Buyers' Queries

Dukesy

ValHaller wrote: »

Ridiculous.

You acknowledge that you are not competent with electrics - and fair play to you for acknowledging your own limitations.

But it is completely OTT to infer that everyone else is limited in the ways that you are.

Your trouble is that you are so blinded by your own lack of competence that you are actually not competent to see that other people might be competent. On the DIY forum we see people come along with their electrical problems and generally you can tell. There are some who are fine and others who are not. And really it depends on individual competence, not on some blanket rule from a scaredy cat.

It's not ridiculous at all. Yes, I acknowledge my limitations. I know it would be silly for me to fiddle with the electrics in my house, and so I don't, but the number of people who don't acknowledge their limitations, or perhaps don't realise their limitations is enormous.

Through the renovations we have done, we have found no end of DIY nasties which have been carried out by people who presumably thought that they knew what they were doing, but who were in fact completely incompetant. Just because someone thinks they can do it doesn't mean that they should, particularly when their handiwork could put other people at risk.

hazyjo

tiggerkid wrote: »

The irony is that even if we do leave those fitted lights, we did the fitting ourselves, so I don't really see how that would be different from removing them and replacing with flex/rose ourselves

Agree - but that's not the way it works when selling/with solicitor's checks If it's something about to be done, they'll want to make sure it's done properly. Not like you'll be living there so they have to presume it'll be done 'not in your interests'. If you were putting a light in for yourselves, you'd obviously want to make sure it was safe as you'd be living there. (Obviously, many don't abide by that rule which contributes to the many house fires each year, electric shocks, etc!) Solicitor is there to protect their client's best interests.

Jx

ValHaller

Dukesy wrote: »

It's not ridiculous at all. Yes, I acknowledge my limitations. I know it would be silly for me to fiddle with the electrics in my house, and so I don't, but the number of people who don't acknowledge their limitations, or perhaps don't realise their limitations is enormous.

Through the renovations we have done, we have found no end of DIY nasties which have been carried out by people who presumably thought that they knew what they were doing, but who were in fact completely incompetant. Just because someone thinks they can do it doesn't mean that they should, particularly when their handiwork could put other people at risk.

There you go, tarring with the same brush. You have had unfortunate experiences with DIY electrics by others and you are arguing that no one should do DIY.

Plenty of people can do a perfectly decent DIY job of replacing pendants. I cannot see that you are the least bit justified in trying to make out that people who are capable of this should take on extra stress when they move house to find an electrician to do a job which in all honesty is way beneath him in terms of skills.

Fair enough, if you do not know what you are doing, get someone in. But I don't accept you making the climate more hostile to people doing their own electrical work.

LittleMissAspie

I would much rather have been left with holes in the walls than the huge lumps of filler that our sellers left us with in every single room where they removed wall shelves. I don't know how we're going to flatten them, we will be sanding for hours.

We didn't even ask for holes to be filled, it didn't cross our minds! I get the feeling our sellers didn't like us but we were possibly the least demanding buyers ever, judging from threads I read on here.

Dukesy

ValHaller wrote: »

There you go, tarring with the same brush. You have had unfortunate experiences with DIY electrics by others and you are arguing that no one should do DIY.

Plenty of people can do a perfectly decent DIY job of replacing pendants. I cannot see that you are the least bit justified in trying to make out that people who are capable of this should take on extra stress when they move house to find an electrician to do a job which in all honesty is way beneath him in terms of skills.

Fair enough, if you do not know what you are doing, get someone in. But I don't accept you making the climate more hostile to people doing their own electrical work.

I know I'm not the only person who has encountered the horrors of someone elses DIY electrics - poor bodge jobs are all too common. I am NOT against DIY in general, having spent the last several years of my life renovating houses with OH by our own fair hands, but then again, he is in the building trade and knows what he's doing, and frankly the bits which he isn't too familiar with (eg plastering) are unlikely to kill anyone if we were to make a mistake.

hazyjo

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

I would much rather have been left with holes in the walls than the huge lumps of filler that our sellers left us with in every single room where they removed wall shelves. I don't know how we're going to flatten them, we will be sanding for hours.

We didn't even ask for holes to be filled, it didn't cross our minds! I get the feeling our sellers didn't like us but we were possibly the least demanding buyers ever, judging from threads I read on here.

Agree. Plus, I find you often want to use the same holes, nails or whatever. Pictures/mirrors are often naturally placed in obvious places, as are curtain poles.

Maybe ask the buyer what they want you to do. These bog standard questions are for the solicitor's purpose only.

Jx

ValHaller

Dukesy wrote: »

I know I'm not the only person who has encountered the horrors of someone elses DIY electrics - poor bodge jobs are all too common. I am NOT against DIY in general, having spent the last several years of my life renovating houses with OH by our own fair hands, but then again, he is in the building trade and knows what he's doing, and frankly the bits which he isn't too familiar with (eg plastering) are unlikely to kill anyone if we were to make a mistake.

Of course, all the decent DIY electrical work you have seen, you have assumed to have been done by a professional, because it was not a bodge. The truth of the matter is that you would never be able to distinguish a decent DIY job from a professional job. Plus your take on it is probably distorted by the houses you have bought being wired by bodgers - albeit that some of the bdgers might have been 'professional' paid for bodgers.

Dukesy

ValHaller wrote: »

Of course, all the decent DIY electrical work you have seen, you have assumed to have been done by a professional, because it was not a bodge. The truth of the matter is that you would never be able to distinguish a decent DIY job from a professional job. Plus your take on it is probably distorted by the houses you have bought being wired by bodgers - albeit that some of the bdgers might have been 'professional' paid for bodgers.

Yes, I am sure that some people can wire competently, and yes I'm sure that there are some so called 'electricians' who are, in reality, no such thing.

However, on balance, I would still say that using a proper electrician is a sensible thing to do. You can't guarantee that every electrician is completely honest and so on, but there are a much greater number of 'DIY electricians' who are a much worse bet!

Norma_Desmond

I'm as thick as paint when it comes to most practical things, but I've been happily re-wiring lamps and fitting ceiling lights for years - and properly too.



Life's too short and you (should be ) far too stressed when buying a house to worry about holes left by ruddy curtain rails.

This house had holes in the floor and moss growing - inside - when we bought it.

ValHaller

Dukesy wrote: »

Yes, I am sure that some people can wire competently, and yes I'm sure that there are some so called 'electricians' who are, in reality, no such thing.

However, on balance, I would still say that using a proper electrician is a sensible thing to do. You can't guarantee that every electrician is completely honest and so on, but there are a much greater number of 'DIY electricians' who are a much worse bet!

Wrong argument. You should be arguing against bodging, not against DIY. The vast majority of DIYers will do fine at fitting a pendant.