What do you ask an electrician?

hev_2

I feel such a numpty - thank goodness for this board.

We have bad wiring - in the past it we have found light fittings incorrectly earthed (wondered why the light bulbs kept blowing), wrong gauge wire used for lights, exposed wires touching copper pipes etc.

I said I wanted the house re-wiring. We moved in in 1994, so the wiring is already a bit elderly even if it wasn't a cowboy job.

DH said we need to get an electrician to tell us what needs doing. I thought that rewiring meant doing everything.

How do we ask for someone to tell us what needs doing to the wiring? Especially how to we ask without an electrician automatically saying 'everything'? Is there something in the housing information packs that tells you the state of the wiring and should we ask for that?

Any help really gratefully received.

Dick_here

With the regulations that they have to comply to these days, an electrician often won't be able to do odd bits alone. If they touch it at all they may have to do the lot.

hev_2

TBH I don't think I would prefer it if the lot was done, because then it would all be sorted and I could forget about it for around 10 years (with luck).

It's going to be sooooo expensive. Apart from anything else, whoever did the last lot of electrics believed in loads of power points - we have eleven power points in the kitchen alone!

OddjobKIA

hev wrote: »

TBH I don't think I would prefer it if the lot was done, because then it would all be sorted and I could forget about it for around 10 years (with luck).

It's going to be sooooo expensive. Apart from anything else, whoever did the last lot of electrics believed in loads of power points - we have eleven power points in the kitchen alone!

we have 8 in our kitchen


get a few leccys to come and asses what they see get them to put down in writing what they will do and ask them to give you an estimate again in writing.......


DO NOT GIVE GO AHEAD UNLESS IT IS IN WRITING AND WHAT THE COSTS INVOLVE....


DO the costs only include labour, or do they include materials aswell

hev_2

Thank you OddjobKIA - as you can tell, I don't even know what questions to ask. All help very gratefully received.

I would be lost without this forum.

andrew-b

Most important question has to be "would you like a cup of tea or coffee?"! If your really generous offer a biscuit too ...the tradesman will be putty in your hands then!!

You could get an electrician to come in and do an electrical inspection. Not sure what it costs but this would identify what works need to be done to bring it all upto standard and then you'll get a fairer picture of whether a complete rewire is needed.

You could get a visual inspection (regional electricity suppliers often offer these - i know EDF do) - which may give an indication of what work is needed they won't be anywhere near as thorough as a proper inspection.

Rewiring is generally a messy job and even if you get a really tidy electrician you'll still have lots of making good and probably redecorating to do. So if you can avoid a rewire whilst still bringing everything upto standard it's preferable.

Andy

hev_2

:o:o:o:o We need to redecorate everywhere.

Rewiring or not, we have to redecorate. I am so ashamed at the state of the house. Everything needs doing.

So worrying about redecorating isn't the big thing. I think the electrical inspection is the way to go. Thank you for your advice andrew-b

(When I got the men in to do the drains they got all the tea they could drink and really nice home made biscuits. I don't stint on the essentials.)

jrrowleyws

OddjobKIA wrote: »

we have 8 in our kitchen


get a few leccys to come and asses what they see get them to put down in writing what they will do and ask them to give you an estimate again in writing.......


DO NOT GIVE GO AHEAD UNLESS IT IS IN WRITING AND WHAT THE COSTS INVOLVE....


DO the costs only include labour, or do they include materials aswell

Not much point in an estimate as all it is doing is estimating the cost! You need a QUOTE stating the final price for what they are going to do.

SteUK

Time they will take doing the job also I have found is important!

The better half and I moved into our first home last April. The electrics were so dated. Fuse wire board, no earth to lights, wooden light back boxes. All in all we did not feel happy with it and, knowing the whole house needed redecorating, got in 3 sparkys to quote for a whole re-wire. We had on paper quotes of £2000 ex vat (with no 'furniture' provided) and £3500 ex vat (all in with a first pass fix on patching plaster). The third 'quote' was never sent to us but the guy was talking 4k on the day! Both paper quotes were companies registered with NICEIC.

So, we went with the cheaper one, knowing from looking around forums that this was a pretty average price for the work...also the more expensive quote was from a firm that did more rural buildings (nice chap though, pretty open about the fact he did not really want to do the job! But gave me lots of advice on dealing with chaps in his trade).

The job was supposed to take a week. In that time we had agreed to have nothing but bed mattresses on the floor upstairs. One week turned into just over 5. I would estimate we had a chap here on average 2 days a week. Totally terrible! We withheld payment for over a month, ignoring the company bosses phone calls. When our anger had died down we got the guy round, moaned a bit about the time it took, gave him payment and sent him packing. Now, not sure if I am allowed to bad mouth and name companies on here, but as a warning it was Freechoice property services, Banbury. I would never use them again.

I guess the time thing falls into what others are recommending...get EVERYTHING you want certain in writing! Anything not stated, ask and get it on the quote! Ours did not have the timeframe in the quote, if it had I would have suggested paying 1/5th! It is such a simple thing but often overlooked by newbies like we were/are!

Good luck!

Ste

hev_2

Thanks for that tip - I shall sit down with a list before I even start ringing round.

Thank goodness for this site!

WestonDave

Ours was done this time last year by a contractor I use through work. The reason I chose him was not because he is necessarily cheap, but because he gives a fixed price quote which is detailed down to the brand name of the bits he will use and the number of each. When he invoices he invoices for work as per quote X plus (for example) the two extra sockets we asked for after they'd started plus associated labour.

This proved to be critical as they quoted for two weeks work but despite the two guys being on site all of those two weeks they ran over an extra week due to underestimating how hard our walls were (solid ground floor so socket wires had to be channelled down and as we only had one socket per room this was a large part of the job). Part of the overrun was extra work we asked for in the kitchen so we were charged for that but not the extra time the quoted for work took, nor the channeller they burnt out in the process! To be fair to him he also missed off his quote the heat detector for the garage but because we'd agreed he would do it when he came round he didn't charge for that either as it was his mistake missing it out.

Do think very carefully about what you want where - go round and stick postit notes where you want new sockets etc. Also seriously consider having mains linked smoke alarms fitted as they are doing other stuff. The big advantage of this (other than not having to change batteries) is that if the downstairs one is triggered, they all sound so you are more likely to hear it quicker if you are asleep. Do you need any new outside lights or power points? All these things are relatively cheap if done as part of a planned rewire but would be very expensive if added later.