Electrical Testing

[burntwire]

Electrical testing is something I enjoy doing and would like to pursue as a line of business due to the fact that I do not have to pay out for materials and then wait to be paid. I recently installed 3 dyson heaters which only took a day however materials came to nearly 2k just for a days money of which I had to wait 30 days!

I have recently quoted a few jobs with around 250 circuits, such as schools etc and feed back was that I was way off my competitors price, I was beaten by quotes of £7.50 per circuit.

We can go on about how these testers are just knocking out certification and probably calculating most the results but the problem is now they are doing it they are setting the trend.

How do I compete with this when clients care simply about the price and not the quality?

What are other people charging for commercial testing per circuit?

 

[Adam_151]

For the school with 250 circuits.. what did you quote and how did you arrive at this figure?

 

[burntwire]

I quoted £12 per circuit on the grounds that none of the circuits are labelled, its going to take time to trace out and sort these circuits some will be easier than others, a rough guide of 20 ish minutes per circuit give/take

 

[Adam_151]

I wouldn't have thought you'd be too far wrong with that if the installation is as you describe.

 

[flameport]

How do I compete with this when clients care simply about the price and not the quality?

Find better clients.

Those that only care about price will find the absolute lowest they can, then want an extra discount, and generally end up with exactly what they paid for.

 

[ericmark]

There are two reasons to inspect and test.
1) To satisfy the HSE and insurance company.
2) To ensure safe environment for those using the premises.

There is also two ways to price for the work.
1) Lost leader to generate work to come.
2) Actual cost of doing inspection.

Where used to generate work then not putting down all details is not really a problem as one expects to do the work ones self however when one does not want the work generated then clearly very detailed reports are required so others can quote for the work and we have talked on here before about if regulation numbers should be included.

Working as an electrician for years I look at a job and say that's not right but to then say what rules it breaks is a lot harder.

We clearly want repeat work and I went into a hotel with a EICR made out by some one else and to be frank began to wonder if he was in the same hotel! The firm he worked for would have clearly done some work to pay for the time he spent inspecting issued paper work to say all was OK and both parties would have been happy. However after my visit clearly the firm would never work there again.

I see your point on payment that job required new dis boards and I felt one too much outlay and two not a job for one guy so back healed it. Next firm said same as me may as well bin the EICR and start again using facts rather than imagination.

I find few people want an EICR which is factually then will get some one else to do the work. Yes people want a certificate to show insurers or letting agent but all they want is a pass they don't really want faults listed and so want some one who does not look very carefully at the installation. They just want it cheap with rubber stamp.

So question has to be if you do a proper job how will you sell yourself? As soon as you say you will not correct faults found they will want some one else. The only way is to have other companies who are willing to do the work who also trust your EICR and will quote on the strength of what you say. If they raise any questions about your workmanship then you will not do that building again and it is near impossible to do a EICR that others will not pull to pieces when they want the whole job in the future.

I did some PAT testing in a school and it was hard work some of the things I found were more by luck. With insulation tape joints hidden in mini trunking only found because flex changed colour.

As to what is equipment and what is installation is another question with extension leads feeding over head projectors but placed in trunking and through suspended ceiling. Plugged in yet fixed not really an appliance it's just wiring yet you could not really call it a circuit and charge the £7.50 to test it or call it an appliance and charge £1.

I charged by the day. Get a good caretaker and you can whip through the school be left to find everything out for yourself and it's a nightmare. So you need a price which means it's to schools advantage to have the caretaker help you. Work for 9 hours charge for 8 and your a great guy even if you did raise the rate to allow for that.

But I worked through another firm so any items I raised would be corrected by the other firm without making comments about any errors I made and you will make errors we all do.

Even when taking my C&G2391 when I was clearly trying to impress I still made errors I did not get a 100% pass. So buy the caretaker his lunch!

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

How do I compete with this when clients care simply about the price and not the quality?

Simple answer is if you think your price structure is fair for the task in hand, you cannot compete against cowboy testers.

If the client is prepared to compromise on price, rather than competence, then that's their lookout, not a great deal you can do about that, other than drop your price.

 

[burntwire]

Being a small company with low overheads we could match these prices, however the customer will be getting a proper report at a bargain price, whilst I am stressed out, pi**ed off and typing up reports!!

Maybe its about time the electrical safety register produced some price guidelines regarding the test and inspection of different types of buildings and grading them a,b,c,d on age and condition, leading to a realistic per circuit time and costing!

I think I will publish my own down loadable pdf for the use of electricians fighting back against cowboys, out lining the test procuedures and disruptions expected when they are having the work carried out. to be handed out to clients when quoting!!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

You need to be careful about it seeming to be just job-protection/fee-inflation/special-interest-pleading etc.

Ideally what's needed are guidelines agreed by NICEIC/ESC/NAPIT etc (first stumbling block ) which are then accepted by the ABI. As Eric says, it's usually a CYA exercise, but if the insurers start to lay down minimum standards for the quality of the a-covering work, things might improve.

A thought - do the testers which store results for later download timestamp them? If that data was retained, it would be a useful audit trail to show what tests were done when.

 

[Iggifer]

A thought - do the testers which store results for later download timestamp them? If that data was retained, it would be a useful audit trail to show what tests were done when.

And which ones were made up? I've seen test results I KNOW are made up.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

It would not be beyond the wit of electrical trade bodies and insurers associations to create a rule which required the data to be retained with the report. I know - once it's on a PC it can be manipulated, altered, faked etc, but every little thing done to make it harder to fake results will stop some people from doing it.

 

[JohnW2]

Maybe its about time the electrical safety register produced some price guidelines regarding the test and inspection of different types of buildings and grading them a,b,c,d on age and condition, leading to a realistic per circuit time and costing!

Is that actually 'allowed' these days? I don't know, but it sounds a bit like 'price fixing' / 'anti-competetive'.

I can't see that there would be a problem for an organisation to publish guidelines relating to the amount of 'time per job' - but the law might require that individual electricians/firms made their own decision about their hourly charge.

Kind Regards, John

 

[securespark]

A thought - do the testers which store results for later download timestamp them? If that data was retained, it would be a useful audit trail to show what tests were done when.

And which ones were made up? I've seen test results I KNOW are made up.

Yup. Me too. It's oh-so-obvious.

 

[Iggifer]

Yup, there's always the impossible results, usually on really long circuits

 

[ericmark]

Although I have used fixed installation testers which do auto log results in the main it has been manual reading and putting the results down on paper although I would later copy them into excel which would auto highlight where there were problems with the readings.

However the last time I down loaded the forms for PAT testing from IET website they had changed to allow multi-entries on the same sheet which was designed to show a trend.

If the same is done with an EICR which would make sense then clearly a tester could copy the last test results, and since one is suppose to give the tester the last test results so he can show the trend then if done to the book there is nothing stopping testers from copying last years results.

In other words if done by the book then it is all about trust there is nothing to stop a tester cheating.

However any tester doing the first set of results would need to do the job correct as next year any errors would be high lighted.

Not sure the client would want multi entry forms or showing last years form to new tester as it high lights any remedial work not completed we see this with houses a lot where even today where there should have been according to rules at least 5 PIR/EICR raised showing no earths on lights and yet householders say they can't afford re-wire and clearly they have know it was wanted for 50 years. My mothers house is one of them.

There was a code for complied with previous edition of BS7671 however there has never been an edition of BS7671 which allowed either water pipes to be used as earth or lights to have no earth. There is an editions of the IEE wiring regulations but at that time they were not adopted by British Standards.

I saw one firms form for the old PIR which asked for cable types 6181XY, 6181Y, 6181B, 6491B etc which is fair enough when one has the installation certificate to copy from but in real terms one has little chance of identifying cables by just looking at them and once a tester guesses then any tester after will just copy down what last tester put down and PVC and LSZH cables have different current carrying capacity so a mistake could result in a circuit being over loaded many years down the line. The IET form only asks for CSA not insulation type.

But as to cheating the whole point has to be we do rely on previous information one of the first tick boxes is TN-C, TN-S, TN-C-S, TT or IT supply and often there is no way to work out if TN-S or TN-C-S and we would copy from last report. To me this is not cheating enquiry is a valid method and although we would clearly take actual readings even things like short-circuit capacity of MCB's it is acceptable to use the information off the last test results one would not remove MCB's to read the values.

The other question is should an EICR also be a service? Should terminal tightness be tested? Clearly this is extra work but I have changed all wire fuses during an inspection and test to ensure one they have not degraded and two they are the right size.

By advertising you will do this in the quote you then make it so there is no direct comparison with other competitors. Offering a discount for if previous results are furnished or repeat tests is something which could work both ways but with note that it stops the tester having to remove MCB's to read data on their sides may help but in most cases we recognise if 4.7k or 10k so in practice we don't really need to remove any.

The is a standard note "Cables concealed within trunking and conduits, or cables and conduits concealed under floors, in roof spaces and generally within the fabric of the building or underground have not been inspected." to include MCB's will not be removed to record SCC or CSA is approximate where not copied from previous test results could be valid comments. To identify between 7/0.029" cable and 2.5mm is really not something one is likely to do without a micrometer although one normally has a sixth sense it's not 2.5mm but could also be mistaken for 4mm so only 7 thou between them on each strand so we really do need the previous test results or installation certificate if we are going to produce a report within a reasonable time. i.e. no point re-inventing wheel or remeasuring CSA of cables.