Cost to install two consumer units - £630!

We had our consumer unit replaced plus the whole house earth bonded for £500 two years ago (1 days work).
My wife's uncle did the work and he explained that he does indeed charge nearly £500 a day as the amount of training they have to do to keep up with legislation and their accreditation is crazy. Not only do they have to go on a 2 week training course (each year iirc) costing £2000, they also lose 2 weeks earnings so it ends up costing them a great deal of money.

It is frightening daily rate though, I agree...

as a general contractor i am often shocked by the bids i get from subs. in all fairness, there is a bigger picture you are not seeing. there is a pretty hefty amount of overhead, insurance, vehicles, licensing, advertising etc. work flow is also i big factor. the subtrades have to coordinate there work with the general, other subs etc. it's not like you can just show up and put your eight hours in and pick up a check. today they might be able to get over to a job and work, tomorrow they might be able to have access.

but yes in the end, they charge way too much.

You could try Eric Jackson in Waterlooville - they did mine in 2002 however I expect they will not be any cheaper than your quote, they have the same overheads etc as the other people.

I always say "that is too much", or, if I have several quotes (which I do for trade work) then that I have had a lower quote.

If they offer no reduction, I ask directly what discount they will offer. I then haggle around that.

It does work and for only a few minutes of time e.g. a digital aerial and amps down from £300 to £199; car service from £562 to £425; AA family membership held at £120 for 3rd year in succession.

Of course one should never ask for a discount on naim...unless yuo want to have your posts pre-moderated...



No - that comes about if you are very, very rude.

Will the work be in accordance with the current 17th Edition of the Wiring Regulations?
This stipulates segregation of circuits across 2 RCD's , or replacement of each MCB with RCBO's.
These are about £50 each.
Also the majority of qualified (part P registered) electricians will require 10mm Protective Equipotential Bonding to be installed to gas & water pipes before the new board is fitted.
There then follows 1-2 hours of live and dead testing on each circuit, which result in 3-5 pages of test results.

Often when old installations are upgraded, faults show themselves by tripping the RCD.Therefore it is prudent to ensure that this extra troubleshooting time is included in the original quote.

Hope this helps.

Dave

Also, assuming the electrician is VAT registered, the first £93 of the £630 is VAT which the electrician simply passes to HMCE.

quote:

...
No - that comes about if you are very, very rude.

New bottle of blue ink?

We had the consumer unit changed at it cost 600 quid for one.

Are they changing the entire unit or just replacing the fuses? If you re lucky like we are in our newer house the fuse board itself is in reg so he simply swapped out the older wire type fuses with trip ones at a cost of £9 each plus VAT.

Well chaps, seems from what you're all saying that this chap is charging 'the going rate' and not ripping me off although I can't help feeling that it's not right that these guys are earning such ridiculously inflated salaries. I mean the average salary in this country is about £20k but this puts them on a par with GP's, senior airline Captains, barristers etc. It's more even than I earned as an IT contractor and I thought that was a lot! And lets face it many of these people aren't paying tax at anything like the same rate as somebody paying PAYE. This particular chap came by way of a builder friend who uses him but it's taken about 7 weeks to even get a quote out of him he's in such demand so I don't buy the argument that he has days when he can't get work!

I know they have to maintain currency but I can't see how a couple of grand a year for licence renewals justifies it. Waste of time going to University really isn't it (in financial terms) when as a Graduate you can expect to earn perhaps £20-£50k in most blue chip companies in your first ten or fifteen years.

Anyway, many thanks for the advice - unfortunately my fuse boxes are old so will need full replacement.

I'm in favour of more Polish immigrants now!

Jonathan

Jonathan

What would be the pilots going rate if he had to supply and fuel the aircraft, pay all landing costs, maintenance etc

Derek,

But that's divided between a fair number of passengers.
I'm in the civil aviation industry and we're lucky to be able to charge US$60/hr for maintenance of parts. And we've invested in some extremely expensive test equipment, tooling, QA department, HR, supply system etc.

Tony

Tony - Yes I know - unless I am chartering a plane for my own use.

What I am trying to do is put some balance into the discussion - Jonathan talks as if all the money goes directly into the pocket of the sparky.

Point taken.

The trouble with the airline industry, for my company, is that a lot of the components can be serviced in Asia as easily as in Europe. A turbine blade from a CF6-50 can be overhauled for about US$10 in Thailand. How can anyone in the west compete? We have tried to specialise, but that's getting difficult too. Ho hum.

Tony

If the sparky gets the job and then gets paid I would suggest that he is charging the correct amount and even slightly below what he could get. His skill is to estimate the maximum he could get from a customer and this is measured by either not getting or not getting paid for the job and getting paid for the job. Now the sparks may well have different criteria for each customer such as allowing discounts for whatever reason but that is his decision. Remember it takes two to tango, so if the quote is unacceptable then walk away.

I don't think the charge is hugely excessive, but the only way to find out is to get some more quotes; presumably there's some reasonably healthy competition in the vicinity.

If he's too expensive, if his quality of workmanship is poor or indeed if he charges too little he'll eventually go out of business.

Derek,

I take the point that anyone running their own business has some overheads - although considerably less than any airline but the point is that even allowing for that I would say £500/day is pretty excessive. The van and fuel is offset against tax as are any tools and business expenses but I expect the chap is still earning way above what most sane people would consider reasonable. It's pretty widely accepted that tradesmen in this country are extremely well remunerated at the expense of the public. In addition many individuals practicing in these professions put in vastly inflated quotations for work.

This means that you don't know whether:
a) A tradesman is a cowboy
b) He is trying tp price himself out of the job because he's too busy
c) He's charging a fair rate

All in all for a consumer who just wants a fair job for a fair price it's a minefield.

Incidentally I took the opportunity to check on average rates of charge for tradesmen here: http://www.findaproperty.com/displaystory.aspx?edid=00&...rent=0&storyid=22148 and it seems a sparky should charge around £200 a day which would seem perfectly reasonable - but that's a long way from the £630 I have been quoted for what probably amounts to about a day's work.

Seems to me that rather than trying to send 50% of school-leavers to University what the country needs is a lot more apprenticeships and tradespeople. Why would any school-leaver go and work in a call-centre for £8 an hour when they could go and make £70-£100k a year as a tradesmen and work when they want, play golf when they want etc??

Brg,

Jonathan
PS As a pilot incidentally I do sometimes get involved in fuelling the plane (opening the fuel valves, pre-setting the values on the fuel panel under the wing). It may also surprise many of you to know that in my conpany First Officers earn from £25-£40 000 p.a. while Captains typically earn £55k-£75k. In short it's in line with most Graduate professions - the days of the highly paid 'Sky-god' are over. In the military it's equally modest - fighter pilots earn about £33-£40k.

And there's less stability in the airline pilot industry, from what I see.
I wonder if the electrician is using an age old technique for a very busy tradesman: quote sky high if you don't really need the work. If the customer agrees... great! Another job gets delayed while the rip-off job gets priority.

Tony

Jonathon,

I think this is a classic case of supply and demand. Once school levers realise they can buy a Ferrari by becoming an electrician the number of electricians will increase and their prices will start to fall as competition between them increases.

You could do it yourself quite legally and save money but you'll still need a qualified person to disconnect the power from the tails into the consumer unit, check everything has been done properly before re-connecting the supply to the consumer units. They might charge £400 for doing this (to make it worth their while) and so you would then only have a price difference of a couple of hundred quid. Assuming that they find nothing wrong of course.....

You may find that it's just worth paying the £630. At least it'll all be done in a day.

Cheers
Steve

Tony,

You're right about less stability, two of the chaps who trained with me have lost their jobs at Excel and now is not the best time to be job-hunting although I think one of them is considering a move to Etihad.

As some of you say I do just need to get the job done, although have approached an old schoolfriend who is now a builder/AGA installer and I believe is also part P qualified who lives 60 miles away to see if he's interested.

Anyway, much appreciate everyobody's input - roll on supply and demand!

Jonathan

I've just got a bill from my sparks ...

Electrician = £28.50 PH
Labourer = £18.00 PH

They fitted a new consumer unit, inspected the wiring in the loft & did a couple of small repairs, upgraded my HiFi spur from 2.5mm to 6mm, & fitted a double switch-less socket.

The total was £262 ex VAT.
Here I think over-heads are lower then southern England,
so your estimate sounds about right to me Jonathan.

Fitting 2 new consumer units. Checking wiring. £440 last year.

Willy.