Help re costs & necessity of electrical works

roger56

T&E comes in different sizes. Get you electrician to explain which ones you need and what lengths.

This link shows examples:
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Cable_Index/Twin_and_Earth/index.html

and this is the sleeving Andrew mentions:
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Cable_Accessories_Index/Sleeving/index.html

With the TLC site, checkout the clearance and special offers bit.

Oh, I don't think you're a dimwit for not knowing about Part P. It's clear from the site alone that many people are not aware of it, that's one reason I started this thread: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=335930

Good luck, Happy New Year

travel_freak

Hello all,

Just wanted to say a huge thank you for all your time and good advice which I'm digesting.

It seems I can conclude that the works the builder has identified as needing to be done do need to be done (albeit that I can save on some of the things such as non-neon switches and things). It's so difficult when you have different people in to quote who you don't know and they're all telling you different things - you end up not knowing who to believe! Although you do pick up on vibes and I must say the guy who came round last and gave this quote seemed very thorough and seemed to know what he was doing.

One major advantage is that he could do all the work next week which would be a huge help to me.

Just one more request please if anyone could tell me roughly how much doing this work should cost from a labour point of view as I honestly have no clue and would like to be reassured that the quote is in the right area.

It just goes against the grain of all my training from this site to accept a quote without knowing that it's broadly right!

Thanks again to everyone and Happy New Year!

roger56

OK, I'll stick my neck out here and say its probably 2-3days work to set out, install and test. It's very difficult to be accurate not seeing the job, but if you are handy and can work alongside or prepare in advance for the electrician things like chasing out, making his access easy (de-clutter), then you may save money. So labour, allow £300-£400.

I will add, I tend to be a bit slow and do electrical installation work for interest - it's not my real job!!!

Hopefully someone will be along to give a second opinion.

Good luck


Just one further thought, if your electrician finds other unsafe electrical work on top of what he has already found, he will advise you, so be prepared for some extra work / cost. Agree the extent of the work costed before starting, you'll then have a good reference to cost any extras.

nichere

well i charge £120 per day as a rough guide for you depending obviously where you live london dearer.as for the consumer unit you have it sounds like a new one so as long as you have enough ways in it you should not need to change it roughly 8 ways (3 ring mains,upstairs downstairs and kitchen, 2 lighting,shower,cooker,heating if thats the way hes doing it,be wary as some people will say change consumer unit as its easy money as long as your ring mains shower are protected by an rcd(residual current device)thats fine these have a test button on them so you will know if you have them or not,in the cas4e of a split load board the ring mains and shower will be on your rcd protected side of the board.
a thing i do is put in a double pole switch at the side of the board where the tails go into ie live and neutral from the meter and then come out of that with my own live and neutral to the consumer unit the reason for this is is that if you wanted to add anythink into the consumer unit yourself in future you can flick this knowing your consumer unit is dead.
hope this has helped

travel_freak

Hi Nichere,

Many thanks again for your detailed helpful reply.

I am in Greater London so as you say the daily labour costs might be higher.

My builder has quoted almost £1900 as a PURE LABOUR cost. This is with me buying all the materials myself as an extra cost. But he has said he could finish everything next week i.e. four working days so it seems high to me but I just have no experience with these sort of works so don't know if it's fair or not.

This is to do all of the electrical work I mentioned at the start of this post (so including the installation of a new shower), to include some re-tiling in the kitchen where he has to chase into the walls to lay cables.

It also includes about 3 sq metres of tiling in the bathroom for where the shower will go.

It is also to lay some ply flooring throughout the two bedroom flat on top of floorboards, to nail this down and tape it round the edges.

To move up three sockets from skirting board to above it.

I've just asked him about Part P and he says he isn't Part P but his own electrician is Part P and he would provide a PIR at the end of the works to certify everything is safe.

Can anyone comment on whether £1900 is fair for the above given that he has said it should be about four days work and all materials are extra? I know electrical work is expensive but I wish I could earn that much for four days' work!!

Thanks.

REgards,

nichere

and i do maybe i should move to london.
why are you having ply put on top of floorboards may i ask?
do that yourself and the tiling if you can?
so i9 presume your sockets are on your skirting? if so then that is easy to move them just above your skirting as no chasing out is needed.
i dont wont to make you worry but if he is not part p and you are relying on his electrician to be part p registered is he doing the work or his electrician? is he an electrician the man who gave you the quote?get proof of part p qualification first as they may do the job and not issue you with the pir,sorry dont mean to worry you but have heard of this before being in the trade where you dont get it i would just make sure he is part p registered myself

nichere

heres just a guide line for you if i worked in london i would get about £14 per hour if working through an agency so hope thats a guide for you if that helps you forgot to put this on the above

travel_freak

Hi Nichere,

Thanks! Don't worry, you're not making me worried, I'm busy worrying myself to bits! What you say is exactly what I was thinking - what if I don't get a certificate or if the certificate isn't actually given by a person who is Part P - as I asked the question I would have expected the builder to be fully upfront and to say to me yes this is my electrician, here are his details if you'd like to check his qualifications. If it had been me and I wanted to reassure a customer I would be willingly offering up all this sort of stuff.

Also he seemed a bit 'cagey' when I tried to probe what the certificate would cover and he said it wouldn't be for "new installation" work but would just be a PIR which would say that all the electrics were safe (including the new works he would do).

I asked whether that would be a problem for me because if I put a new shower in I understand that I must notify the Council about this if it's not being done by a Part P person but he said I wouldn't because I would get a PIR by a Part P person at the end. I'm not sure as I think because it's something being newly added - and in a bathroom - I am bound to notify it if he isn't going to. Extremely confused now! I don't want to get in trouble with the Council.

The reason for the flooring is that when I bought the flat (it's first floor in a purpose built 1935 maisonette) the surveyor suggested overboarding of the floorboards to increase fire protection between this and lower flat and better sound insulation. I asked the surveyor about this and also spoke to Building Control and they both said it was just a recommendation and not a necessity. The reason I'd like to do it is the nice lady downstairs said she had been suffering with the last owners who may not have even had carpet down and she works nights and could hear them clonking about upstairs on the floorboards. So really just for her peace and mine too. Originally I was getting quotes for a thin ply to cover but the last builder said MDF sheets would be better and cheaper.

My budget will be really stretched if I have to spend the amounts I'm being quoted. I wonder if I could ask my dad to help with the flooring? I could order/collect the sheets and lay them out and probably nail some in myself (just a bit worried about going through a pipe!), the hard bit would be cutting round things in the room like door frames, skirtings etc., and I know I'd botch that up but maybe my dad could manage some of this? The sheets themselves would only cost about £200 to buy for the whole area. Do you know if it's as simple as it sounds, justs laying and nailing these down to floorboards? Or should I use screws and does it make any difference where these go - ie. in each corner or spaced at more regular intervals up and down the sheet? The builder was talking about taping the edges and that sounds like something I could definitely do.

I think I need to get extremely drunk tonight to blot all this out!

Regards,

nichere

hi travel-freak
i will read up on part p for you as i am an industrial electrician it has not concerned me to know what it is all about but will have a look for you to see what neeeds to be part p covered.
as far as the flooring is concerned are you haveing carpet laid? if so underlay and carpet will be sound proof enough i would have thought?if not ask your dad to help it wouldnt be hard to do have you got a jigsaw?if your worried about pipes etc get a pipe cable detecter to check allso if you nail the boards down if you dont want to get a detecter just get small nails that dont go all the way through the also the pipes would be arounsd thge edge as at a guess depending which way your joists go pipe lay on top of joists cables go through about 150mm down i think will check on that as well and tape the gaps between ply sheets if thats what your using sounds unnessasary to me.
hope thats helped a bit

roger56

travel_freak. see next post, my PC crashed when I did this post so it was incomplete.