Ive had some quotes to complete a rewire ranging from £1700- 4500. One guy says that he can complete the work for £950, but cannot do me a quote as he works for a large company. Its very cheap, is it worth letting him do the job and just ensure he does whats required?
Rewire costs
- Thread starter chillout
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References?
He works for a large company doing what? House-type wiring, or industrial? If the latter he may know all of the regulations, but does he have the practical skills to do the former?
If you're in England or Wales, is he personally registered to certify Building Regulations compliance? If not, how will that be accomplished?
You say "just ensure he does whats required" - do you know enough to ensure that?
Has he said how long it will take? If he's got no commitment via materials, and gets fed up and decides part way through to just walk away and write off the time which would have got him £2-300 from you, but has actually cost him nothing, what will you do?
There are two sayings to bear in mind - neither are absolute, but both have more than a grain of truth in them:
He works for a large company doing what? House-type wiring, or industrial? If the latter he may know all of the regulations, but does he have the practical skills to do the former?
If you're in England or Wales, is he personally registered to certify Building Regulations compliance? If not, how will that be accomplished?
You say "just ensure he does whats required" - do you know enough to ensure that?
Has he said how long it will take? If he's got no commitment via materials, and gets fed up and decides part way through to just walk away and write off the time which would have got him £2-300 from you, but has actually cost him nothing, what will you do?
There are two sayings to bear in mind - neither are absolute, but both have more than a grain of truth in them:
- Pay peanuts, get monkeys.
- If it seems to good to be true it probably is.
Yep Im in london. I think he does commercial but been in the trade for over 40 years. He is NICEIC registered I believe. I can ask him for a timescale. I wouldnt pay anyone upfront tbh. Just seems a bit strange he wont provide anything on paper.
So the work is notifiable - if he isn't registered to self-certify you'll need Building Regulations approval in advance.
Yes, but doing what?
He is?
Or the company he works for is?
There's a difference, and it will cost you whatever your council charges to notify electrical work.
It won't seem strange when he tells you he'll want paying in cash...
And this is not to impugn his abilities, but you'd better hope it also won't seem strange later on if something goes wrong and you want him to sort it out FOC. Although of course with you providing the materials you won't be getting a warranty from him regarding those anyway.
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It sounds like he'll be doing at the weekends (ie when not at his proper work). It will take longer in this case. Plus I suspect that, as someone said already the company he works for might be NIC, but he won't be, so you'll be getting no certs and no Part P Building Regs cert.
Also if he's commercial, he might not be familiar with domestic installations. One of the worst domestic rewires I ever had to 'sort out' was done by a person exactly as you describe. Numerous faults, messy work and to cap it all he'd shoved the meter tails in the wrong way round so all the fuses where in the neutrals - Do'h pretty basic stuff this! ....The customer ended up paying twice over by the time I'd finished
Cheap isn't always best or indeed cheap in the end
Also if he's commercial, he might not be familiar with domestic installations. One of the worst domestic rewires I ever had to 'sort out' was done by a person exactly as you describe. Numerous faults, messy work and to cap it all he'd shoved the meter tails in the wrong way round so all the fuses where in the neutrals - Do'h pretty basic stuff this! ....The customer ended up paying twice over by the time I'd finished
Cheap isn't always best or indeed cheap in the end
All good answers, thank you. I'll check him out to see if he himself is registered. I'm not sure what he does full time, I'll find out. You right... cheap is not always the best way to go about things. He's going to use someone else to put all the wires in apparently.
£1700 seems too cheap to... going through my rewire at the moment and the parts (mostly plain white sockets too) on a 4 bed house were about £1500
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Alarm bells are ringing....if he's going to use someone else to install the cables - he'll be skimming a bit off the top of HIS pay, so how skilled is the cable installer going to be at that rate!
As others have said even £1700 sounds cheap - will depend on location though. Last one I did was £10k - although big house, LED lights throughout, 3 baths, Cat5E, phones, 15 circuits, London, etc etc
I'd be wary of supplying your own materials - how will you know what to buy?You may end up wasting money on the wrong stuff.
Good luck
As others have said even £1700 sounds cheap - will depend on location though. Last one I did was £10k - although big house, LED lights throughout, 3 baths, Cat5E, phones, 15 circuits, London, etc etc
I'd be wary of supplying your own materials - how will you know what to buy?You may end up wasting money on the wrong stuff.
Good luck
Unless you can find a spark who'll fit it all then certify the work for £200, I don't really see how it's achievable for much less than £2500
Do you mean finish off a rewire thats already been started by someone else, if so how much work left to do will affect the cost.
Err - hang on.
You're supplying all the materials.
Someone else is going to install them.
What exactly is he going to be doing?
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