Why choose a NAPIT member?

It is important that you get work done by competent people working for businesses who are committed to quality, safety and customer care. NAPIT certificated scheme members have demonstrated their competence, they hold the necessary insurances and have the right processes and procedures to assure compliance.

NAPIT registered installers are:

•  Able to complete work safely and to legally required standards
•  Regularly assessed to ensure their ongoing competence
•  Capable of working to the very latest health and safety regulations
•  Able to provide you with the necessary certificates to demonstrate the regulatory compliance of the work they do. These certificates may be requested by tenants, insurance providers and solicitors and may be needed if you are looking to let or come to sell your property.

About NAPIT

NAPIT is one of the leading Government authorised and United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) accredited membership scheme operators in the building services and fabric sector. There are currently more than 10,000 NAPIT registered installers in the electrical, heating, plumbing, ventilation & air-conditioning, microgeneration and building fabric trades across the UK domestic, commercial and industrial markets.

For consumers this means access to installers who have demonstrated their competence and undertaken to comply with the requirements of particular schemes with regard to quality, safety and compliance.

Responsibility for compliant and safe work lies with the installer; NAPIT's role is to monitor each scheme member and audit that they are fulfilling this responsibility. Installers do not carry out work on behalf, or under the control, of NAPIT and the extent to which inspections and audits are carried out is determined by the various scheme owner organisations.

Authorisation, Accreditation, Registration and Certification

A confusing number of terms are used across the various schemes that consumers come across.

Scheme members are usually both registered (i.e. on a register of approved installers such as that provided via the search facility on this website and those on the various scheme websites) and certificated (i.e. in receipt of a certificate approving them within the scope of a particular scheme). The search facility is a means of verifying the status of certification of a Scheme Member.

NAPIT Registration is authorised by the government to operate Competent Person Schemes in support of self certification against the Building Regulations in England and Wales. The current scope of NAPIT's Competent Person Scheme authorisation can be reviewed at the Government website.

NAPIT Certification is accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) to certificate installers across a wide range of schemes. A current schedule of NAPIT’s accreditation is available at the UKAS website.

Regulations

Not all work carried out by installers is covered by regulatory requirements. This section aims to give a sufficient overview to understand which work is regulated.

The Building Regulations in England and Wales require that certain types of work are notified as compliant either via Building Control or by self-certification by a Competent Person. NAPIT registered scheme members in the areas of electrical, heating, plumbing, ventilation & air-conditioning, microgeneration and building fabric trades are able to certificate their own work, saving consumers the time and money that would otherwise be involved in using Building Control.

Building work throughout the UK is often subject to Planning Regulations and understanding whether planning permission is required, is the building owner’s responsibility. Some of the work areas that NAPIT are involved in are subject to what is called Permitted Development, which allows specific work to go ahead without planning permission provided certain requirements are satisfied. This is particularly true of microgeneration work and useful guidance is available on the MCS website for this.

Electrical work is covered by the Building Regulations in England and Wales, and throughout the UK it is also covered by what are titled the IET Wiring Regulations (BS 7671). Compliance with the Wiring Regulations is the accepted way to satisfy electrical safety legislation. While Building Regulations Part P (electrical safety) is the most commonly referenced regulation it is important to note that electrical work must comply with all relevant parts of the Building Regulations such that NAPIT is not simply a “Part P Scheme” and NAPIT registered electrical contractors are not merely “Part P Approved” despite this being common terminology in the industry. Approved Document P itself states:

Other parts of the Building Regulations contain requirements that affect electrical installations. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• a) Part A (Structure): depth of chases in walls, and size of holes and notches in floor and roof joists
• b) Part B (Fire safety): fire safety of certain electrical installations; provision of fire alarm and fire detection systems; fire resistance of service penetrations through floors, walls and ceilings
• c) Part C (Site preparation and resistance to contaminants and moisture): resistance of service penetrations to rainwater and contaminants such as radon
• d) Part E (Resistance to the passage of sound): soundproofing of service penetrations
• e) Part F (Ventilation): dwelling ventilation rates
• f) Part L (Conservation of fuel and power): energy efficient lighting
• g) Part M (Access to and use of buildings): height of socket-outlets and switches

Building Regulations details vary in many regions of the United Kingdom, further information can be found at the following external links:

Financial Incentives

Many consumers have installation work done in order to take advantage of financial incentives. The most common incentives that involve NAPIT Scheme Members are the Feed in Tariff (FIT) for electrical generation from small scale renewable energy and the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) for heat generation from small scale renewable energy. Both of these require installation by an installer certificated under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS).

NAPIT does not have any involvement in the management or operation of the financial schemes, as that is the responsibility of Ofgem. It is the requirement of both FIT and RHI that the installation must comply with MCS. NAPIT is involved in the role of managing the certification of the NAPIT registered installers involved.

Useful guidance on theses incentives can be found here.

What Certificates (etc) to Expect if using a NAPIT Certificated Installer

Note: if your work was carried out by a NAPIT registered installer and you are not in receipt of a Building Regulations Compliance Certificate and you think you should be (i.e. the work requires a certificate and was completed over 30 days ago), we suggest waiting a further week to allow for the weekly postal run, then contact NAPIT Customer Services on 0345 543 0330 or [email protected] for assistance.

Financial Protection

It is important to know that you are in safe hands. Installers certificated by NAPIT are committing themselves to comply with requirements that include rectification of faults and effective handling of complaints.

Responsibility for compliance always lies with the installer you engaged. The schemes require that installers warrant relevant work for a period of at least 6 years, within which time they must return and rectify any non-compliant matters that are attributable to their installation work.

The installer should have made this commitment to you in writing in their quotation/contract paperwork. You may not be protected if you enter into an arrangement with an installer without such details being provided in writing.

If a problem arises and the installer is no longer certificated within the scheme, but they are still in business, it is this contractual commitment that protects you as they remain obliged to comply with the contract with you, irrespective of their certification status.

If they are no longer in business some limited protection may be available in the following specific situations:

• For renewable energy work (whether or not it was carried out under MCS) the installer should have purchased an insurance backed warranty and provided you with a copy in your handover pack.
• For work done under schemes such as the Energy Company Obligation the supply company who funded the installation is liable for compliance, and under the Green Deal the appropriate arrangements should be described in the paperwork provided to you by the Green Deal Provider who employed the installer.
• For work that is notifiable within the scope of the Building Regulations in England and Wales, and self-certificated by the installer as compliant, the NAPIT Work Quality Guarantee may apply.