Electrics to shed - "Competent Person"

MrMoo28

We erected a shed in our garden a few months back that we'd like to have an electricity supply in. Prior to building the shed and doing our other garden landscaping, we buried a drainpipe down the length of the garden from the house to the shed to house any services such as electrical cables.

Is anyone able to say how much roughly "Competent Person registered" electricians may charge for hooking up electrics to a shed, or are there so many variables that I should just cut to the chase and get some actual quotes?

The issue we have here is, my partner's dad is a Chartered Electrical Engineer with a BSc and MSc in Electrical Engineering. He is more than competent at performing this tasking but as far as I am aware he is not registered as a "Competent Person" with BRE, BSI, Elecsa, NAPIT or NICEIC (although I may be wrong - he just doesn't like having his details on any database like that). It would be significantly cheaper for him to do the installation for us, rather than us paying a contractor, but with that would come with the cost of paying the council to send out a "Competent Person" to perform regularisation testing. Does anyone have any experience of how much this would cost?

If the cost of a regularisation test is similar to what it would cost for someone who can self-certify Part P to just do it in the first place then we may as well get it done by the one person. But of course this is MSE and if there's a cost saving, but having the job done to the same standard (or better, you always have to place trust in contractors!).....

Thanks!

brightontraveller

MrMoo28 wrote: »

We erected a shed in our garden a few months back that we'd like to have an electricity supply in. Prior to building the shed and doing our other garden landscaping, we buried a drainpipe down the length of the garden from the house to the shed to house any services such as electrical cables.

Is anyone able to say how much roughly "Competent Person registered" electricians may charge for hooking up electrics to a shed, or are there so many variables that I should just cut to the chase and get some actual quotes?

The issue we have here is, my partner's dad is a Chartered Electrical Engineer with a BSc and MSc in Electrical Engineering. He is more than competent at performing this tasking but as far as I am aware he is not registered as a "Competent Person" with BRE, BSI, Elecsa, NAPIT or NICEIC (although I may be wrong - he just doesn't like having his details on any database like that). It would be significantly cheaper for him to do the installation for us, rather than us paying a contractor, but with that would come with the cost of paying the council to send out a "Competent Person" to perform regularisation testing. Does anyone have any experience of how much this would cost?

If the cost of a regularisation test is similar to what it would cost for someone who can self-certify Part P to just do it in the first place then we may as well get it done by the one person. But of course this is MSE and if there's a cost saving, but having the job done to the same standard (or better, you always have to place trust in contractors!).....

Thanks!

If partners father is as you say then he’d know what he can and can’t do and would understand what’s required to be deemed "Competent "if he doesn’t then he’s not ?

As you say multitude of variables, Get quotes and list specs otherwise purely speculative that doesn’t help you at all...

Risteard

Just to add to that, I certainly don't believe that it automatically follows that a Chartered Electrical Engineer is necessarily competent to carry out electrical installation work.

stator

If you just buy a really long extension lead, take the plug off, pull the cable through the pipe, put the plug back on and plug it into an RCD socket, you shouldn't need an electrician at all.

discat11

There are very specific regulations regarding running electricity outside of the house and the only person who can 'sign these off' is a registered electrician (NIC EIC).

Running normal cable in a drainpipe is a no-no, cable has to be armoured, run at a certain depth underground marked by underground warning tape, terminated at each end in a specific gland box and fed from a separate ELCB protected fuse way from the consumer unit IIRC.

brightontraveller

discat11 wrote: »

There are very specific regulations regarding running electricity outside of the house and the only person who can 'sign these off' is a registered electrician (NIC EIC).

Running normal cable in a drainpipe is a no-no, cable has to be armoured, run at a certain depth underground marked by underground warning tape, terminated at each end in a specific gland box and fed from a separate ELCB protected fuse way from the consumer unit IIRC.

Not entirely accurate firstly Niceic napit etc are just governing bodies that you can join but you don't have to be a member of them, Anyone competent can issue a certificate or arguably even non competent so as long as works are done in accordance with appropriate regulations to an extent your behind is covered is drain pipe the correct thing to use no its not a drain ? Do you have to bury cables at all no (swa can go on the surface so can correct type non swa erect a barrier etc ? ) Does supply need to be permanent no it can be plugged? Do I think the person is “competent” with there Bsc etc no because what’s already been done and the fact OP has to ask ?

For Joe public I’d say Competent is subjective but liability isn't? Primarily it’s the everything is fine until something goes wrong then whose talking responsibility....

Ectophile

If it involves installing a new circuit, then it should be notified to the local council under building regulations. If you try to do this yourself, the council's fees will be extortionate. Electricians who are members of one of the schemes can just self-certify through their organisation, for a much lower fee.

Ask a qualified electrician about Chartered Electrical Engineers and you may get a few choice words. There are a lot of things to consider that most people wouldn't even think of. Does the cable need to be armoured? Can you use a 2-core cable and use the armour as Earth? Does the far end need to be TT'd? What size cable do you need to give an acceptable voltage drop? Will the fault impedance be low enough to trip the breaker in an acceptable time? And probably others I haven't even thought of.

MonsieurFrugal

Or like 95% of people, do it anyway without notifying anyone.

greatgimpo

MonsieurFrugal wrote: »

Or like 95% of people, do it anyway without notifying anyone.

If you have a box file regarding buying your house, put a note in so that in 10 years time when you're selling, it will serve as a reminder to take the cable out before viewers see it and you become liable.

fezster

Most electricians are quite reasonable about you supplying your own materials and / or doing some of the manual labour. Get a couple in, and speak to them about doing the above - they'll tell you what kind of cable they'd require, and they'll also tell you if the drain pipe is sufficient, or what else would be required (most likely a warning tape to cover it with).

The labour charge should then be just for wiring up both ends, which should be a lot less than having to dig a hole and run the cable underground.

MrMoo28

Thanks for your replies all. I'm sure there is a bit of friction between your normal sparkies and electrical engineers! I think best thing to do is just get some people round for quotes and see. Do you think the council would be able to say how much regularisation testing would cost, or is it case dependent, not a flat fee?

Regarding the questions about the prep work we've done, the drain pipe has been buried, with the top of the pipe at a depth of 430mm and the pipe's diameter probably 100mm, covered with electrical warning tape, backfilled and then a further electrical warning tape buried before backfilling the remaining, all of which we have photographic proof of with measurements. We wanted to bury at 500mm, and dug to that depth but encountered two water/sewerage drain pipes which we had to navigate around! Very annoying..

The main thing is, we want this done properly and notified to BC under Part P so it is signed off. We just don't really want to pay a contractor lots of money to do a job my partner's dad is more than capable of and has done in his own home before to his outbuilding with his power tools! From what I've read, Part P was designed for contractors who specialise in other areas (e.g. plumbing) who also needed to carry out the occasional electrical work so people knew the work was safe.