Billed by electrician for labour but problem not fixed

baldelectrician

A faulty immersion could be the element, switch, timer, fuse, supply, thermostat.






Most of the problems with an immerser are electrical.
A decent insulation tester will confirm if the element is faulty- most plumbers don't have an insulation tester

thescouselander

A diagnosis should be possible using a bog standard multimeter.

Dan-Dan

Crinkmeister wrote: »

So, is changing an immersion heater a job for an electrician or a plumber? It's not clearly one or the other - is it? However, as your man identified the immersion heater being the source of the problem, why did he not change it? I suggest you don't use him again if he is not willing to follow through a job to completion.

I would expect to pay something for a trade coming to my home and fault finding for me

zaax

Pay the electrician. The electrician should have not come out and said call a plumber, though it is not known what the OP said to the electrician for him to come out.

fishybusiness

Plumber may have said 'don't do electrics, call an electrician first'.

Swings and roundabouts, who do you call first, which plumber will check electrics, which electrician will change an immersion heater?

Pay the electrician, he was correct, took the time to come out, and was honest with you.

thescouselander

A "heating engineer" should have both the electrical and plumbing knowhow for the job. As far as I can tell most plumbers class themselves as heating engineers anyway.

TheCyclingProgrammer

Its not unreasonable for an electrician to charge for his time spent investigating a fault, but is it also not unreasonable to expect the electrician to state his call-out charges up front? If a client comes to me regarding some work, I always state my fees up front and people are free to go elsewhere.

jonesjw

A garage would charge you for plugging a car into their diagnostic equipment. They need to pay for their time, equipment and other overhead costs.

The same principle applies here.

The way to avoid all labour costs is to learn how to do the job yourself.

27col

As a retired electrician it would never have occurred to me to call a plumber to a faulty immersion heater. Both the plumbing part of the job and the electrical part of the job are easy enough to do for either trade.

macman

OP, on what basis did you call him out? If you said, 'I think I have a faulty immersion heater' then he should have declined there and then. If you simply said something vaguer, and he came out and correctly diagnosed the fault, then that charge is perfectly justified.
He should, however, have stated his charges at the time.