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Following on from my last electricians blog post, this is yet another room in the house we are part rewiring!

Electricians! What would you charge to rewire a house like this?

When we took on the job the understanding we had with the customer was he would have all of this put into storage. This is now not to be. To be honest we were really close to explaining to the customer that until the rooms are reasonably clear we will not be proceeding with the works. As the customer is in his late 60’s and lives on his own we decided to soldier on with the job and hopefully get it finished by the end of this week.

Today we managed to finish off upstairs apart from a 1mm cable to supply the wall lights in the dining room downstairs. I will get this finished in the morning and continue with the job downstairs. I will keep you updated and post a picture of the living room and let you know how we are getting on later this week!

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This week and next we are on a partial rewire. We gave an estimate for the job about 3 months ago and it has taken this long for the job to come up as it is work that the customer is having done through his local council as a grant.

When we gave the estimate for the job we put a disclaimer on it stating that excessive household items be removed from the property for us to be able to do the job.

Well ! as you can see in the picture I have taken of the customers attic, This has not been the case. The house is packed floor to ceiling in every room with boxes and books and newspapers! The customer says he is a collector!

As you can see, even the attic is completely packed with stuff and carpeted and boarded!

We have now suggested another £300 on the estimate and guess what! The customer is saying why? Can we not just go round the edges of the attic to rewire the lighting circuits?

Unfortunately some people have no idea what is involved in a rewire.

Do you think that an extra £300 is ok for having to move and work around all these problems? Bearing in mind it now puts on an extra 2-3 days on the job.

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Today was all about how to install a shower. We went to a job to install a new shower cable / circuit because the customer said that he has a new shower and that the exisiting cables did not look very good and every time he turned on the shower the main RCD tripped, and would like us to fit a new shower cable (10.0mm) for his new 10.5kw triton shower.
I am so glad that we did!
If you take a look at the picture I took today, you will see that someone, obviously with no electrical knowledge at all, had connected a 6mm cable to a 2.5mm! With a 5amp connector block! Also on a 45amp mcb. The connector block had completely melted on the phase / live conductors side of the connector. To be honest I could go on and on about this installation, i.e. the connecor you see in the picture was inside an airing cupboard for anyone to touch!, But all I can say is that I can only be thankful for RCD's. I would guess that if there were no rcd in this property something more serious may have happened.
My advise to the public reading my electricians blog, If you see anything like this in your home then contact your local electrician. They will be able to advise you further. To find an electrician local just go to www.mylocalelectrician.co.uk and simply enter your postcode

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My advise to the public reading my electricians blog, If you see anything like this in your home then contact your local electrician. They will be able to advise you further. To find an electrician local just go to www.mylocalelectrician.co.uk and simply enter your postcode.

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Last Friday we were on a job where we were first fixing a conservatory, It was quite a large job as not only were there the usual sockets and switches but the ceiling had a raised glass ceiling in the centre and around the edges the customer wanted two types of down lights and spotlights. While we were there the customer did the usual, Can you just!, fit a new outside security light as his old one was not working.

This is definitely not the way to take electricity outside or join cables outside. If you have any type of connection simular to this outside of your home then contact your local electrician at www.mylocalelectrician.co.uk There are also some useful links to information about electrical safety in and around the home.

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To follow my electricians blog and visit my online electricians magazine, Somewhere for the public and electricians to come together in one place! To discuss all things electrical, just go to www.mylocalelectrician.co.uk

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I have created an electricians poll, a chance for us electricians to vote on our opinions of all things electrical. I have started off with a poll about Part P. If there is another issue you would like me to add a poll about please let me know by going to www.mylocalelectrician.co.uk/contact and use my contact page.

I am also creating a new section on the MyLocalElectrician website for electricians to enter a FREE monthly prize draw, To win anything from power tools to other useful tools of the trade. All you have to do is simply join my electricians e-club / mailing list and you will automatically be entered. I will notify the winner every month by email. Click on this link to enter :- http://mylocalelectrician.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=efd6a8fd6de66475c687a9ad7&id=3bf952a556

I will also shortly be creating a new section for the public to comment on their own experiences of the electrical industry. This can be anything to do with your good and bad experiences with electricians, electrical suppliers and even things that have happened in your own home. If you would like me to post your comments on the MyLocalElectrician website then please email your comments and as soon as I create this exciting new section I will post them onto the site for others to read and hopefully find educational and interesting!

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Please check out my monthly electricians poll

http://www.mylocalelectrician.co.uk/poll

Since Part P was introduced ?

Vote on what you feel it did for your work load !

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 Last week we finished up a rewire on a three bedroom semi. The garage had already been rewired a couple of years ago and all tested out ok so we just reconnected the garage up to the new consumer unit. As a little extra for the customer, as this really was an easy job, I converted the lighting in the garage into two way.

To give you a little more information and insight into the setup of the garage and lighting circuit, The switch patress you can see in the picture above had basicly a one gang one way switch fitted to it and this is inside the garage just next to the up and over garage door. Just the place I would put it, I hear you say! Well at the other end of the garage is a single door into the kitchen of the house. I think you can probably guess where I am going with this one! Yes, there was no switch at this end of the garage.

It must have taken me less than 15 minutes to install another switch at this end of the garage and run a triple cable over to the other switch. 7 metres of cable roughly.

I will never understand why when electricians do this type of work, even if it isn't in the price, for what its worth, and of course the convenience to the house holder, and I'm not even going to mention health and safety here, why this was not put in originally. I would love to hear from other electricians on this. Would you, while you were rewiring this garage, have put two way switching here?

Any reply's please comment on my electricians blog here or go to my website at www.mylocalelectrician.co.uk

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