Fuse box installed for £150 what!!!

[Stevesplatto]

i take it your a part p/Electrical Trainee/diet spark then..

I take it your a 30 year, been there done it all spark then ;-]

I've been working in the building trade on and off since I was 14 (54 now, went out with my dad as a sparks on the Mars shutdowns, complete blag) C&G mech Engineering, C&G Carpentry, travelled a bit, worked in homelessness 18 years, blah blah blah. Back full circle, did Part P to bring myself up to date and self certificate, started a little domestic installation business. Saw 'experienced' parks testing Ze without disconnecting main earths, saw kids great on theory who couldnt strip a wire. My comments stand, it's about competance and that's not always measured in time or singular experiences... We're all learning!

s

 

[alarm man]

I take it your a 30 year, been there done it all spark then ;-]



s

well as you ask..imp2:

but no,im not,agree its good to learn something new everyday,be it a new fault or a new way of doing something,but Electrical Trainee and part p does not an electrician make..

 

[Stevesplatto]

well as you ask..imp2:

but no,im not,agree its good to learn something new everyday,be it a new fault or a new way of doing something,but Electrical Trainee and part p does not an electrician make..

I agree, if that's the sum total of their experience. Have to do it all over again in 3 years time....

 

[TJS]

I normally charge £295 for a cu CHANGE

 

[RWJ]

£125 is the new low in this area.
The job was for a relative of a good customer of ours, normal scenario 5 way wylex no bonding gas and water both other end of house!

**** FOR FULL QUOTE CLICK THE >>

JUST AN UPDATE (Sorry to hijack)

The guys went today to measure up for the heaters in the house previously mentioned......

Proteous RCD as main incommer Board with 4 breakers
NO BONDING
NO LABELLING (Apart from circuit ids)

He also seems to have put in 4 MCB's where there were 5 fuses - He's decided to run the immersion of the socket RFC and not off a separate breaker!

All in All CARP.. Pictures taken.... customer advised to contact BRCS (as obviously we're not allowed to :angry_smile

 

[D80]

Cowboy install then as expected.

What's BRCS?

 

[stuartr]

Just been to repair a 12 way installed by an NIC EIC approved contractor for £120. What a mess!

 

[Silly Sausage]

I'm off down the council to have a chat about all this.
I'm not self certified...
See 1.22 of Part P.

I've had a request to do some notifiable work, want to keep it legal for the customer.

I'll do a better job than a lot of these so called registered monkeys.

 

[Guest112]

i really really really hope this part p rubbish is gone soon along with di courses and domestic installers aswell its a big slap in the face to electricians everywhere loopjole in the industry and its disgusting the lack of experience shows on all installs they do and in every question they ask on here i hate the country we live in for ruining our industry

and for all the people who say everyones got to start somewhere then go to a REAL COLLEGE and get some REAL QUALIFICATIONS do this part time then try to gain experience during the course and when you are ready then go out and have a go on your own instead of doing a rubbish di course and 5 weeks later installing code 1s in peoples houses none the wiser

only one good thing comes from it is that the actual competant people get work fixing the scam deemed competent peoples work, scam deemed competant person = anyone with 500 quid to their name

 

[Stevesplatto]

Big genaralisation there PD..
Lots of diferent scenarios in the 5/7ww..
I agree that there are a lot of kids moving through the 5/7 week schemes who arent up to scratch at all. They've had no practical experience and are nursed through the Part P exams with 100% pass rate guarantees. I can't imagine these kids last long on their own. Don't see them shelling out for a CPS scheme and taking on any but the most basic work with any success. But most of those kids are planning to go out as mates anyway which is about the closest thing to an apprenticeship theyre going to be able to get these days.

Then there were the 'I know everything' sparks on 1 dayers boning up on 17th edition for their CPS. Their regs knowledge and some of their procedures were rusty (doing IR's before continuity tests for instance). Funny how they would argue that 'the regs are wrong' and 'thats's not what NIC say'...

Then there are the 50+ 'change off career' people. Worked in diferent aspects of the building trade or some technical industry, have technical knowledge, can chase a wall blah de blah who need to get up to scratch with the regs.

My take on all this is if you want to setup and run a domestic installation business you need to know a lot more than how to fill out an EIC etc.. Apprenticeships, 5/7ww's, work experience are not enough.
Pricing, admin, tax, promotion, website, handling clients, dealing with conflicts and miss-understanding and and and...

I've invested around £10K (not including my transport etc) so far in setting up my business. I'm still underestimating how long things take (I'm no slouch on the tools thou') but I will not cut corners or sign-off sub standard work which is endemic in this industry.

I think Part P is a good thing given the standards of workmanship and dangerous practice out there. So far I havnt managed to do a job where I havent found something that's outright lethal (like live cables just cut off and left in ceiling voids (and it was looped off a ring main, *stards)). But it's toothless because it isnt enforced to any real degree.

Resources like this excelent forum are really useful for raising standards. The cowboy, (just break the seals) attitudes are always challenged and people have put real effort into explaining things properly (like adiabatic equations, sheesh!).

Cheers
s

 

[Silly Sausage]

I'm off down the council to have a chat about all this.
I'm not self certified...

I rang Manchester City Council explaining this offer of a CU change, they answer with... regardless of how qualified etc I am, it's £319 (with or without VAT, I don't know, I gave up listening then)

Explained the situation to her, it's their 'policy' that they send an 'Electrical Engineer' (ie someone like me) out to Inspect & Test.

Basically, you could replace the whole section of Part P 'Certifification of Notifiable Work' with...'If you're not Part P registered, you pay us, the council, 100s of £s'

If you look at section 1.22, the words '(if any)' let the council do what the hell the they like, ie it's just another way to extract money out of people.

Are the schemes shoving big fat brown envelopes under toilet cubicle partitions to council members?

 

[supasparxs]

I rang Manchester City Council explaining this offer of a CU change, they answer with... regardless of how qualified etc I am, it's £319 (with or without VAT, I don't know, I gave up listening then)

Explained the situation to her, it's their 'policy' that they send an 'Electrical Engineer' (ie someone like me) out to Inspect & Test.

Basically, you could replace the whole section of Part P 'Certifification of Notifiable Work' with...'If you're not Part P registered, you pay us, the council, 100s of £s'

If you look at section 1.22, the words '(if any)' let the council do what the hell the they like, ie it's just another way to extract money out of people.

Are the schemes shoving big fat brown envelopes under toilet cubicle partitions to council members?

That sounds good,
you do the work and they get paid!

 

[Victor]

From Gil-Lec

17th Edition 12 way Hager CU fully loaded with 10 MCBs only £58 + VAT (£69.60 inc VAT)

Here in France, I cannot buy 10 Hager MCB's for anywhere near that cost, I pay about £9 each from the wholesalers. What gets me is that they are made in France by a French company.

 

[RWJ]

Here in France, I cannot buy 10 Hager MCB's for anywhere near that cost, I pay about £9 each from the wholesalers. What gets me is that they are made in France by a French company.

Aren't MCBs double pole in France?

Could this explain the price difference?

 

[Dcf]

I was at one yesterday,12 way dual rcd mk .shower and cooker circuits in a dp isolator off live side!? Fed off board main switch .kitchen ring split across 2 different 6A mcbs..... On and on and on.there was no way that this had been done by a sparks.least he had fitted the stickers on the lid tho.apart from the earth neutral number sticker which was fitted on the outside of the board!
it is time that b&q et all were stopped from selling items like boards because it is inherently dangerous to be messing about with this end of any install,if u don't have a clue how it's ment to be in the first place

 

[Victor]

Aren't MCBs double pole in France?

Could this explain the price difference?

Yes they are dual pole, but when you have either a 54 or 72 way board, with 4 RCD's as well, it becomes very expensive.

 

[Hester441]

That ccu is from a Rewire that's why it is neat not a consumer unit change

 

[Octopus]

I was at one yesterday,12 way dual rcd mk .shower and cooker circuits in a dp isolator off live side!? Fed off board main switch .kitchen ring split across 2 different 6A mcbs..... On and on and on.there was no way that this had been done by a sparks.least he had fitted the stickers on the lid tho.apart from the earth neutral number sticker which was fitted on the outside of the board!
it is time that b&q et all were stopped from selling items like boards because it is inherently dangerous to be messing about with this end of any install,if u don't have a clue how it's ment to be in the first place

Will you be doing the correct work?

 

[Hardwired]

Jesus i charge £60 to replace a board plus the cost of the board (as long as bonding and tails don't need replaced and the board is correctly labeled). Bear in mind though im still not allowed to sign off testing but when i do i can't imagine charging over £100. This takes no more than an hour for me to do, personally i find customers grumbling at that cost too.

 

[RISElectrical]

How do you make it pay for £60? how far do you travel etc for the job. at £30ph thats only allowing 2 hours for the whole job and no travel etc....

Time for inspection prior to change?