Domestic Installer Experience - Norfolk

Deleted member 98327 · Jan 3, 2017

Hi all, Happy New Year

I'm looking for Domestic Electrical Experience and live just South of Norwich. Recently completed my C&G 17th Edition and a Domestic Installer Course. I've been a service engineer for over 30 years from apprentice (railway signalling) through brewery and coffee dispense equipment. Formal qualifications include TEC Electronics, C&G NVQ Dispense & Senior Dispense Engineer.
I've gained various Domestic (and commercial) experience over the years and am now setting myself up to offer customers Domestic Electrical services and other services (property maintenance etc).
I'm been talking with Stroma and have some projects soon which I'll use to get my CPS registration with them.
I'd like to gain some further experience and am open to offers that localish electricians may be able to make. This could include short/long term work, part/full time, or even just ad-hoc/project work. I do need at some point to make some money of course, but would be prepared to do some work for free.
I'm "tooled up" and mobile!
Please contact me if you could help or offer any suggestions, I have a full CV and further contact details I will pass on accordingly. I've emailed lots of electricians but not been very successful?
Cheers guys, Ian

HappyHippyDad · Jan 3, 2017

Hi Ian,

I was in the same position as you around 4 years ago. I sent e-mails offering free work to all local electricians and got no replies. I can see now that no local electrician is really going to want to train me up so that I can start taking some of their local custom. Luckily I had a friend who was an electrician so ended up spending some time with him before I was let loose on the general public. I think it is a very good idea that you are looking for some experience before attempting to carry out any work as the DI course does not give you enough experience to do this safely.

My only suggestions are to perhaps ask electricians who live outside of your area so that they dont feel threatened, although I think this may fall on deaf ears also. By far the best way would be to find a friend or family member who is an electrician and spend time with them, or even ask friends and family if they know anyone, even if that means travelling a bit to gain this experience (if that is possible).

Other things you can do are take your own house apart (if you own it) to get some experience, this isn't ideal as you really want to be watching what an experienced electrician is doing, but I still think it would be a good thing to do as you get to know about the fabric of the building (i.e making holes in brick and plasterboard), how to take floorboards up, how to get cables into difficult places, using trunking etc etc...

Also, use this site! This site has hugely helped me over the years and got me out of some sticky situations. I think you have to remember that this is advice from people you don't know, at least initially, so you need to be a little careful. But you get to know which members (the majority at present!) are offering the correct advice.

I hope it works out for you

Deleted member 98327 · Jan 3, 2017

Hi, Thanks for the reply. Agree with your thoughts. I had a large extension built in the summer and did all the work myself, had to get a test company in to certify but good experience. My partner is putting up a dog grooming salon soon so I'll be fitting all the electrics for that and using it for my stroma example work.
I'll keep at it, cheers