Electrical work quote

Hi all,

Do we have any electricians/fitters here who can tell me if this quote is fair?

We have been quoted £425 for the following work in our living/dining room:
- installation of 4 new double plug sockets
- 2 existing double sockets that are currently present in the room we have asked for both to be moved - 1 from a wall into an adjacent alcove, 1 from a skirting board directly above onto the wall above it
- installation of a TV aerial socket (aerial cable currently comes through wall as a cable, not a socket)

We have had a nightmare getting people out to quote, I contacted 4 electricians and had appointments with all, 3 failed to show (1 turned up an hour late but we were out by then ). The one that did arrive quoted the above. He seemed like a nice chap to be honest, but I have no idea with costs whether this is fair. He said he'd expect it to take a whole day.

I should add I live in the South (Reading) - where I know it might be a bit more expensive.

Thanks

 

As you can't get another leccy to quote , it seems this is the price you have to pay . I know I had problems finding an electrician for my new kitchen and bathroom last year. If he is supplying all the materials and I imagine its one days work .. not the bargain of a lifetime but not really a rip off . Can you check his quality/reliability with another customer ? Also he must supply certificates for all the work he does and tests.

 

Yep all materials, and yeah he is fully certified, said so on his quote. I got his name from an online listings yellow pages type site, with some reviews - reviews that include negative ones and positives (I used to use checkatrader.com, but now I think if you go through there you just get inflated prices (because they charge to be on that website) and people tended just to have suspiciously good, duplicated feedback).

I could try and get other electricians to come out, for quotes, but we're just wondering if that's a decent price or not? If it is, then we'll probably just go with him so it can start...

 

My main work is kitchen installations, my electrician charges me £40 a socket as he does anyone else, I would shop round, it sounds like half a days work to me even though it will get pushed to a full day at £425.

 

Is it a modern house? Any walls to chase/ putting sockets on surface? Worked as a electrician during the boom. There so many hidden costs you won't believe

 

Hi tm, it's a Victorian house and all the sockets will be going on the wall. The chap who did the survey had a good look at each of the walls and seemed to know his stuff. Having had a chat with the g/f tonight we're just gonna plough ahead with the quote. She wants it done! If the quote somehow increases due to unforeseen then we'll likely pull the plug... hopefully won't be the case.
Thanks everyone for your advice and help.

 

If it's going surface then I think he's quite dear. Did he screw off any old sockets to make sure it's earthed. I changed a fuse box in an old house once. Total nightmare. No earths at all in the house

 

It must be nice earning 100k a year as an electrician doing very basic electrical work.

 

Sounds like a fair bit of work if done 'properly'/the way I'd do it. The last time I checked the regs (that was a long time ago) there was a limit of 3 spurred sockets per ring main and I think they had to be in close proximity to the existing sockets (there might be some already so every socket on the ring would need checking before even 1 spur added) so I would lift the carpet(s) in room(s) above the living room, lift floorboard(s) above existing socket(s) below in the living room, dust sheet the living room, cut chases down to all the 6 new and revised locations, chop out wall for socket boxes and fix in postion, extend ring main cabling up and down to new/revised locations, connecting ends to existing in floor void above, thread through conduit into boxes, fit front plates, check circuit then fill chases (remove a width of wallpaper from either side first or you'll get a bulge in the plaster), refix boards and capet(s) in room(s) above, and clean up.

That would take me more than half a day. I've seen the 'lazy' way that some electricians fit extra sockets with surface mounted mini-trunking stuck on top of existing wallpaper and along tops of skirtings, a nightmare when redecorating and not the way I do things (re-wired my own house before building regs were changed making it illegal).

P.S. I'm asuming plastered brick walls, if somebody has dry lined the external walls or erected stud partitions it's not so straightforward.

 

Or worse a stone wall

 

I discovered my bathroom and kitchen walls were cement and sand rendered when I started chasing them, had to cut everything out with an angle grinder, the dust was a nightmare.

 

Things have moved on any decent electrician will own one of these .

 

I've seen the handiwork of an electrician who chased through woodchip covered plaster, then filled the chase with plaster, 'smoothing' it off with a trowel run across the bumpy woodchip on either side as he couldn't be bothered to remove a small strip each side and get the plaster flush. This was at a relative's house and I hacked it back and re-finished it for them.