Rewiring complete house

[bretts]

Hi

We just got our house rewired completely. Its a 3 bed semi and charged 3k for that, the guy told me he will give me the certificate for electrics, I really dont know what it means but he will give it to me soon. Can someone please tell me what sort of certificate should I expect, I dont want him to just give me any piece of paper saying this is the certificate so dont want to be taken for a ride coz he has charged i wouldnt say less as I did get 4 quotes and they were all almost the same.

Reason I am a bit concerned is that one of the light got really hot and burnt, it was a fire rated downlight and he said it was the fault of the light bulb not wiring and this has got me worried.

Please advise.

Thanks in advance

Bretts

 

[riveralt]

You should receive an Electrical Installation Certificate, containing a schedule of Inspections and Test Results.
Within four weeks you should receive a Certificate of Building Regulation Compliance notice from the electrician's competent person scheme NAPIT, NICEIC etc. This is most important and should be retained you may need it should you decide to sell your property later.
If you are having any problems with the new installation you should call the electrician back.
If you are having problems with the getting the electrician to come back and sort out issues then you should complain to the scheme provider.

 

[bretts]

Thank you so much for your reply but should i pay him once he gives me the first certificate or should i pay him only after i get the second certificate as well from the regulated bodies.

Sorry I really dont know a lot so my question could be silly.

 

[riveralt]

If he is part of an approved competent persons scheme then I would pay when you receive the Electrical Installation Certificate etc from him. Provided you are satisfied with the work - and clearly you want to clarify the issue with the hot lamp first.

The Building Regulation compliance certificate comes from his scheme operators not him.

By the way halogen down light bulbs will get very hot and cost a bit to run.
It depends on how many you have but a set of five 50w down lights consumers 250w of power when energised.
Less hot are LED down light bulbs where the equivalent 5 would consume around 25w when energised.
More power used generally means more heat produced.

 

[bretts]

Hi Riveralt

Yes you are right and i have energy saving one's where I can but I have about 50 downlights and LED's are not the cheapest so yes the plan is to change them all slowly and gradually as I am very light user and only paid 20 pounds a month till i was in a flat which definitely will shoot up now, do you know any places I can buy it for cheap? Cheapest I saw was about 7 pounds each, although they will last longer and coz of reduced energy consumption will start paying for themselves in a few months time.

 

[JohnW2]

It depends on how many you have but a set of five 50w down lights consumers 250w of power when energised.

Indeed - and 2,500 W if, as we are now told, there are 50 of them!
(I hope BAS is not looking!)

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

A complete rewire.

What a waste of an opportunity to get rid of lights which were deliberately designed from first principles to be useless at lighting up rooms.

 

[ericmark]

Lidi at the moment are doing 3w spot lights £5 each or 2 for £9 MR16, GU10, ES and SES B&M Bargains are doing three 2W GU10's for £9.99 and Pound World do MR16 and GU10 at 0.58W each for £1 each.

The B&M Bargains are a very tight beam and the Pound World lamps are like Toc H candles I have a lamp with 3 x 8W expensive globes CFL 1 x 5W cheap coiled CFL and a 1.6W candle LED the 5W seems brightest with 1.6W next and the expensive 8W dimmest of the lot and this means I am rather loathed to pay out more than I have to for lamps as quality and price do not seem to match.

Of the 16 Philips 8W lamps I bought to start with 3 years ago just 6 left yet non of the cheap replacements have failed and the replacements start faster and are brighter.

Because the lamps are unknowns until screwed in I don't fancy buying from the internet buy one and if any good return for more however each time I return sold out.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

There's a huge churn of cheap LED lamp makers based in the far East.

IMO stick to recognised makes, even if they cost more, but most importantly, look for lamp formats which exploit the characteristics of the technology used, not for formats which replicate something designed around a completely different technology.