Garden room electrics - could this have been done more neatly?

[Reece96]

Hi all,

Looking for some advice on the setup in the photo.

Originally I had one garden room and it just had the consumer unit on the right. I then built a second garden room and had an electrician run a supply to it from the first garden room.

To do this, he added the equipment on the left/middle and the additional cabling you can see in the photo.

I’m not suggesting there’s necessarily anything electrically wrong with what he’s done, but I’m not particularly happy with how untidy the finished job looks. There are now several separate boxes and quite a lot of cable looping around the wall, whereas previously it was just the consumer unit.

Is there a neater way this could have been done?

For example, could everything required for the first garden room and the outgoing supply to the second garden room have been incorporated into one suitably sized modern consumer unit, or is there a technical reason for having the separate equipment shown here?

I’m considering getting another electrician in to tidy it up, so I’d like to know what’s realistically possible before I do.

Any advice much appreciated.

 

[jj4091]

Depends on what you asked for and if you had more than one quote and if you did then did you go for the cheapest.

 

[Tigercubrider]

Build a box around it.

 

[davelx]

Easily. Also that does not comply with the regs - there are single insulated conductors that are not within an enclosure, the SWA cable has not been correctly terminated, the exposed steel screen could potentially present a hazard - we don't know how it's connected at the other end. I'd be ashamed if that was my work. It looks as if it's been done by someone who doesn't really know what they are doing.

 

[Reece96]

Depends on what you asked for and if you had more than one quote and if you did then did you go for the cheapest.

Did get several quotes and went with the one in the middle. I initially asked for them to fit a bigger consumer unit in the first garden room but the electrician said it was not needed and they could just join the armoured cables using a junction box on the outside of the building. I actually had to pop out during them working… only to come back and see they had done this all on the inside.

 

[pete01]

He could have taken the new supply out of the existing consumer unit.

If there wasn't room Change the consumer unit.

Get him back or someone better, its a mess.

 

[Reece96]

He could have taken the new supply out of the existing consumer unit.

If there wasn't room Change the consumer unit.

Get him back or someone better, its a mess.

i thought so too. Going to get someone else to take a look and rectify.

 

[SUNRAY]

 

[mikehammer69]

It's an awful looking dogs dinner of a job

 

[morqthana]

Which includes making good that hole he just smashed into the plasterboard.

Have you paid him yet?

 

[Murdochcat]

Thats a right lash up.

Dare I ask what certification you were given?

 

[morqthana]

A fraudulent one.

 

[Sureitsoff?]

That is awful. Hope you havent paid yet!

 

[ericmark]

I agree, in the words of the boyfriend remote, "Do it again, and do it properly" However in general no installation is perfect, and we often seem to get what we are prepared to pay for.

But the are limits, and he has clearly exceeded the limits, to the point where one asks what are the bits we can't see like?

My Garden room is part of the main house, but I do have a shed, one to left has power, centre one now demolished, and we start by considering what type of supply, since mine is made of wood, it does not really matter, but with a metal shed it would.

My in shed distribution consists of one fuse, to reduce the power available to the lights. It is really done on the cheap. But I have used proper cable glands, what you show is not cheap, it is simply rubbish.

So as "to get him back", no, get someone else, as you simply can't trust anyone who does that.

 

[morqthana]

I believe that in law, if you want to take action to recover payments made, or to defend not paying an invoice, you have to allow them the opportunity to rectify their work.