Is my Electrician throwing up red flags?

dl8860

dl8860

dl8860

Soldato
Joined
25 Jul 2010
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4,148
Location
Worcestershire
We've got some work ongoing on our house and due to gutting a few of the rooms we need an electrician to piece some things back together. It's a timber frame house. Just wondering if anyone with some home electrical installation experience can sense check the below.

The electrician I've been speaking to was used by the carpenters who have done the majority of the work to make-safe the electrics around the parts that needed structurally redoing, that was all fine.

We now need new cable running for light fittings, and power sockets for 2 rooms, and according to him, a new consumer unit. Electrician has said that he'll work on day rate (I'm happy with £45/hour) but can't provide an estimate of hours as he'll need to test some existing wiring as well as the new installs, but asked for £1500 up front, which seems quite punchy. I always thought 25% was an upper limit for a deposit (if any), and I am not expecting the work to come to £6000.

Regarding the CU he's recommending a totally new one, which is likely fair play as it doesn't look that new, and we are a timber frame building. Here's the existing unit. I can see there's an RCD and circuit breakers on each circuit, so probably not the most ancient installation in the country.




However when I queried the fact that the estimate for materials seemed high - the £1500 deposit was supposed to cover one day's labour and materials (so materials = 1500 - 8 * 45 = 1140), he has got a bit defensive over types of circuit breakers etc. Even the most expensive populated CU I can find on screwfix is £245 (which is full of RCBOs), so another £900 on wiring and fixtures and fittings - which we won't be going super high spec on or anything - seems excessive. He then pushed back saying type C RCBO's are much more expensive than type B. I googled this an it seems type C are for commercial use and aren't actually any safer, they can just handle higher surges without tripping. At this point he said he doesn't want to get into discussions over types of RCDs and their applications. And then said I should check with insurance to see if I need AFDD's (which are even more expensive) as we're timber frame.

I can't tell if
  • not providing an estimate on hours
  • a seemingly very high deposit (that he could substantiate with an itemised list of materials but hasn't)
  • insisting on what seem like higher spec items without being happy to give me justification
  • not being happy to engage in discussion over equipment, and in general not being very convincing over requirements
are red flags, or if I'm just being a know it all customer who wants to do everything on the cheap and tell him that me + google knows better.

Sanity check please!
 
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FWIW I wasted ages finding a sparks I trusted/liked the sniff of. I paid £660 cash for a 10 way CU replacement, fitted - with one additional circuit added. This is in the highest cost of living part of the country.

Edit: that included testing every socket and fixing 2 faults. It was 2 half days labour; but "half of the day" sufficiently enough he couldn't do another job. So basically 2 days duration/1 days effort.
 
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Classic Blue Theme said:
FWIW I wasted ages finding a sparks I trusted/liked the sniff of. I paid £660 cash for a 10 way CU replacement, fitted - with one additional circuit added. This is in the highest cost of living part of the country.

Edit: that included testing every socket and fixing 2 faults. It was 2 half days labour; but "half of the day" sufficiently enough he couldn't do another job. So basically 2 days duration/1 days effort.
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Thanks for that, I like the phrase "like the sniff of", I'm not sure I'm enjoying the aromas I'm getting currently.

mrgubby said:
How many sockets/switches/rooms & I'll ask my (honest) sparky mate
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2 rooms. 5 double sockets, 2 new switches with 2 wall lights in bedroom and downlighting in downstairs room.
 
if he can't give you an estimate then find someone else.
Does he expect you to have an unlimited pot of money to pay him with?
How can anyone work like that ?

I know my mate in the trade (plumber) is useless at giving cost breakdowns of materials etc, and even an accurate estimate of how long a job will take, I don't know how people like that get business. I will use my mate because I know him and trust him, but if I didn't know him, he wouldn't be getting the job.

I think it is entirely reasonable for someone to be able to tell you how much you are going to pay (roughly) and entail what exactly you are paying for, that way both of your expectations are set and if any unknown's crop up during the job, he can come to you and explain that xy or z also needs doing and that wasn't quoted for.
 
*Not a Sparkie* But as far as I understand as long as there's sufficient space on the CU for the new rings and there's nothing dangerous, there's no requirement to change a CU.
Yours looks pretty new but not current metal box regs.
 
I haven't much experience with this but we're sure the electrician that works for our builder (did our loft conversion, building work on ground floor) was trying it on with a few things. He got caught telling us we needed a heat sensor in the kitchen and he talked us into replacing some wiring for no apparent reason. I don't think I'd pay a deposit to an electrician for any work to be honest :confused: And I don't think I'd pay a deposit to anyone without a full written quote with breakdown etc.
 
Asking for a deposit and working on day rate? :cry: it would make sense if he was working to a quote.

Probably a fair bit of work there, downlighters on there own can be quite time consuming, it would be best if you had a price for everything. I think I paid around 400-500 for a new consumer unit and about 700 for 8 downlighters(all new cable runs)...all materials supplied by the electrician.
 
Scam said:
I haven't much experience with this but we're sure the electrician that works for our builder (did our loft conversion, building work on ground floor) was trying it on with a few things. He got caught telling us we needed a heat sensor in the kitchen and he talked us into replacing some wiring for no apparent reason. I don't think I'd pay a deposit to an electrician for any work to be honest :confused: And I don't think I'd pay a deposit to anyone without a full written quote with breakdown etc.
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Tbh its a sensible choice to have a Heat Alarm in the kitchen linked to the other smoke alarms.
 
From what you've said in the OP, I would find another electrician. Is it unreasonable to expect a quote for ALL the work and it not to be more than that?
 
As soon as anyone's unwilling to answer a customer's reasonable questions, it's warning signs about their potential future behaviours for me.

I want someone to treat me as a customer not a mark, which means humour my dumb questions and educate me to put my mind at rest.
 
"Give me your money"
"What am I paying for?"
"Not telling you"

Sounds legit, make sure to give him your CC as well for any extra "expenses".

In all seriousness though, if someone isn't willing to even roughly lay out what you're getting for a substantial chunk of change then run a mile.
 
Ex spark here, although it's been 20 years since I was on the tools.
Your main consumer unit has lots of "ways" spare, each RDC is a way. You have no massive drain outside of normal use, i.e. an electric shower. It may be that the crabtree RCD's are not around anymore so I can see why he wants to add a new consumer unit.
Timber houses can be a pain to work with, depends on how good they were built to begin with. If built good that makes the job more painful.

He should be able to dip into the existing lighting circuit and just add those two lights. Think of it as one less RCD you'd need in the new board which you probably do need given the above.
It's kinda similar for the sockets but that's where extending the ring main of that circuit meets with how well the house is built. Some of that also comes down to how much damage you'll accept around the rest of the house, again feeding off how well it's built.

He is somewhat trying to rip you off but probably not as much as you think. I suspect he has an idea to make it work given what he's seen so far. I probably don't know the trade that much anymore but he's trying to offset the quickness of the job versus how convoluted it might get and has settled on the least amount of pain for you both. It is still a bit of a rip off though.
Go straight to the carpenters, tell them up front that its too much and don't explain. These guys all like to work together on trust, three way trust, so lean on that.
Let the bloke in to poke around again, if he's any sort of savvy he'll realize with the conviction of the carpenters that it just needs to be thought out better. Or, just get someone else but don't let any cat out of any bag to them, let them find their own way.

HIH, cheers.
 
dl8860 said:
He then pushed back saying type C RCBO's are much more expensive than type B. I googled this an it seems type C are for commercial use and aren't actually any safer, they can just handle higher surges without tripping. At this point he said he doesn't want to get into discussions over types of RCDs and their applications. And then said I should check with insurance to see if I need AFDD's (which are even more expensive) as we're timber frame.
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I think he might be muddling RCD types and MCB types. Because an RCBO is basically both it will have two types stated. The RCD should be type A, this is basically an improved version on type AC which were the norm up about a year ago. Since A is the new normal they're not much more expensive then type AC used to be. However there is a lot of type AC being ofloaded cheap at the moment.

The MBC should be type B, unless you have workshop equipment or an insane amount of LED lighting there's no reason for type C in a domestic setting.
 
I feel for sparks tbf. They are inundated with standards open to interpretation, and vendors "exceeding" the standard that there isn't just a black and white answer to some of this.
 
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