17th Edition Certificate (uk)

[RFChiller]

Hi folks, can somebody advise on the best route to gaining this certificate?

I have reasonable knowledge of Electricity/Wiring from working on A\C and Refrigeration, however not to a point at which i would be confident going straight into an exam.

Is there any home learning methods that you would recommend? I've looked at into this but not sure if its value for money. Time off work to go on a course is not an option.

Thanks for any help.

[Gingerair]

Try your local Tech college, but beware some have their own courses- cheap & some have links to private training providers- expensive. Last time i looked at my local tech the difference was £1500 :rolleyes:
Needless to say the in house college course fills up quickly....

[chilliwilly]

If your knowledge of electrical principles is proficient, then you need to concentrate on learing installation practices of circuits, containment systems, cable calculations, and testing and certification.

Purchase the on site guide for starters and read through it. Then consider purchasing the IEE guide books, they are wrote by top people from the IEE and other institutes such as Brian Scaddon, and Trevor Lindsey.

Amazon stock most of what you will need for researching what you need to know. But be warned there are more politics in electrical contracting work than any other trade, especially domestic. Thats why I came back into fridge, you are your own boss and controlled by much less third parties.

[VeryFastFish@BE]

Hi RFChiller

I work for a refrigerant training company and we are about to offer the 17th edition to our clients. I had to find a suitable C&G2381 course in order to be able to teach this myself on the courses.

Depending on where you live you can attend evening courses at a college. Usually the course lasts 12 - 14 weeks, one evening a week to fit in with the working day. I paid £450 for my course.

You will need to buy the 17th edition Regs book - BS7671:2008.

and the on-site guide as per the last post.

The course will take you through the regs and get you familiar with calculating cable sizes etc.

At the end is a nice multiple choice open book exam.

If you conduct domestic installs then you will need to get registered with a board like NIC etc. unless you want to pay the council £75 per install.

[Kev The Tool]

Hi,
I was chatting to a sparky last week he done his 17th at tamworth college, 10 week course on saturday morning he said it cost him about £300,
might be worth a call.:cool:

[chilliwilly]

There are so many variations in prices with any course fees. To be honest with you the questions in any regs exam are almost the same as they have been for the past 30+ years. If you know your way round the regs and get used to where to find the chapters, I'll bet you could just take the exam and pass without the course.

When I started doing electrical and fridge work, the 14th edition was in implementation, and to be honest they would have been OK just sticking with it. When the 15th edition came out in June 81, they kept postponing it and it was in its second ammendment by 83. Thats when most companies started to actually take notice of it and implement it on their jobs.

The only thing that changes when they bring out new regs or ammendments, are earthing arrangements (which have stayed the same until the first ammendment of the 16th ed regarding supplementary bonding in speacial locations containing a bath, shower, or swimming pool), testing and verification, loop impedence values, trip curve characteristics of protective devices, current carrying capacaties of cables (which keep changing back to their values 30+ years ago), use of RCDs, and insulation resistance values(which again keep changing).

Most of the other stuff tends to stay the same. It really amazes me though that the UK still uses ringmains, anyone with any common sense and a good knowledge of electrical safety can see a potential hazzard with that type of circuit. Though its something that remains unchanged for over 35 years, but the not so hazardous things get changed. I suppose it keeps the colleges open and third party industries in business.

You could try this link for some examples of the types of questions you may come across in the exam. They're not city and guilds past question papers, but they will give you some idea of the deal.

http://www.ips-international.com/17th-Edition--exam-arrangements-275.asp