Bored think I might rewire the garage

[Dan B]

I was thinking about doing the domestic installer course - looking at online courses they seem to cost around £2000-2500, and, well, my house needs rewiring, which will probably cost at least double that amount (in London). But it wasn't at all clear whether the course was sufficient for self-certifying or if I'd still need to get building regs approval. Some of Teh Internetz are saying that once you've got the qualification you still need to go and work for a real electrician anyway, which kind of defeats the point.

 

[jowwy]

I was thinking about doing the domestic installer course - looking at online courses they seem to cost around £2000-2500, and, well, my house needs rewiring, which will probably cost at least double that amount (in London). But it wasn't at all clear whether the course was sufficient for self-certifying or if I'd still need to get building regs approval. Some of Teh Internetz are saying that once you've got the qualification you still need to go and work for a real electrician anyway, which kind of defeats the point.

How does that work if you want to become a self employed electrician???

 

[Archie_tect]

Has anyone heard from @MrGrumpy since the end of October... if he's wired up his own consumer unit and taken out an armoured cable he may be lying in the back of his garage somewhat dazed with a faint blue haze, and the faintest whiff of crispy bacon, in the air

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Anyone practical with half a brain can make a decent job of a domestic rewire if you have a methodical and sensible approach. It's only single phase and you're dealing with 240 volts on the live not potentially 415 volts between phases or weird stuff like having things with electric motors in them running in the wrong direction (you have to swap two of the phases over in the supplying isolator switch/fuse when this happens).
Most of it is donkey work, lifting floorboards, shoving or pulling cable between point A and point B, chopping out brickwork to sink flush back boxes or chasing plaster for burying cables. The actual connecting stuff up bit is only a small percentage of the total time involved. Much the same can be said of plumbing. it's 10% knowing enough to design your layout effectively, and 90% actually getting access to the places where you need to run pipes. A lot of trades like to blind punters with science, and make out that ordinary Joe Public can't possibly do all this really technical stuff themselves, but it's mostly hogwash. The main advantage a tradesman has is speed gained from experience, plus better optimised tools. Mr DIY will take a lot longer to do the same job as Mr Tradesman, but there's no reason why a DIYer can't achieve results that are just as good, and sometimes better. After all, if you are your own customer, you've got a big incentive to get it right first time. If you do a shoddy DIY repair or installing job, you're just cheating yourself.

 

[itboffin]

for some odd reason my garage only has one double socket so i've a 8 port surge protected extension for all the turbo TV music beer fridge gadgets and the other socket i've routed along a wall box mounted double extension using a plug so effectively just an extension lead, i use this to charge lights and garmin and the second socket for an LED beam light, no electrician required.

 

[MrGrumpy]

Has anyone heard from @MrGrumpy since the end of October... if he's wired up his own consumer unit and taken out an armoured cable he may be lying in the back of his garage somewhat dazed with a faint blue haze, and the faintest whiff of crispy bacon, in the air

I’m tickety boo ! Not a hard job and now I have nice new ring round the garage and even managed to think about the supply for a security camera as well so sorted that out. I’m not a time served electrician but I do have experience on electrical circuits granted , low voltage stuff . My father worked in the power industry, so some stuff I learnt from him.