Should I pay this electricians bill?

moneyangel22

The work they have actually done from what they tell me is lift floorboards in several rooms in order to follow electrical cables through the house. The problem was the electrics kept tripping. It turned out to be a faulty dimmer switch. They found and fixed the fault after 4 hours. I have no reason to not believe this, that is not in question. I did NOT AUTHORISE THEM TO DO ANY WORK!!
I only wanted a quote!!! I felt awkward on the phone when the guy told me he had done the repairs, as he was only going on instructions from his boss (who was abroad at the time).
These guys had done work for me before and charged me a fixed fee and when I spoke to the boss to ask him to send someone to look at the problem for me he did not explain that their charging structure had changed or there would be 2 men attending!
I feel they have tried to pull a fast one and I am not having it.

Leif

keystone wrote: »

It won't go to court yet. They are trying to put the frighteners on you. Be reasonable. They are seemingly being unreasonable. Call their bluff.

Indeed. Going to court will take a lot of their time, so it is bluff. I would not pay if I did not a) authorise the work and b) know what the work was.

southcoastrgi

any trade should check fittings first before starting to rip up floor boards, a full days work for one man to trace a faulty dimmer i would tell them to get stuffed.

vaio

Leif wrote: »

Indeed. Going to court will take a lot of their time, so it is bluff......

Yep, and if they win the OP will be paying for their time

As for "bluff" I'm not sure about that.

Thinking about it the guy was asked to......

moneyangel22 wrote: »

.........investigate a problem with a light. I have used this electrician before and know he charges a fixed callout fee of £50. I had asked him to have a look and call me from the property when he knew what needed doing......

finding the fault took took four hours which needs to be paid for. Once the fault was identified then fixing it cost pennies.

If the sparky had sent a report in saying faulty dining room dimmer switch identified and quoting £330 to repair it what would the outcome have been?

Options as I see it are....
a. an order for £330
b. a trip to the diy shed for a new dimmer switch
c. an instruction to another electrician to change the dining room dimmer switch.

southcoastrgi

but finding a faulty dimmer switch should have taken 10 mins for a good sparkie, there was no need to start ripping up floor boards, so he either didn't know his job, spent far more time there than he should have or just dragged it out & possibly didn't take any floors up anyway, & with regard to the above post it didn't take 4 hrs it took 4 hrs for two men that is 8 hrs for one man for a 10 min job, under that premise i would let them take me to court every day of the week & IMO they would lose every time.

vaio

that depends on the fault....consider one that only shows up intermittently and when exposed to AC so DC megger tests are no help and the sparky is down to tracing cables and linking things out.

The OP doesn't dispute that the time taken was reasonable and having instructed them to find the fault and then ring with a cost I don't really see how they can avoid paying the bill as the vast majority of the cost is down to finding the fault rather than fixing it.

Call out fee is £50 but the clue is in the name, that gets them to site and covers travel and maybe half an hour, anything in excess of that needs to be paid for separately.