Get great prices on cable from CEF here.
Rewire.
- Thread starter pete01
- Start date
In the "Old Days" of City Electrical Factors they used to be OK in the main, I even had an account with them.
But they "inadvertently" overcharged on a few items.
Trouble was , in my experience, if you regularly trade with some folks and yes mistakes can and do happen then often you would notice that they both undercharge and overcharge to some extent.
In my opinion City never undercharged, anyway I always checked my invoices and once I reported any errors they were corrected so fair enough.
However I was getting pretty similar reports from comrades too.
One common them amongst them all seemed to be they would state you could have all cables at "Trade price less XX%" but when you gotyour invoice you would notice that the price breaks often only applied to single items and not 10 off or 50 off quantities etc, often the "Book Price" was charged.
I accept it could have actually been down to sloppy training of managers etc but I did hear a rumour that a manager had left one part of the business and did an exposé of certain practices within the business suggesting that this idea was deliberate at high level.
Whether or not there was any truth in that I have no idea at all.
It could all be quite innocent (but a bit sloppy of them)..
My trust in them was diminished and I never trade with them for many years.
In the main, the lads behind the counter seemed very nice including the branch manager.
Roll forwards quite a few years and their sort of new official name became "CEF" (it was what everybody called them anyway) rather than "City Electrical Factors" and I have sourced a sort of one off order now and again, paying immediately and not on account and their prices seemed more reasonable in comparison to other wholesalers quite often. I also noticed they never seemed as busy as in the old days too. Coincidence?
So, whether the company had changed and to what extent I have no idea, all the lads I used to deal with had gone, moved on to pastures new! or something.
Since I retired a few years ago I almost never need anything from a wholesaler but if I did I might also include CEF amongst my enquiries.
Others may have opinions similar or different from my own.
PS - A long time back most large wholesalers would quote the "Official Trade Price" (as per manufacturers catalogue or the "Electrical Pricing Manual" ) then offer a discount, a very common way of expressing cables prices was "Trade less 85%" which showed how meaningless the official trade price was, the actual retail price was often much less than the official trade price, especially on cables.
But they "inadvertently" overcharged on a few items.
Trouble was , in my experience, if you regularly trade with some folks and yes mistakes can and do happen then often you would notice that they both undercharge and overcharge to some extent.
In my opinion City never undercharged, anyway I always checked my invoices and once I reported any errors they were corrected so fair enough.
However I was getting pretty similar reports from comrades too.
One common them amongst them all seemed to be they would state you could have all cables at "Trade price less XX%" but when you gotyour invoice you would notice that the price breaks often only applied to single items and not 10 off or 50 off quantities etc, often the "Book Price" was charged.
I accept it could have actually been down to sloppy training of managers etc but I did hear a rumour that a manager had left one part of the business and did an exposé of certain practices within the business suggesting that this idea was deliberate at high level.
Whether or not there was any truth in that I have no idea at all.
It could all be quite innocent (but a bit sloppy of them)..
My trust in them was diminished and I never trade with them for many years.
In the main, the lads behind the counter seemed very nice including the branch manager.
Roll forwards quite a few years and their sort of new official name became "CEF" (it was what everybody called them anyway) rather than "City Electrical Factors" and I have sourced a sort of one off order now and again, paying immediately and not on account and their prices seemed more reasonable in comparison to other wholesalers quite often. I also noticed they never seemed as busy as in the old days too. Coincidence?
So, whether the company had changed and to what extent I have no idea, all the lads I used to deal with had gone, moved on to pastures new! or something.
Since I retired a few years ago I almost never need anything from a wholesaler but if I did I might also include CEF amongst my enquiries.
Others may have opinions similar or different from my own.
PS - A long time back most large wholesalers would quote the "Official Trade Price" (as per manufacturers catalogue or the "Electrical Pricing Manual" ) then offer a discount, a very common way of expressing cables prices was "Trade less 85%" which showed how meaningless the official trade price was, the actual retail price was often much less than the official trade price, especially on cables.
I did enquire at a number of sellers of holes and City's as we usually call them is most likely on that list, but all came back with grey only at the time.
The thing I've found with all of the electrical wholesalers is the relationship you build with them. I regularly got 95% off cable and plastic conduit & associated parts
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I too got ripped off by CEF. Being quoted way over list for an item that when I subsequently rang for a price from the manufacturer, I got quoted less than list.
And they knew me and I was a regular customer.
Go figure...
And they knew me and I was a regular customer.
Go figure...
Yes Agreed Sunray, the starting point with cables at the time I`m speaking off was 85% to anybody with just about all wholesalers as their headline and then they would apply an additional discount between you and them which could be according to your business with them and your "clout" with them.
85% was the common starting point which, to my mind, shows how pie in the sky actual "official trade prices" were.
Of course my only concern was the actual price to be paid and any notational price discount was irrelevant as far as I was concerned but some of the lads on the tools seemed to "fall for it" . The cable one was always the biggest one that everyone seemed to set store with though.
It was quite common for me to find a list price of £108.00 + VAT for a roll of 2.5 T & E yet most wholesalers sold at around £19.75 including VAT for a few years , quite a few years, the price was stable so in reality went down year upon year when factoring inflation too.
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So do we reckon my house was rewired sometime in the 70's? Its as the picture with solid green earth sleeve, and the original consumer unit was a 3036 wylex rewireable type.
It was built in the 1930's, and was originally black rubber cable (no longer in use) by the looks of it as I've also been pulling bits of that out as I go.
It was built in the 1930's, and was originally black rubber cable (no longer in use) by the looks of it as I've also been pulling bits of that out as I go.
I guess probably about then, although I think such CUs were still being installed in the 80s. Your house sounds similar to ours ('electrically' - but most of ours was actually built in the 1890s {a few bits much earlier}) - when we moved in (in 1987) it had allegedly been re-wired in the late 60s, and had multiple Wylex 3036 'CUs' ('fuse boxes', I suppose
), and there was some green earth sleeving. However, I've seen such sl;eeving in much more recent installations, and I suspect that some electricians had large stocks of it that thy didn't want to throw away!Again, similar here, but there was (and probably still is!) also quite a lot of lead-sheathed cable (and totally bare, uninsulated, 'earth wire') lying around under floorboards and in the roof spaces! A lot in the plumbing was in steel/iron (plus some lead), with massive pipes about 2 inches OD!
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For the bonding or the main earth, the green earth cable, do you know if they were available in 16mm?'CUs' ('fuse boxes', I suppose
I doubt they were.
Commonly, the MET for the green earth cables doesn’t accommodate the size of 16mm in terms of the green and yellow earth conductor.
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The flathead screws for the backbox does speak a bit.
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My main earth cable was a solid green err id say 4mm
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What?
I very much doubt that bonding or earthing conductors anything like as big as 16mm² were used in those days
However, for whatever size they did use, they presumably had no choice but green, did they (unless they left the conductor uninsulated)?
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TN-S, surely?
Back in the old days bare earth wires to water-pipes were often only 2.5 or 7/036. Maybe they got it from there?
How often did they use PH/Pozidriv screws back when they installed that?
I don't think there was anything else (other than TT) until the late 70s, was there?
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