I was in the electrical wholesalers yesterday and a man came in and was asking the sales person if a certain cunsumer unit board would meet the regulations of 17th Edition, I presumed he had been asked to call in by the electrician to pick this up, being an electrician myself I advised that this was a 17th edition consumer unit board and would meet the requirements for the 17th edition, as the conversation carried on it was quiet clear he was calling himself an electrician and he was planning to install this board for his assement for Part P, I thought if you don’t even  know what a 17th edition board is how the hell are you supposed to fit one, I am currently a member of the NICEIC and he was planning on joining Elecsa, when I said to him I would join the NICEIC if I was him the answer he came back with, was, “I have heard that the NICEIC are a lot harder to get in with but Elecsa are a lot easier”.

I thought, I can’t believe that people with no knowledge are getting let out there to perform electric work in customers homes, people are surely going to get hurt and his final thing was he had just got a contract to carry out work on council houses around the Huddersfield area carrying out rewires etc, so watch out Huddersfield for great electricians.

My final advice would be always use a NICEIC registered electrician as the electricians that don’t know there stuff are obviously staying away from the NICEIC as their standards are higher than all other Part P governing bodies.