Amendment Number 3 BS7671 of the Wiring Regulations

We recently wrote a piece entitled “The history of the wiring regulations and how it affects electricians”, which can be found here. In the article we told you that we would keep you updated with any information when we were able too.

There certainly is a lot of speculation as to what the final changes will be in the 17^th edition wiring regulations amendment 3. These have in the main been taken from the proposals which were made accessible for public comment on the 14^th December 2013 to March 7^th 2014. The precise changes will be confirmed by the National wiring regulations committee by the 1^st November 2014 and be published in the new book in January 2015.

We are able at this stage to give you a little more information about amendment number 3 and will keep you updated with any changes as and when we get them!

So firstly, we can confirm that the colour of the new book for amendment number 3 will be a very distinctive yellow, the third coloured book since the introduction of the 17^th edition wiring regulations in January 2008.

The book will be published in January 2015 and any electrical installation work will have to comply with amendment 3 by July 2015.

Will you have to update your 17^th edition qualification?

The short answer to this is absolutely not if you hold a current 17^th edition course qualification as this is only an amendment.  Historically the only reason to update your qualification was when for example, it changed from the 16^th edition to the 17^th edition.  When this happened, the City and Guilds introduced a one day update course to facilitate the changes and keep costs for people updating qualifications to a minimum.

When will City & Guilds and EAL update their courses?

At some stage the City & Guilds and EAL will most certainly update their current 17^th edition course qualifications to take into account the new amendments. It is most likely to be a couple of months after the new book is published that they will change their 17^th edition courses.

Why do they keep changing the book?

As technology and the environment changes it is necessary to keep pace with the introduction of new amendments to take into account the changes in design, installation and verification of installations.

Summary

The new yellow book will be published in January 2015 with all new electrical installation work complying by July 2015. Existing holders of the current 17^th edition qualification will not have to take any further courses but will have to familiarise themselves with the new amendments to comply with the updated wiring regulations. Updated courses will be introduced early in 2015 to reflect and accommodate the changes in the book.

Update: We have written a new post about the newly released 17th edition amendment 3 for you to read.