What Is Part P & Why It Matters For Your Electrics

Part P is one of those phrases that gets said a lot but explained almost never.

It turns up on electrical quotes, on websites, on the back of certificates, and most people nod along without ever being told what it means. However, years later, when a solicitor asks for a document nobody knew existed, it all of a sudden matters a great deal.

So here is the plain version from a team that deals with the paperwork side daily.

The Short Version

Part P is a section of the Building Regulations covering electrical safety in homes. It came in back in 2005, and the thinking behind it was simple enough. Too many people were having electrical work done by whoever was cheapest, nobody was checking it, and houses were catching fire.

What Part P says, in effect, is that electrical work in a dwelling must be designed and installed to protect people from fire and electric shock. For certain jobs it goes further and says the work has to be notified to building control and certified, which is where the paperwork comes in.

Part P Is Not the Wiring Regulations

It’s important to note that Part P and BS 7671 are two different things doing two different jobs.

BS 7671, the Wiring Regulations, is the technical standard. It’s the thick book that tells an electrician what cable size to use, how the circuit should be protected, what has to be tested and to what values. It’s the how.

Part P is the law that says the work has to meet that standard, and that some of it must be notified to and signed off by the local authority. It’s the must. An electrician can work to BS 7671 all day long, but if the job was notifiable and never got registered, the Part P side is still unfinished.

Which Jobs Are Notifiable

Not all jobs are notifiable, but the below certainly are:

• Any brand new circuit, so a cooker circuit, an electric shower, or a supply for a new EV charger on the driveway
• Replacing the consumer unit
• A full or partial house rewire, since that’s new circuits throughout
• Work in a bathroom or shower room, which the regulations treat as a special location because of the water, and where the fitting has to suit the zone it’s going in
• New supplies out to a shed, garage or garden room, along with most other outdoor electrics

Plenty of everyday work sits outside all that. For example, adding a socket onto an existing circuit in a bedroom, swapping a broken switch, changing a light fitting, replacing a damaged socket front. Those still have to be done to BS 7671, but they just don’t need notifying. Anyone telling you every last job needs to be registered is overstating it.

The Certificate Is the Bit That Bites Later

When notifiable work is done properly, you end up with a Building Regulations compliance certificate. Most people file it, forget it, and never look at it again. Which is fine, right up until one of three things happens.

For example, you sell the house, and the buyer’s solicitor asks what electrical work has been done and whether it was certified. You make an insurance claim after a fire or a flood, and the insurer starts asking questions about the installation. Or you go to sell, and the buyer’s survey flags the electrics, and now you need to prove the fuse board that went in six years ago was signed off by someone qualified.

That certificate is the only easy answer to any of those. Without it, you’re relying on memory and a name you can’t quite recall.

Two Ways To Get It Signed Off

There are only two routes, and one is considerably less painful than the other.

The first is to use an electrician registered with a Part P competent person scheme, such as the NICEIC. Registered electricians (such as ourselves) can self-certify their own notifiable work. They test it, certify it, notify the local authority on your behalf, and the compliance certificate lands with you afterwards. You do nothing.

The second is to use someone who isn’t registered, in which case you have to notify Cardiff Council’s building control yourself, usually before the work starts, and pay for them to come and inspect it. It’s slower, it costs more than people expect, and it puts the responsibility on you rather than the person holding the screwdriver. Cheaper labour often ends up costing more by the time it is finished.

Where It Actually Goes Wrong

In our experience, it’s rarely a rogue electrician. It’s far more often work that nobody thought of as electrical work at all.

The classic is a kitchen refit because a fitter comes in, the units go in beautifully, and somewhere in the middle of it a new circuit appears for the hob or the oven. However, the problem is that this is usually run by whoever happened to be on site that week. Nobody mentions notification because nobody’s thinking about building regulations while they’re arguing about worktop overhangs. It’s exactly why we’d rather be involved in a kitchen installation from the drawing stage than be called in afterwards.

The other one is the Victorian and Edwardian housing across Roath, Cathays and Pontcanna. Those houses have often had four or five rounds of electrical work over the decades, some of it excellent, some of it done by a previous owner with more confidence than qualifications. Half of it predates Part P entirely, which is fair enough, but the work from the last 20 years should have paperwork to back it up and frequently doesn’t.

If The Paperwork Has Gone Missing

Where notifiable work was done without certification, or the certificate has simply vanished somewhere between house moves, the usual route is to have the installation inspected and tested after the fact. An EICR provides a detailed report on the condition of the wiring, and that report tends to satisfy a solicitor or a buyer who’s asking questions.

It won’t create a Building Regulations certificate retrospectively, but it does provide documented evidence from a registered electrician that the installation is safe. In practice, that’s usually what people are after.

The Practical Takeaway

Part P isn’t red tape for its own sake, and it isn’t something to be nervous about. It’s the reason you can be reasonably confident that the shower circuit in your bathroom was installed by somebody who knew what they were doing, and it’s the reason you’ve got something to hand a solicitor when the time comes.

For minor work it rarely comes up, but for anything notifiable, use a NICEIC-registered electrician, then keep the certificate somewhere you’ll find it again. If you’re planning bigger work, it’s worth reading our thoughts on upgrading your electrics before renovating, because sorting the certification while the walls are open is far easier than sorting it afterwards.

For peace of mind, we’re NICEIC-registered, so anything notifiable we carry out in Cardiff is tested, certified, and registered by us, and the certificate is in your hand before we leave. If you’ve got work coming up, or you’ve inherited a house with a fuse board of unknown parentage and no paperwork to go with it, get in touch, and we’ll tell you honestly where you stand.