I had some fish & chips today - just a small portion.
Late last year and during this year, I did a fair amount of electrical work in this house I bought in Sept.2003. The front porch light didn't work, neither did the front garage flood light nor the back garden floodlight - whose switch was in the garage anyway - bloody stupid place for it.
So I installed movement sensitive floodlights - by the front door, driveway, side of house and back garden. I also added a light for the inside of the meter box cupboard at the front of the house. I rewired the garage lighting as part of this project as the old lights were wired directly in and did not have switches! (Even though they're movement sensitive, I still wanted the ability to isolate them) Not only that, but the wrong type of wiring had been used - ringmain cable instead of lighting cable, and with many wires to go into the same junction box, the ringmain wire was too thick and would have caused problems. I replaced the single light bulb socket inside the garage with two neon strip lights running the length of the garage.
Inside the house, I've replaced the single bulb light fittings in each of my three bathrooms, and replaced them with spotlight fittings, four spots in each fitting. The kitchen lightswitch broke a few weeks ago, so I bought a replacement and fitted it.
But now, the latest in a long list of Blair's Nanny State bans comes the ban on doing your own electrical work in your own home!! It's true - as of 2005, a certified electrician must do it for you, or else if you do your own work, you have to have it inspected.
I'm sensible enough to know that if work needs doing to the consumer unit or anything upstream of it, that's an electrician's job. But now it seems that judgement call is to be taken away from me - Nanny knows best.
So I was thinking - that job to replace the kitchen light switch took me about 20 minutes. To do it legally from 2005, I'd have to find an electrician, have him tell me he can look at it in three weeks time, not show up, get another electrician, be told he'll call between 8am and 6pm, wait in all day to find that he comes at 5:45pm, needs another part, arrange another day at home and another site visit....
... can you imagine it? How the hell they're going to police the new laws I don't know. A licensing system for electrical components such as switches and cable?
Well bugger it. If I need something doing, I'm going to do it myself. Bollocks to Blair and his Nanny State.
