With the new regulations coming into force that requires all
on-trivial electrical work to be certified by a qualified electrician,we wont be able to undertake projects such as this. The LD11’s I fitted to control my external lights for example would become illegal.
Where are people going to be able to find an electrician who is
prepared to certify projects like that, because your average sparky in the yellow pages wont even have heard of X10, never mind seen it. The other option that was mentioned a long time ago was to become self certified, so that you can certify your own work, but that was the last I heard of it, I’ve not seen any details of any courses being run.
However, there is light at the end of the tunnell, the governments webpage states:
“You do not need to tell your local authority’s Building Control
Department about:
* repairs, replacements and maintenance work; or
* extra power points or lighting points or other alterations to
existing circuits (except in a kitchen or bathroom, or outdoors).”
So you could argue that replacing your existing lighting with a CBus installation comes under “repairs, replacements and maintenance” but I think somehow that refers to replacing a lightswitch that’s faulty.
When the new regulations started, there was talk of
self-certification, but this was mis-interpreted by many as meaning you could go on a course and self certify your own installations, however it means that an electrician who is a certified competant person can certify his own installations without requiring inspection by the building control people.
It’s not just lighting that’s going to be effected either, many HA’ers interface their controllers with their boilers, via a relay, and I guess that this kind of work would also require inspection. Which BCO or sparky is going to certify that kind of work? You could argue that it’s “alterations to existing circuits”, but the regulations are a bit vague.
I very much doubt you’ll be able to find any sparky who would certify any DIY HA installations, as they wouldn’t want to risk the liability, should anything go wrong, and that’s what signals the end of DIY HA in the UK to me.
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