MCB needs replacing on house circuits to sell or not?

Dilfred

Thanks for that, I hope you don't mind, but I will use some of the words above in my letter back to the solicitor. Something along these lines, what do you think before I put a stamp on it?

No safety certification was recorded on the installation of the wall up lights. To be honest, I am not sure this really is "major work", but the question in the property information form did not clarify the extent of the work, only YES/NO if any electrical work had been changed, not the significance of it.
During inspection by the Electrician he picked up on the house circuit only having a MCB on it and to comply with the 17th edition of the IEE wiring regulations in a typical house installation I would need an RCD on the circuits.
As a seller I do not believe I have any obligation to improve any existing electrical installation if completed prior to the new regulations (there is statement in the front of the 17th edition to this effect), therefore the only circuit that is of concern is the one I have altered. If the buyer is demanding certification of safety for the minor alteration I have 4 options:-
a. Remove the modification (disconnect the wall lights wiring to the main lighting circuit) and revert the circuits back to before I added the wall lights into the lighting circuit. This is easy for me to complete and therefore I have made no modifications to the electrical wiring in the house and therefore no need for any certification for the work in 2009.
b. Pay the electrician to fit a new consumer unit (see attached quotation for £400) with RCD protection and then check the whole system including the modified circuits.
c. Pay the electrician to fit a separate enclosure next to the distribution board with a RCD in it and connect only the circuit that has been modified to this and then feed this from the MCB in the consumer unit.
d. Leave it as it is.
The difference between options b and c in terms of material cost is not big, but labour content would be significantly less.

Thank you all for the help so far and I welcome any feedback on the above and will keep you informed as this develops.

silvercar

Tell them you now recall you did the work in early 2008 before the new regs came into force and there is no certificate.

Homersimpson

Dilfred wrote: »

Thanks for that, I hope you don't mind, but I will use some of the words above in my letter back to the solicitor. Something along these lines, what do you think before I put a stamp on it?

No safety certification was recorded on the installation of the wall up lights. To be honest, I am not sure this really is "major work", but the question in the property information form did not clarify the extent of the work, only YES/NO if any electrical work had been changed, not the significance of it.
During inspection by the Electrician he picked up on the house circuit only having a MCB on it and to comply with the 17th edition of the IEE wiring regulations in a typical house installation I would need an RCD on the circuits.
As a seller I do not believe I have any obligation to improve any existing electrical installation if completed prior to the new regulations (there is statement in the front of the 17th edition to this effect), therefore the only circuit that is of concern is the one I have altered. If the buyer is demanding certification of safety for the minor alteration I have 4 options:-
a. Remove the modification (disconnect the wall lights wiring to the main lighting circuit) and revert the circuits back to before I added the wall lights into the lighting circuit. This is easy for me to complete and therefore I have made no modifications to the electrical wiring in the house and therefore no need for any certification for the work in 2009.
b. Pay the electrician to fit a new consumer unit (see attached quotation for £400) with RCD protection and then check the whole system including the modified circuits.
c. Pay the electrician to fit a separate enclosure next to the distribution board with a RCD in it and connect only the circuit that has been modified to this and then feed this from the MCB in the consumer unit.
d. Leave it as it is.
The difference between options b and c in terms of material cost is not big, but labour content would be significantly less.

Thank you all for the help so far and I welcome any feedback on the above and will keep you informed as this develops.

The only problem with the above is that the buyer may insist that you carry out option b at your cost. If it were me I would give them only options a and d which you can do at no cost.

Dilfred

Homersimpson wrote: »

The only problem with the above is that the buyer may insist that you carry out option b at your cost. If it were me I would give them only options a and d which you can do at no cost.

Yes, I discussed that with my solicitor this morning and he agreed. He also felt that offering options a and d were also not going to be acceptable as he indicated that even modifying back the electrics to the previous state is still a further modification so not viable either.

Looks like we are going down the route of a simple indemnity policy....

Homersimpson

Dilfred wrote: »

Yes, I discussed that with my solicitor this morning and he agreed. He also felt that offering options a and d were also not going to be acceptable as he indicated that even modifying back the electrics to the previous state is still a further modification so not viable either.

Looks like we are going down the route of a simple indemnity policy....

Out of interest how much is the policy? I bet its much cheaper than paying to have any work done and a retest!

Dilfred

Homersimpson wrote: »

Out of interest how much is the policy? I bet its much cheaper than paying to have any work done and a retest!

In and around 50quid I believe. I've not gone into details with solicitors yet.

dil1976

It looks to me too much is being read into this situation, too many people trying to understand the regulations.

Now I would recommend having a peridic inspection and test carried out by scheme registered company and then showing to any potential buyer the list of defects found and what works need to be carried out. Then at least you can show it to anyone who requests it and your back is covered should anything go wrong in the future.

DVardysShadow

dil1976 wrote: »

It looks to me too much is being read into this situation, too many people trying to understand the regulations.

Now I would recommend having a peridic inspection and test carried out by scheme registered company and then showing to any potential buyer the list of defects found and what works need to be carried out. Then at least you can show it to anyone who requests it and your back is covered should anything go wrong in the future.

I think that most of this problem stems from NOT understanding the regs in the first place and the basis for getting this right is actually to understand them.

The electrician who did the inspection is to my mind the root of the problem in that he said that the main fusebox was non-compliant. This may have been through ignorance or it could be out of eagerness to get a job. Either way, he has abused the regs by declaring something non compliant when in fact it does not have to be compliant - and he has failed to identify the true non-compliance, which HomerSimpson has kindly explained for us - that there is inadequate protection of the new work under 522.6.6 and the exemption of 522.6.7 does not apply.

While I think that the periodic inspection and report should the way to go, the problem is that the report will almost certainly identify the present fusebox as non-compliant [for reasons of ignorance or work creation] as before, rather than identifying the true non-compliance.

As for OP's solicitor suggesting that if the work was undone, this would not remove the problem, perhaps he should be asked to reflect on whether he would be happy to let an electrician do his dental check up.....

Homersimpson

DVardysShadow wrote: »

I think that most of this problem stems from NOT understanding the regs in the first place and the basis for getting this right is actually to understand them.

The electrician who did the inspection is to my mind the root of the problem in that he said that the main fusebox was non-compliant. This may have been through ignorance or it could be out of eagerness to get a job. Either way, he has abused the regs by declaring something non compliant when in fact it does not have to be compliant - and he has failed to identify the true non-compliance, which HomerSimpson has kindly explained for us - that there is inadequate protection of the new work under 522.6.6 and the exemption of 522.6.7 does not apply.

While I think that the periodic inspection and report should the way to go, the problem is that the report will almost certainly identify the present fusebox as non-compliant [for reasons of ignorance or work creation] as before, rather than identifying the true non-compliance.

As for OP's solicitor suggesting that if the work was undone, this would not remove the problem, perhaps he should be asked to reflect on whether he would be happy to let an electrician do his dental check up.....

The thing with a periodic inspection is that any items picked up should be rated as one of four codes as follows:-

code 1 - Serious defect requiring immediate attention (i.e broken socket)
code 2 - requires improvement (i.e something thats not right but isn't an immediate hazard like a cable thats not secured properly to the outside of the building)
code 3- requires further investigation (i.e a cable goes into a wall in red and black and comes out in brown and blue and therefore has a hidden joint that needs to be found).
code 4 - does not comply with the current edition of BS7671

The consumer unit should come under code 4 and you are not required to rectify code 4 items because the installation complied with the regulations at the time it was installed (although upgrading to the current standards is usually a good idea).

The way I always look at it is I have an old Austin Healey Frogeye Sprite which was built in 1958, it has no airbags, ABS, traction control and didn't originally have seat belts (but I have fitted some). The afforementioned items are the equavilent of code 4 items on electrical systems because whilst desirable the car didn't have them when it was built and it would be impractical to add them now.

Wth a consumer unit however you can change it for a new type but just because you can doesn't mean you have to. If this were the case it would cost us a fortune everytime the regulations were changed.

Personally I think that the changes in the 17th edition relating to the provision of RCD's on all circuits in a house was a mistake in the same way that I believe part P was a big mistake. In 15 years time electricity will be like gas and the ordinary person will be too scared to touch it and we will all end up paying through the nose for a professional. There is nothing complicated about wiring up an ordinary house, there are a few simple rules that you need to obide by but with a little bit of reading on the subject anyone who is reasonably competent can do it.

dil1976

Regardless of what code a Periodic inspection and test brings up, it will highlight anything non compliant with the current regulations therefore when selling the house showing the results to any prospective buyer will show what needs doing without any comeback on the OP.

As for wiring a house is easy, please I hope you said that in jest as electrics is far from a simple job.