Electrician: Part P, certificates and one request

The work falls into a few groups. Installation covers new sockets, lighting, outside power, a supply to a garden office or an extension. A full or partial rewire replaces old cabling, often rubber- or fabric-insulated wiring in older houses, and usually means lifting floorboards and chasing walls. Replacing a fuse board with a modern consumer unit adds residual current devices (RCDs), which cut the power quickly if current leaks to earth.

Then there is testing. An Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) is an inspection of an existing installation, recorded against the wiring standard BS 7671. It lists defects with codes: C1 means danger present, C2 potentially dangerous, C3 improvement recommended, and FI means further investigation is needed. Smart home work, such as smart lighting, heating controls or a hub-based system, sits somewhere in between and often needs a mix of electrical and network skills.

In England and Wales, electrical work in homes falls under Part P of the Building Regulations. Some jobs are notifiable: installing a new consumer unit, adding a complete new circuit, and altering circuits in a special location. In England the special locations are the spaces around baths and showers; in Wales they also include kitchens and outdoors. Most repairs, like-for-like replacements and small additions to an existing circuit are not notifiable, although they still have to be done safely and to BS 7671.

Notifiable work can be handled in two ways. An electrician registered with a competent person scheme, such as NICEIC, NAPIT or ELECSA, can self-certify the work and notify the council for you. Otherwise the work has to go through Building Control before it starts, which takes longer and costs a fee. For almost every household the first route is the sensible one.

Scotland has its own building standards system, and Northern Ireland its own regulations, so the notification rules above do not apply there in the same way. An electrician working in those nations should explain what the local system requires.

After new work you should receive an Electrical Installation Certificate for a new circuit or larger job, or a Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate for a small addition. For notifiable work done by a registered electrician, the scheme then issues a Building Regulations compliance certificate, usually by post some weeks later. Keep all of them with the house deeds.

These papers are what a buyer's solicitor asks for. A missing compliance certificate for a rewire or a new consumer unit can delay a sale or lead to an indemnity policy or retrospective inspection. If an electrician offers to do notifiable work "without the paperwork", treat that as a reason to walk away.

• Electrical Installation Certificate or Minor Works Certificate, depending on the job
• Building Regulations compliance certificate for notifiable work
• the test results schedule attached to the certificate
• for an EICR: the full report with every observation and its code, not just a pass or fail

In England, the Electrical Safety Standards regulations require landlords to have the electrical installation in a rented home inspected and tested at least every 5 years by a qualified person. The regulations were amended in 2025 to bring social landlords in as well as private ones; check the government guidance for when that applies to your tenancies. The tenant must be given a copy of the report, and any work the report identifies as urgent has to be carried out.

Scotland and Wales have their own requirements for rented homes. A landlord with properties in more than one nation should check each set of rules rather than assume they match. When you book an EICR, say how many circuits and rooms there are, whether there is outbuilding power, and whether the last report is available; it saves the electrician time on site.

Source: gov.uk

For a rewire, the main factors are the number of rooms and circuits, whether the house is occupied, the floor construction, and how much making good and redecoration you expect afterwards. Solid floors and plaster walls take more work than suspended timber floors. A consumer unit swap is often straightforward, but if testing reveals faults on existing circuits, those have to be fixed before the new board can be certified.

For inspections, price depends mainly on the size of the installation. For small jobs, access and travel make up a large share, so grouping several small tasks into one visit is usually better value. A written quote should say what is included, whether plastering is part of it, and which certificates you will receive.

You describe the job, confirm your phone number with a text code and your email with a link. We show the request to electricians in your area without your name or contact details, and one firm can buy it. Once it is bought, the request disappears from our shop. Before that electrician sees your details, we email you its name, address and phone number.

Using Offrano costs you nothing, and there is no promise that an electrician will take the request; if nobody does within 21 days, it is withdrawn. Offrano confirms that buyers are registered businesses but does not assess their work. Check the electrician's registration yourself on the Registered Competent Person Electrical register or the NICEIC or NAPIT websites before any notifiable work starts.