Electrical Building Regulations when applied to house extensions

AMO

Hi all,

We're looking at buying a house. It was built in the early 80s and had an extension build in 2008 (applied for in 2007).

A structural engineer's report states:

The electrical system to the old part of the property was old where there was an old fuse wire board. We are surprised to see that the electrics in the extension have been connected to the system as normally an NIC EIC Registered Electrician has to install a new board to comply with current regulations when an extension is added. We would therefore advise that a new RCD MCB board is installed and typical costs are in the region of £350 - £450 + Vat. At this time we would advise that an NIC EIC Registered Electrician puts a test on the whole of the property and modifies some cables which require ducting. If it is shown that the property needs to be rewired due to not conforming to current regulations or the earth loop is missing then costs in the region of £3,500 - £4,000 + Vat can be expected however the NIC EIC Registered Electrician will advise further on this issue.

What are our options going forwards to resolve this?

An electrical engineer going into the property to assess the cost first?

And then what? Should I expect the current owner to foot the bill or split it?

Also, where can I look up the regulations where an extention requires its own electrical board and when that came in?

Thanks.

ToasterScheme

Some interesting stuff in here.

1) If the extension was built in 2008 there should be a Building Regs certificate which covers all aspects of it - one of these aspects is the electrics, including the "part P" rules. If you can get a hold of this it should tell you that the electrical modifications were done properly.
If this exists you can place much more reliance on it than you can on the surveyor's report, since the surveyor is unlikely to be a qualified sparks.
2) I think it's quite unusual for a surveyor to comment in quite so much detail as this - they do recommend getting a qualified electrician in but that's where they normally stop, leaving it to that expert to speak with authority in their field.
Sounds like a proper inspection is what you should arrange in this case. You should probably expect to pay for this - but if you don't ask you don't get. [Make sure any report you get belongs to you and not vendor so that you have comeback if he makes a serious mistake you find out later]
3) Even if the whole property WOULD NEED rewiring to make it comply with current requirements, there is no law that says that old properties MUST COMPLY with current requirements. Only those parts that are added or modified need to comply with the requirements at the time the work is done.
You may want it to be brought up to current spec, but you might struggle to get vendor to contribute to this.
4) But my gut feel is that connecting a new circuit to a fuse wire board would probably have not been allowed in 2008 though, so the surveyor is probably right in that the consumer unit needs replacement. Hard to tell whether the extension was done by a clever electrician who knows the acceptable ways to minimise the work, or by a bodger who carried on regardless.
But very unlikely that the original wiring all needs to be redone. Some of the earth bonding maybe (another couple of hundred) but not all of it.
5) If you are of a technical bent the detailed wiring regulations (currently BS7671 17th edition amendment 1 "green book" - but at the time pre amendment 1 "red book") can be bought from the IET (formerly the IEE). You may need other Building Regs as well though. And none of this is cheap.
I would say you are probably better off spending your £100 on an electrician to go look see than on technical documents that can be hard to interpret.

First thing to do is request the Building Regs certificate.

AMO

Hi Toaster. Thanks for the detailed reply. I'll get the Building Regs Certificate and take it from there. Much appreciated for your detailed reply.

DVardysShadow

AMO wrote: »

.... We are surprised to see that the electrics in the extension have been connected to the system as normally an NIC EIC Registered Electrician has to install a new board to comply with current regulations when an extension is added.



Also, where can I look up the regulations where an extention requires its own electrical board and when that came in?

There is no requirement that an extension requires its own board, you are misinterpreting. The actual requirement is to comply with the IEE regs current at the time of installation. This may require a new board for the whole installation - or with some thinking about it, it might be possible to use the existing board provided that rewirable fuses are not used for the new work - or equally, a new board for just the extension might be the most economical way to achieve compliance

Although there is no requirement to eliminate rewirable fuses, it is possible to do this cheaply and simply for Wylex fuseboards at least with replacement cartridge fuses or circuit breakers. Which in your shoes, I would be doing anyway. Arguably this needs Part P approval, but I would not let this stand in the way of making the improvement.