Reply With QuoteDid he provide a reason?
Evening All,
Looking for some advice here gents on a situation.
At the beginning of the summer i asked my sister in laws partner to rewire a rental property i own. He was just starting out on his own and i thought it would be a nice job for him to do. Generally everything went to plan and the install has gone ok. A few issues to resolve but nothing insurmountable. I had paid him upfront for all materials and then the remainder of the quote price, with holding 10% upon inspection by myself and issue of all necessary paperwork.
Fast forward to today he is now refusing to issue any paperwork. So the question is what do i now do?
All advice greatly received.
Did he provide a reason?
I presume he is actually registered and qualified to certificate
There were some minor disputes;Originally Posted by Hatco1800es
1. He purchased lights which i di not ask for and charged me for them, i have howvere agreed to pay for them
2. HE had put a new TV aerial cable in for down stairs lounge ran it up into the room above the lounge and left it in a coil, effectively so doing nothing. Did not tell me Plastersers came in hadnt seen it and found it when painter was finishing up, so asked why he had left it without asking what to do with it.
3. He did not use some sockets that i had left for him in the kitchen but, agreed it was too late to switch.
So the only real issue is number 2 which he said well i did not know what to do with it although i had told him at the beginning to connect to external aerial.
I imagine the worst case scenario would be for you to get a (suitably qualfied) electrician to inspect and then issue the certificate?
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
My lad is a spark who is qualified to certify his installations and he has told us before that a lot of sparks won’t certify other peoples work or if they do it’s only after a comprehensive examination of the work as they are leaving themselves liable for another sparks work. A detailed check and certification by a second spark will be expensive.
If you can get one to do it.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
He isnt able to certify it, Not qualified to test, figured he would wing it and live in hope. Nothing to do with the calibre of the install. Just my experience of what usually happen
Family! Sounds like you're in for a few awkward conversations. Good luck.
Probably the time to find your inner diplomat and have a chat with him. Sounds a lot easier to resolve than any alternatives
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You could report him to the body he’s affiliated too ? Ie niceic. Napit etc ?
I would have thought that might leave a very bad after taste in the family cake hole.
Sit him down, tell him it like it is then the family can leave him with snot on his beak for the foreseeable...
I agree mate. Yours is probably a better way in the long term
Annoying but in the scheme of things relatively minor. He’s inexperienced and you probably didn’t supervise enough.
I’d bite my lip and try and smooth it over just to get the job over the line.
What’s his reasoning for not issuing paperwork, is he qualified to issue an EICR?
Check here for your EICR. https://www.electricalcompetentperson.co.uk/
Last edited by Montello; 19th October 2022 at 22:18.
Unless he thinks you'll withhold the final 10% don't see how the issues are a problem for him.
Personally I’d say he’s not got his accreditation with a part P affiliated governing body. Maybe suggest he uses your place as a sample job for his inspection, you get it signed off and he gets registered. Or he goes through the rigmarole of doing his certification on sample paperwork and getting into contact with the local building control to sign off the works for a small fee.
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If he's like that with family lord knows what he'll be like with normal customers!
The only reason I can think of is that he is not qualified to issue the certificate.
Call in qualified electrician and get them to sign off the installation. If they are not happy to sign off, they should tell you why. It will cost you a couple of hundred, but small in the grade scheme.
Ask him to recommend someone who can sign it off, that will show you are happy to move on. If you don’t feel confident with his work, find a 3rd party.
Never use family or family friends for work. It normally doesn’t end well.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
First you will struggle to find anyone to certificate someone else's work. I know I wouldn't.
If he's set up on his own he must be able to self certificate so I assume he is holding this back until he is paid? The issue seems minor and surely you can come to an agreement.
That's just a poor excuse. Any competent electrician can inspect any wiring. If they then felt it was unsafe or had exact reasons, they could remedy these works and then issue the certificate.
Am I left to believe that the only person I can ever get around to my house to inspect the electrics is the guy who originally did it? My house was wired over 50 years ago. Guess I'm screwed and I need to rewire every time an electrician retires/moves.
If this is their excuse, get better tradesmen.
It's utter bollocks.
There's the issue, he's maybe uncertified but otherwise I don't envy your situation.
Awkward conversations, no good turn...
Get another electrician in to certify it and wash your hands of the mess
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He's either part p qualified or he is isn't, find out who his governing body is and phone them. No one else can certify his work but they can test the circuits and issue a periodic inspection certificate, personally I would pay to have that done to make sure he's left you in a safe condition , it's about 150 quid
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Yes, this is.
No its not. I have them done for my rentals every 5 years.
It's not certification as such , it's testing the electrics and issuing a periodic inspection with calcs and advisories etc , usual cost 150-200 quid
In this case seems better to try and resolve it amicably and get him back , it's always the best solution,
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But that is not an installation certification - that is just a periodic test.
Think of the Installation certification as being 'commissioning test'. Not replicated every 5 years.
You'd assume a trade which is always dreaming-up new safety regs would welcome having certification separate from installation, otherwise everyone gets to mark their own homework, which can't be good!
Just imagine going to the Certifying organisations web-site and seeing what percentage of installs by each tradesman was passed by another assessor at first go. Imagine...
Last edited by J J Carter; 22nd October 2022 at 17:02.
This work may be notofiable, I haven't read every post. If it is the sparky has 28 days to upload his cert, if not he can take the piss a bit
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True, but no-one is going to pay for a 'surveyor' to witness all or part of the installation.
Plenty of electricians 'rewired' houses, and simply connected the new sockets into the existing shit wiring, using short tails of new cable.
My sister has had rewiring carried out for a 'rebuild' of the existing house - and TBH, I'd have shagged the 'electrician'.
Sure - he has still to return to sign off the work, but he was happy to leave the installation for months with:
- No IDs of any circuits in either of the two consumer units.
- One neutral wire in the consumer unit not terminated - just lying loose & bare end.
- One redundant circuit (old lighting circuit) - livened up from an MCB rather than isolated.
- Power to immersion heater going through a single pole switch (think he is going to corect that).
- No continuity, insulation tests carried out (yet)
The time to identify the circuits is when you connect them - not afterwards by trial.
Bottom line - most electricians are absolute chancers, compromised by the lure of 'easy money' and customers who don't know to call them out.
And don't start me on 'heating engineers'
As a tradesman this can go both ways.
The cert they issue every 5 years is literally called an EICR... Electrical Installation Condition Report
If you are talking about a works certificate this is different, but an EICR is probably all he needs... Which any electrician can do.
If said electrician finds out the work will not pass certification, then of course he can carry out remedial works and then issue the certificate
He can certificate his own minor works yes, not the original work, so he can't issue 'the certificate'
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Doesn't matter what it is called - it does not attest to the standard of the installation- merely that it passes the non-intrusive tests carried out at the time.
Not my field but what landlords need for rentals is not the same thing as Domestic Part P sparks certifying his own work, these two things should not be confused
Get another sparks in, he can check the work complies to regs and if so finish the work and issue a minor works for the remaining connections
Thats ok, because if the circuits are dangerous he will rectify, or if not upto regs he will advise ( earthing , RCS protection whatevs)
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Any Joe blow can do their own electrical installation/wiring etc, they just need it signed off by an electrician afterwards, and hook it up to the mains. Any electrician can do this and any competent electrician can tell whether or not it should pass.
So long as you don't have a dodgy electrician signing it off, they will tell you if there are any issues and if there aren't any they will sign off. This is how it works.
I have wired countless properties myself and have no certification (It is really quite simple), but then have had certified electricians sign off and issue the installation certificate.
An EICR can tell you whether or not the installation Is safe.
OP, What part of the country are you in? I may know a certified electrician in your area that may be able to help or at least look at the state of it and tell you what, if anything, needs doing
Surely all he needs is an EICR... Electrical Installation Condition Report
Well we know that happens all the time but it's not technically how it's supposed to work, not that the governing bodies care they can't be bothered to police it.
This normally happens when you use a mate who is a sparky or a kitchen fitter has a regular guy who will let him get on with it and come on at the end that sort of thing
But the system is not 'do it yourself and just call a sparky to cert it', a mate may agree but a competent sparky will run a mile
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As an electrician who’s coming to his 30 year anniversary of holding an approved electrician JIB gold card reading some of these comments has been both entertaining and offensive. Calling an electrician a chancer or clueless because they are not registered to sign work off is so wrong. I have always worked for companies and therefore I am always under that’s companies umbrella when it comes to signing work off. So reading that if I then decided to rewire a house not working for that company I would suddenly become a clueless chancer is news to me. I suppose the bmw mechanic suddenly becomes a dodgy back street grease monkey as soon as he works on a car not in the bmw workshop too then.
Lots and lots of people like me who work for companies full time who do ‘private work’ get their work signed off by others as it’s simply not worth the expense or time to go through the process of being registered to sign private work off. In many cases the standard of will be much higher too as people like me are proper industrial electricians who work on massive projects for years on end not just basic house bashers.
WARNING do not go to the new Battersea power station as I worked not only on the flats next to it for 2.5 years but also on the actual power station for just under 1.5 years and seeing I m not registered to sign off my own work so by tz logic Battersea power station is a potential electrical death trap…
Haha I love it when someone knows their onions. Well done.
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As I said we all know sparkys who know each other look after each other, it happens and no one is bothered if the work is good.
But for every 10 good blokes there is one that is a chancer, I know, I've had to sack enough of them over a 30 year career in the building trade . I can tell you a story about a bloke who submitted the same electrical cert for 5 years and the governing body signed everyone off, his measurements weren't even measurements they were just random numbers . The problem is his work was so bad it cost a company 150k to rip out kitchens and rewire whole houses . That's a world away from all the good guys doing good work and signing off each others work.
Back on track, this guy here has no cert, and a sparky refusing to certify, the logical solution is just get someone else in to finish the final work and he can check it over, and he can certify his own work.
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Working in the power station in next couple of weeks, fingers crossed I survive
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Amen brother. The old adage continues... If you want useless advice from people who have never actually done anything in their life .. ask a forum!
I had an incident when a company went out of business before I had the documentation.
I paid another spark to come out and test the system that was put in. Lots of plugging a device in and taking readings from all of the new sockets etc to ensure no issues were being registered.
I didn't find it a big issue to get sorted out but he's a bit of a twat leaving you in this position.
Fingers crossed for you that everything tests OK.
Cool story, dude............................
Now - toddle back and see why I used 'chancer' and see if you can maybe see any mention of being unable to sign off their own work, or departure from main dealer/employer work ..............
Love the last paragraph - it's just so.................
Fair point, you're not singling out electrical engineers who aren't certificated to sign their own work, you have an equally low opinion of most of them!
‘Most electricians are absolute chancers’Cool story, dude............................
Now - toddle back and see why I used 'chancer' and see if you can maybe see any mention of being unable to sign off their own work, or departure from main dealer/employer work ..............
Love the last paragraph - it's just so.................
‘Now- toddle back’
I don’t have the ability you clearly have to dismiss and talk down to groups of people you know nothing about so quickly but I must admit I m pretty sure I know what type of person you are from your presence on here.
Imagine a new circuit (let's say a radial circuit in an extension), where the cable is run in an insulated stud wall. As a third party electrician, would you be happy to certify that the cable was run properly within the wall and properly derated?
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