need to stop writing more regulations and come up with some sensible way of ensuring that the existing standards are adhered to without making it prohibitively expensive and therefore likely to be ignored or worked around. Rant over

alta stare

Tuco88 wrote: »

Before you could call RECI to come out and test the installation for you, and issue a cert when all is well.

At least that was an option for a fella who wasn't registered.

Its just to clamp down on Cash jobs.

It still is. For the right money you can get a cert without a single test being done.

2011

Unfortunately we tend to get negative stories about RECs here because nobody bothers posting the positive experiences. In reality most RECs do very good work.

alta stare

2011 wrote: »

Unfortunately we tend to get negative stories about RECs here because nobody bothers posting the positive experiences. In reality most RECs do very good work.

Peope are moreso referring to the system not the rec.

Steve

I agree with the REC system to a point in that it it gives a level of consumer confidence (which maybe false) in the work being done.

I don't agree with non REC but competent persons being disallowed doing work in their own property even though they may have many many years experience in industry (as opposed to rafter monkey domestic) and would only do the work to a much higher standard. e.g. me.

2011

Personally I feel that only a qualified electrician should be permitted to wire an entire installation and they should not need to be registered to wire their own home.

antiskeptic

Steve wrote: »

I agree with the REC system to a point in that it it gives a level of consumer confidence (which maybe false) in the work being done.

I don't agree with non REC but competent persons being disallowed doing work in their own property even though they may have many many years experience in industry (as opposed to rafter monkey domestic) and would only do the work to a much higher standard. e.g. me.

The point being raised is that by placing limits on who can work on electrics (whether in their or anothers home) you need to do a cost benefit.

My argument is that, given the vanishingly small amount of death, injury, residential fire associated with new electrical work (as opposed to ancient existing work, working on domestic appliances and the like), the restrictions are too costly to the nation as a whole.

Take industry (where things aren't as tight). You have a 24 hour operation employing 1 electrician (who is mechanically adept enough) and two fitters (who are electrically adept enough to deal with the kinds of things that typically cause a production line to halt). Either an electrician or a fitter covers each shift, doing both mechanical and electrical troubleshooting.

Apply RECI think. You now have to have 3 electricians to cover any electrical issues over the three shifts. And because mechanical has the potential for danger (e.g. steam, pneumatics, hydraulics) you apply RECI think there too. And so 3 fitters to cover the mechanical aspect of the 3 shift pattern.

You've doubled the number of teccies required to run the factory.

Precisely the same thing occurs in the residential setting. And that costs the whole nation. For what actual benefit?

Not very much, it appears.

2011

Steve wrote: »

I don't agree with non REC but competent persons being disallowed doing work in their own property even though they may have many many years experience in industry (as opposed to rafter monkey domestic) and would only do the work to a much higher standard. e.g. me.

The problem with allowing unqualified people from doing any / all electrical work within their own home is that many perceive their ability to be beyond what it is. It is true that there is a large variation in ability of electricians bit even the worst electrician has been passed a formal assessment process and has undergone four calendar years of training (as opposed to college years which are far shorter).

I’m not saying that you are not up to the task, the problem is everyone thinks that they are as good as a professional electrician. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

alta stare

2011 wrote: »

The problem with allowing unqualified people from doing any / all electrical work within their own home is that many perceive their ability to be beyond what it is. It is true that there is a large variation in ability of electricians bit even the worst electrician has been passed a formal assessment process and has undergone four calendar years of training (as opposed to college years which are far shorter).

I’m not saying that you are not up to the task, the problem is everyone thinks that they are as good as a professional electrician. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Unqualified is one thing but non reci seems to be the devil's work by some here. There are plenty sparks who are very good at what they do but arent reci so they should not do any work???. To me it is a bit ott to say they cannot do electrical work just because reci have not received money off them. Its a stupid setup.

Now anyone body who isnt a qualified sparks should not be allowed no where near electrical systems, this we all agree on. I have worked with lads who arent sparks who have tapped into immersion circuits, consumer units, lighting circuits etc when they shouldn't of. It is happening all the time and it is these lads who should be chased not those who are actually qualified but non reci.

antiskeptic

kramer1 wrote: »

If there was any real interest in the quality or safety of electrical work then we should have proper building control. Self certification is nonsense. The idea that a qualified electrician can't take the cover off a fuse board or stick a few extra lights into a bathroom is ridiculous. It's also being ignored all over the place, I m a registered contractor in the city centre, doing mostly maintenance work for residential /rental properties, some of the work we re repairing is quite recent and frankly appalling, no way it was even done by a sparks, never mind a rec. We've become too expensive and people are just hiring anyone who's cheap and then paying a rec to fix it when something goes wrong

And very often, it will be well within the capability of someone to work on electrics without any problems occurring. Which will generate a whole subset of activity which won't even involve an electrician (all electricians finding they have to be recu-regged to be able to work)

Bruthal

There definitely is a balance of cost v risk. We often hear that if it saves one life, its worth it. That`s fantasy land stuff.

Everything people do involves risk. Ban drink and lots of lives will be saved. Cars, motorbikes etc all have huge risks compared to the difference between a house wired now with all regulations, compared to a house wired 30 years ago with few or none.

If a non rec wires a house, and it burns down, the blame will be automatic im sure.