Replace Consumer Unit

olgadapolga

Hi, just wondered if anyone knows roughly how much an electrician would charge to replace a consumer unit and install a garage consumer unit? Was quoted one price but invoiced a lot more (nearly 30% more)! Will be talking to the electrician but just wanted to know some other opinions before I approach him.

Sandtree

You mean replace and resite a consumer unit? Replace a consumer unit and add a secondary one in a new location?

Labour only or including all parts?

olgadapolga

Sandtree said:

You mean replace and resite a consumer unit? Replace a consumer unit and add a secondary one in a new location?

Labour only or including all parts?

To replace the main (house) one in the same position and add a garage one (no wiring beyond that unit). Parts and labour.

tacpot12

It is difficult to give a price because the job can be very different for a simple installation and a complex installation. Adding a garage unit makes the install more complicated. 

That said, if you had a quote and not an estimate, then the work should be charged as per the quote, unless the contract allows the quote to be varied. Some contracts allow this in the event of unforeseen difficulties. 

Sandtree

olgadapolga said:

Sandtree said:

You mean replace and resite a consumer unit? Replace a consumer unit and add a secondary one in a new location?

Labour only or including all parts?

To replace the main (house) one in the same position and add a garage one (no wiring beyond that unit). Parts and labour.

We were given an estimate of replacing our consumer unit with a larger unit of £500 (zone 2 London) but out current unit has non-standard modules so that'd be replacing everything. Adding a second unit will depend on how you're going to get the power there.

Quotes typically are fixed basis, unlike estimates, but can certainly change if you change the scope of the work or if the quote is clearly a fixed rate but only an estimated number of hours etc.

olgadapolga

So, after a tense discussion, we reached an agreement on the invoice; one that we felt was a little more reasonable. I don't think that he was very happy even though he made a really good profit out of it, probably because it wasn't as much as he wanted.

The biggest issue was that we'd been invoiced for work not completed (and we could prove this)  - who on earth invoices for work not done on the premise that he'd "intended" to do it!

Won't be adding him to my list of trusted trades people, nor will I be recommending him to anyone. He's been pretty stupid about it, really.