Hi dewiscourfield

Have been wondering whether one of the electrical specialists who is registered on these Forums would come to give advice, but since that hasn’t happened I will try to get the debate moving forward.

At a risk of irritating that who believe in demarcation of “trades” and those who would apply a Zero Harm approach however disproportionately that might be, my reading is that the work your installers is doing probably DOESN’T need a fully qualified electrician, if, in effect, all they are doing is checking that an existing fused spur has been isolated and proved to be “dead”,  then opening up the spur to make the wiring connections, and then sealing up again before reenergising the circuit.

For the purposes of this analysis, I have assumed that the machine will NOT be operating at “high voltage”, so less than 1000v AC or 1500v DC which many might reasonably conclude IS high voltage in Plain English and that the machine is NOT in a “special location”, such as in close proximity to sources of water e.g. in a bathroom or alongside a kitchen sink.

So in practical terms probably a machine to be operated at no more than about 450v AC (European votlages vary a little) to be installed in business premises.

I haven’t bothered with the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 as almost everything there is qualified by expressions such as “so far as reasonably practicable”, except that EAW Regulations 1989 do remind us that we are not trying to aim for Zero Risk.

So, instead, assuming you are in the UK, I have instead defaulted to Building Regulations and the slightly different guidance for England and Scotland.

In England the Building Regulations 2010 (as amended) include Part P and there is an Approved Document for Part P, but only for domestic buildings BR_PDF_AD_P_2013.pdf  – hence it is not authoritative for the work you are doing, but does give some clues as to what the regulators may think:

That Approved Document distinguishes between work that is “notifiable” under Regulation 12(6A) and work that is not “notifiable”.

…then implying that some work needs a qualified electrician and some does not.

2. Installing fixed electrical equipment is within the scope of Part B, even if the final connection is by      a standard 13A plug and socket, but is notifiable only if it involves work set out in regulation               12(6A). For example:

    a. installing a built-in cooker is not notifiable work unless a new cooker circuit is needed

    b. connecting an electrical gate or garage door to an existing isolator switch is not notifiable work,          but installing a new circuit from the consumer unit to the isolator is notifiable.”

I think that it is likely that what your company is doing is akin to 2a above, but with the comment that many domestic “built-in” cookers need a fuse much larger than 13A, so need to be hard wired into to a fused spur.

Possibly the example at 2b is more appropriate as it is perhaps unlikely that “an electrical gate or garage door” would be operated from a 13A plug.

In Scotland, this issue IS covered for non-domestic premises in the “Non-Domestic Technical Handbook” Technical Handbook - Domestic  but with a caveat to 4.5 set out on page 400:

“Limitation:

This standard does not apply to an electrical installation:

a) serving a building or any part of a building to which the Mines and Quarries Act 1954 or the Factories Act 1961 applies, or

b) forming part of the works of an undertaker to which regulations for the supply and distribution of electricity made under the Electricity Act 1989. “

Now OK, most of the provisions of both MQA 1954 and FA 1961 have long since been repealed but the Acts do still exist and would have a wider application than at what might be an initial reading.

Suppose you go into the local butcher’s shop but that has a back room that includes a machine to mince up meat, that back room would fall within the definition of “factory” in Section 175 of FA 1961.

So, we have to treat the guidance in the Non-Technical Handbook with some caution but once again it gives us some clues as to when it might be acceptable for a non-specialist to do minor electrical work.

At 4.5.1 on the following page of the Handbook:

“ Professional expertise - electrical installation work should be inspected and tested by persons who possess sufficient technical knowledge, relevant practical skills and experience for the nature of the electrical work undertaken. “

This doesn’t even mention the expertise of those doing the actual installation but provides us with familiar words – “knowledge”, “skills” and “experience”. Exactly the same words as used in e.g. CDM, just in a different order.

Now, I guess that many of those using these Forums have never wired a 13A plug as most of what we buy these days comes with moulded plugs at the point of sale.

However, whilst this is perhaps the result of so many plugs being poorly wired in the past, the rules for wiring a 13A plug are relatively simple and I suggest that a competent technician installing equipment should be capable – with limited instruction, perhaps a bit of training, and some supervision - of wiring up a machine to an existing fused spur in customer premises.

Is it reasonably practicable to bring in an electrician just to do the connection to a fused spur? Probably not.

Edited by user 30 November 2025 13:13:53(UTC)  | Reason: Sorted some but not all of the formatting issues in transfer by cut and paste from Word document dra