Commercial testing

[maffematics]

Can anyone advise me i have just set up my own business and have registered with NICEIC domestic installer scheme so can issue certs for domestic work but wondered about commercial premises do i need to be approved contractor or as a qualified electrician do i meet requirements

i will only be working on single phase installations.

 

[Apache]

No part P for commercial. You need insurance and to be competent

 

[jl-heating]

domestic installers are not qualified to work in commercial properties,also you wont be insured.

although you only have to prove competance.

 

[NozSpark]

domestic installers are not qualified to work in commercial properties,also you wont be insured.although you only have to prove competance.

Not quite true,,,

If you are a limited scope DI the you are unlikely to be competent and have the correct insurance..

But that is all you need,,, unless the companies insurance company stipulates NICEIC AC status as a requirement.

 

[maffematics]

Thanks again everyone just to comfirm as long as i am competent and have the relevant insurance i can work, inspect, test and certify commercial premises

 

[green-hornet]

There is one insurance I would strongly recomend if you do industrial testing, and that is professional indemnity.Along with at least 5 million public liability.

Any one testing anything should have a thourough knowledge of the type of installation you are testing.

 

[sarni31]

domestic installers are not qualified to work in commercial properties,also you wont be insured.although you only have to prove competance.

Id be interested to know where you pulled that gem from .... ; \

Guiness Drink

 

[green-hornet]

I think he was generalising on people who are just registered as DI,s that have no other formal training.

 

[Andy™]

domestic installers are not qualified to work in commercial properties,also you wont be insured.although you only have to prove competance.

no truth to the first part. domestic installer is completely different from commercial. for commercial, as long as your competent, then there are no hoops to jump through, you dont have to be registered with anyone either. just go out there and do the work.

im registered with elecsa for domestic, but no-one for commercial, and ive never had any problems with this

 

[jl-heating]

thats what i meant, i could go and work in a commercial setting without any quakifications or joining any scheme.

whilst on the di course one stipulation is you can only do domestic installs anything commercial or industrial you cannot touch.

same for gas .

its really a loop hole because as above you only have to be competant to do the work and no one has given a bench mark to prove competance .

i would not touch it without as above the experience needed also no one would insure you knowing that you ahd no experience or knowledge of the circuits you were working on so i would guess it would not be valid.

 

[Andy™]

whilst on the di course one stipulation is you can only do domestic installs anything commercial or industrial you cannot touch.

thats basically saying 'once your DI, your banned from commercial'. you can do commercial, just not use the scam providers name

 

[jl-heating]

no did not say that, on the course the tutors specifically say this is for domestic instalations only there is nothing what so ever within the course for comercial/industrial so we naturally assumed that we were not able to work in anything but domestic... only from speaking to other sparkies and forums etc did i find out that we could do shops etc and businesses`s as competence was only needed not qualifications (stupid ruling it should be policed)

do u know i only found out last month that if i worked in a shop or business on gas its classed as commercial so i am not covered for that ... i need my commercial ticket.. it used to be anything up to 28mm pipe was classed as domestic.

i have worked on hundreds of shops /cafes etc .. and never knew.

god only knows wen they changed it .

 

[biggles69]

Forgive my ignorance here, but once you have done the work on a commercial property, what paperwork do you complete? Surely the results of the tests you carry out have to be recorded somewhere?

Bigs.

 

[green-hornet]

All electrical work would require a certificate.

Only domestic would need to be notified under Part P which is a building regulation and not an electrical regulation.

 

[Andy™]

Forgive my ignorance here, but once you have done the work on a commercial property, what paperwork do you complete? Surely the results of the tests you carry out have to be recorded somewhere?Bigs.

you whatever certs you want. as long as they have the required info in them as detailed in 7671. you can use the certs direct from the regs if you wanted. you do not have to be registered with anyone to issue them

 

[batty]

you have to be competent to do the work. I do a bit of commercial and registered with B/Standards to do this but as Andy says you do not have to be registered with anyone. If you are taking on commercial start of doing small jobs and work your way up.

Batty

 

[green-hornet]

I like working on industrial its really invigorating going into a small on site sub station and feeling all the hairs on your arms standing up.

Pulling 150mm cable through to hook up to a section board.

God who am I kidding? give me 1.5 and 2.5 any day 230v simples!

 

[Andy™]

give me commercial any day!

want a job swap GH?!

 

[bigclive]

no truth to the first part. domestic installer is completely different from commercial. for commercial, as long as your competent, then there are no hoops to jump through, you dont have to be registered with anyone either. just go out there and do the work. im registered with elecsa for domestic, but no-one for commercial, and ive never had any problems with this

Doubt about this has made me turn down personal work in the past. I spend most of my time working with "NICEIC" approved contractors and while I'm with them I'm conveniently "NICEIC approved", but not as soon as I walk out the door. I've turned away a LOT of work for this reason. Perhaps because they market themselves as being THE electrical standards agency.

Ironically when I first went self employed one of the first things I did was phone the NICEIC to enquire about getting "approval". That was in 1990 and the guy announced that I'd need to have been trading for 2 years and have a full business premises to be considered for approval. Being naive at the time I actually asked my prospective sources of work if I needed to be NICEIC approved to do it. They inevitably took a wild guess and said yes so I ended up just subbing 714 instead. (Which worked out fine for me.)

It did pretty much make me realise that the NICEIC was nothing to do with electrical safety, and was instead a protection racket for the large contractors. This is well and truly borne out by the shockingly poor levels of installation I see being carried out by many labourer-heavy "NICEIC" contractors.

 

[Andy™]

Being naive at the time I actually asked my prospective sources of work if I needed to be NICEIC approved to do it. They inevitably took a wild guess and said yes so I ended up just subbing 714 instead. (Which worked out fine for me.)

maybe if you had explained the situation to them, i.e tell them there is more to life than the NIC, they would have had a different view and you may have got more work through it. many people i work for are not bothered if im nic or whatever, they know they can trust me to do the work and thats the most important thing