Hello nice people.
Well once again I have the opportunity to comment on a subject I know quite a lot about because I am one of those rare and timid creatures we call a qualified domestic electrician. I am also an electrical inspector holding a 2391 qualification.
I will try to keep this general reply as short as possible, but this is a very serious issue and obviously one that is close to my heart. If anyone wants more specific advice about a problem, please feel free to PM me and I will try to get back to you ASAP.
OK, regulations:
PGM is quite right about the building regulations in this country (UK) being mandatory, however I must stress that ALL electrical work in UK domestic properties MUST be carried out in accordance with BS7671 (British Standard 7671), by a COMPETENT PERSON. Where electrical work is to be carried out in 'special locatons' (as defined in BS7671) due to the increased risk of electric shock, not only is it to be carried out by a competent person, but Local Authority Building Control must also be notified. When you use a qualified/certified sparks, this will be done for you, probably without you even knowing about it. There ARE similar procedures in Spain, but obviously those lovely chaps work to their own country's standard, not to a 'British Standard'. But be warned, the Spanish equivalent of an electrical installation certificate is the 'boletin de instalaciones electricas' and if God forbid anything was to go wrong on the developement....... i.e. a death by electrocution in your property, I will bet my aunty's pants that PW will want to vindicate themselves from any shoddy workmanship and blame the person that carried out any subsiquent electrical installaton work for the accident. You as the owner/landlord had better make damn sure you can prove the work carried out on your property had been done by a competent person and in accordance with any federal or local building regulations.
The rough definition of 'a competent person' is someone with sufficient training, knowledge and experience to carry out the work required on the particular installation in question.
I appreciate that competence is not something one can easily define, but if insurance companies, the Police or a court were to get invloved, I can tell you from experience, the authorities will want to see actual proof that the person in question is competent. They may want to see examples of previous work, certificates of formal training/qualifiactions and public liability insurance, the test equipment used and in some cases proof of affiliation to relevent governing bodies.
Let me say from daily experience in my professional capacity while I accept that wiring a few lights up is not like re-wiring a rocket.............A little knowledge can be a very, VERY dangerous thing.
If you do not understand the next things I say, I will suggest you are not suitably competent to be carrying out your own electrical work.
1. Maximum earth fault loop impedance.
2. RCBOs.
3. A.D.S.
4. Diversity.
5. Maximum safe load carrying capacity of cables.
To those of you that have already connected your own lights, inside and outside, may I ask which of those 3 wires you connected do you think is the most important? The brown, the blue or the green/yellow?...........most unqualified people would say "the brown one because it's the live". Well I suggest it is in fact the green/yellow that is by far the most important because when we are dealing with lethal voltages, without question, the most important thing is how the installation reacts when a potentially fatal fault occurs.
Let me give you an example..............If for instance 'the earth' or CPC (circuit protective conductor) to one of the light fittings you had connected outside had been accidentally severed during construction inside the wall cavity, the light would work perfectly well. Let us now say the 'live' wire within the fitting had come loose due to a faulty terminal screw and was now in contact with the metal fitting. All that would happen is that the light 'bulb' would not work. When you or your wife, or your guest/children went to replace the bulb and touched the (now live) metal fitting you would instantly have circa 230V ac go into your hand, down through your body and out through your foot. Your heart would probably go into V-fib and you could be dead before anyone knew what happened..........If on the other hand you had got someone competent to do the work, they would have tested the earth fault loop impedence of that lighting circuit and found it was way out of limits due to the severed earth cable. They would have found the damaged earth cable and repaired it. When the terminal screw had then broken (in my example) and allowed the live wire to touch the metal fitting, the system would have reacted by instantly tripping the relevent RCBO and no matter how many times you tried to reset it, it would not allow you do so.
That example is not designed to frighten or patronise anyone, but it is something that could and in my experience has happend. Although luckily, the person that touched the live light fitting did not die.
Please, PLEASE do not confuse 'competent' with carefull, intelligent or common sense.
Just because I can grow potatoes in my garden................does not mean I am a farmer.
WW