Opinions and advice please on the electrician I used work

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The sides of the garage are made out of concrete blocks that are bolted together so you can just undo a bolt and then put a metal bracket on and replace the bolt.
OK.

It's probably be a nightmare to drill into anyway, but the bracket you show looks like he made it by getting his horse to stamp on a bit of random scrap. Presumably the PVC trunking is glued on?

Electrics in a garage is not an unusual requirement, nor shelves, tool racks etc - do the makers not offer any accessories to allow things to be fitted?

In the absence of anything like that I think I'd be tempted to replace the bolts with longer ones and fix vertical pieces of timber as deep as the "flanges" of the concrete panels so that I could then fix horizontal pieces and put sockets and switches etc on them.


How far off the ground are the sockets & CU you show? I get the feeling that they are quite low, which is not always the best idea in a garage, particularly for plastic accessories. I don't know what you plan to do in there, but I wonder if higher up and/or metalclad accessories wouldn't be better?


I did think that with the light switch myself hence why I questioned it but what about going into the top of the switch and the plug sockets with the cabling is that advisable in a garage?
If you've got so much condensation in there that it's running down the walls and dripping off the roof trusses then you'll need to address the cause, not the symptoms.


I don't see why I will have to pay him anything as there wasn't a contract in place and if it gets ugly ill just strip it all out myself shove it in a box and dump it on his doorstep and start from scratch.
Legally you can't do that - you will have to reach an agreement. AIUI if you dispute the quality you have to give him an opportunity to rectify it, so best to find a way to terminate immediately.


im asking now before he pulls the house apart!!
You don't want him doing that.
 
The sides of the garage are made out of concrete blocks that are bolted together so you can just undo a bolt and then put a metal bracket on and replace the bolt.
OK.

It's probably be a nightmare to drill into anyway, but the bracket you show looks like he made it by getting his horse to stamp on a bit of random scrap. Presumably the PVC trunking is glued on?

Electrics in a garage is not an unusual requirement, nor shelves, tool racks etc - do the makers not offer any accessories to allow things to be fitted?

In the absence of anything like that I think I'd be tempted to replace the bolts with longer ones and fix vertical pieces of timber as deep as the "flanges" of the concrete panels so that I could then fix horizontal pieces and put sockets and switches etc on them.


How far off the ground are the sockets & CU you show? I get the feeling that they are quite low, which is not always the best idea in a garage, particularly for plastic accessories. I don't know what you plan to do in there, but I wonder if higher up and/or metalclad accessories wouldn't be better?


I did think that with the light switch myself hence why I questioned it but what about going into the top of the switch and the plug sockets with the cabling is that advisable in a garage?
If you've got so much condensation in there that it's running down the walls and dripping off the roof trusses then you'll need to address the cause, not the symptoms.


I don't see why I will have to pay him anything as there wasn't a contract in place and if it gets ugly ill just strip it all out myself shove it in a box and dump it on his doorstep and start from scratch.
Legally you can't do that - you will have to reach an agreement. AIUI if you dispute the quality you have to give him an opportunity to rectify it, so best to find a way to terminate immediately.


im asking now before he pulls the house apart!!
You don't want him doing that.

Hi thanks again for your reply.

To be fair to the electrician they was the actual brackets and fixing boards that came with the garage and hes not modified them in any way.

I believe the trunking is stuck on yes not sure if its glue or just sticky back.

The garage people did offer a full kit for the electrics but as you can imagine it was ridiculously expensive something like 400+ and that's not including getting someone to fit it.

I would say the sockets are a couple of foot of the ground but that was down to choice as it was either down low or up pretty high and unfortunately due to me making a miscalculation in the length of the armored cable for the consumer unit that had to go low unless the cable was to be extended so your probably right in saying metal ones would be better for safety although they wont be used much apart from the odd bit of work in the garage and plugging in an extension lead to mow the lawn.

There is no condensation at the moment luckily as its a brand new garage I was just thinking for in the future and weather or not its good practice to make holes in the top of sockets and light switches rather then using the proper ones.

And yes sorry I was a bit hasty with my reply but I was a bit wound up with the whole thing last night and I understand that I will have to give him a chance to do right even though tbh I don't want him touching anything else as I feel I could do a better job myself!!

My biggest problem now is I followed the advice on the forum and found someone of the competent person site who was all registered and is supposedly a trusted trader according to the county council and now I don't have any faith in the system and am very unsure what way to go from here.

Heres a few more photos I have taken of his work.

Also sorry you say I should send photos to his scheme organiser do you mean niceic as that's who signed him off?


 
I think the old saying you get what you pay for applies here. You said he was the cheapest quote and that shows. Did the sparky actually see the job before he quoted for it?

I wouldn't want that standard of work in my house but at the end of the day its just a garage and so long as he didn't charge too much and he has provided the correct certificates I would just draw a line under it, pay him, and get another sparky to do the house.
 
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Thanks for the reply.

I know what you mean but he was about £50 cheaper then the other quote we got so were not talking massive money.

As he was supposed to be fitting a new consumer unit as well but hasn't due to needing the rewire we don't actually have a price for just the garage as its still not fully connected so I will have to speak to him and come to some sort of arrangement.

Trouble im having is finding a competent sparky that's recommended and actually free anytime soon to do the job.

Does anyone else have any opinions and if you was me what would you say to the electrician?
 
Out of curiosity - I can see it's broken and so, unacceptable but what is it?

It looks like a door or window. Is it just leaning on the wall? It's so parallel it looks fitted, but where?


As for the rest, it's just naff - cheapest or not.
 
No, no.... It's some YT2 at right angles with a bit busted off. The stuff either side is the concrete panels of the garage walls and above, the corrugated roof panel.

I won't dine out on it, honest. I'm a nice guy. ;)
 
I think it would be more than a little unfair to withhold payment. Granted, it's not a shining example of great workmanship, but there's nothing on show in the pictures that appears to be inherently unsafe. We see far worse on here, and I think ban-all-sheds has been a little vehement in his criticism.
 
The workmanship is dreadful, to the extent that the guy should NOT be working as an electrician, he is not good enough.

And I've said all along that payment should not be withheld.
 
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Thanks again all for the replies.

Im not going to withhold payment but the problem I have is that he didnt just do a quote for the garage as originally the consumer unit was supposed to be being changed as well so at the moment he can quote a price for the work hes done and I haven't got a clue if its good or bad.

My other question is if you were wiring up the sockets and light switch how would you of done it?
 
Im not going to withhold payment but the problem I have is that he didnt just do a quote for the garage as originally the consumer unit was supposed to be being changed as well so at the moment he can quote a price for the work hes done and I haven't got a clue if its good or bad.

If you can work out how much of the quote was composed of labour charges, and you have some rough idea how much he spent on materials and how many hours work he did, then you should be able to get close to costs for the garage alone.

My other question is if you were wiring up the sockets and light switch how would you of done it?

Probably metal clad switches/sockets attached to the garage with unistrut and clamps, then conduit drops to all boxes, perhaps attached with girder clips if design of the garage walls permits. The use of conduit would remove the need for that nasty exposed wire entering the top of the sockets, as it could be bent around any obstructions.
 
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Thanks for the input.

Unfortunately I don't have the quote written down as he just quoted a price and we was happy with it.

We did get another quote that was slightly more expensive but that was broken down I will have to see if I can find it.

I'm going to ring him on Friday after work so I will keep you updated with any developments.
 
Electrics in a garage is not an unusual requirement, nor shelves, tool racks etc - do the makers not offer any accessories to allow things to be fitted?

Errr..... they do.... but....
http://www.comptonbuildings.co.uk/FilestoreDownload.chtml?intFilestoreObjectID=117

(open in a PDF reader, even though it comes with wrong extension :rolleyes: )

In the absence of anything like that I think I'd be tempted to replace the bolts with longer ones and fix vertical pieces of timber as deep as the "flanges" of the concrete panels so that I could then fix horizontal pieces and put sockets and switches etc on them.

A good idea, but worth nothing that the edge of the flanges are normally at an angle, so for your bits of timber to sit right they need to have a matching taper... so requires some messing about with the table saw to get it right.
 
Errr..... they do.... but....
http://www.comptonbuildings.co.uk/FilestoreDownload.chtml?intFilestoreObjectID=117[/QUOTE]
Ye Gods.

And someone else playing fast and loose with BR notification rules...

Still - I guess if you're stupid enough to pay £400 for that kit the Darwin Principle says that you deserve anything bad which happens to you. Like having your details sent to Russ Andrews.

And I still think those brackets look home made.


A good idea, but worth nothing that the edge of the flanges are normally at an angle, so for your bits of timber to sit right they need to have a matching taper... so requires some messing about with the table saw to get it right.
Yes and no.

Yes, there's an angle, and I thought about that, but as I was posting an idea not a detailed design I didn't elaborate.

But no chamfering the wood. You wouldn't want the nuts holding the panels together to be bearing onto wood anyway - any shrinkage or deterioration over time would threaten the integrity of the structure.

I'd use longer bolts, tightened as per normal, but with a longer threaded end protruding. Then a large washer or spreader plate, wood, another washer and another nut.

I'd try just one vertical at first, in case I found it moved around. Which it might, as it looks like the panels have sealant between them, i.e. there's no concrete:concrete contact to give rigidity.

Maybe Dexion instead of wood? Diagonal bracing would improve rigidity, as would horizontal members with some nice thick sheets of marine ply bolted to it, which in turn could have sockets, switches, tool racks, brackets, hooks etc etc screwed to it. Horizontal lengths would be also be great for directly hanging tools, fixing brackets to and supporting perimeter trunking.

Or electronicsuk's suggestion of Unistrut is worth consideration.

Were it my garage I too would want to use steel conduit, but to have a sparky do that could be expensive. It'd be a laugh to see the incumbent have a crack at that though.... :evil:
 

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