EICR – Rogue electrician scam?

I nearly thought I was on DIYnot forums!

I haven't read all of this but have some opinions & experience. I've been a landlord for 11 years, with a tidy portfolio of various types of property. I'm also qualified to the standard of a "competent person" in the field of electrics.

I have a long term trusted sparkie. He charges me £150 for every eicr. He's busy & therefore not interested in creating work. He's busy because he's reasonably priced & honest. Tip of the day, pay a little more. We have a deal, because we trust each other. I know the basics & he knows the deeper stuff. He charges me a day rate for work, so we both know roughly where the numbers are going to be. I don't pay him to go shopping, I get it for him. He gets paid quickly & therefore appreciates our relationship & respects the fact that we both need to make a little money.

I do the donkey work, like running cables & generally getting the job to the point where technical ability is required. He commissions & does the final fix. He knows he can criticise my work if it's wrong. I know he will do this at my cost, so I'll go out of my way to make sure it's right. If I'm unsure, I leave it for him to do.

So the key is, find someone you can work with & pay a little more. A good spark is a busy spark. He will advise you on ways to save money whilst staying safe.

Should you pay the fella that seems to have had you over? I'd say pay him for what he should have done, then invite him to pursue you through the small claims court for the rest. If he's that much of a rip off merchant, he won't risk the exposure. A report to trading standards is as far as I'd go in the field of complaining. I might push this to giving the niceic a call too. But the key is, be fair, even if others aren't. A court will take this into account, if it goes that far. If it does, it's reasonable to expose a rip off, assuming the court agrees. The goal has to be to stop the con, not kill his business. If you do that, he'll just go into another business that gives him the opportunity to rip people off in another way.

Good electricians are busy, that's why they earn well. There's no reason to rip people off. We need to encourage the good ones, build relationships & keep them on side, just like any trade. Simple really.

For those who don't know the definition of a skilled workman:

A skilled worker is any worker who has special skill, training, knowledge, and (usually acquired) ability in their work. A skilled worker may have attended a college, university or technical school. Alternatively, a skilled worker may have learned their skills on the job. Examples of skilled labor include engineers, scientists, software development, paramedics, police officers, soldiers, physicians, crane operators, cdl truck drivers, machinist, drafters, plumbers, craftsmen, cooks and accountants. These workers can be either blue-collar or white-collar workers, with varied levels of training or education, even though they sometimes are called "purple collars".

Reply to the comment left by Landlord Phil at 06/12/2020 - 13:00
I do something similar.

My house has soft walls. So sometimes if I have a light fixing that needs fitting I buy the fitting, get better fixings, fix the light to the wall in the required location then have my preferred sparks back, charge me for fitting the light to the wall and give me a receipt saying he's done it. While he's there I have him do some of the things I don't want to touch. That way I get the certification I need and a better job.

Reply to the comment left by michaelwgroves at 06/12/2020 - 09:59
A good installation probably won't last decades....

....that's because they'll change the regulations in five years and you'll have to start all over again 🙂

If I'd taken the recommendation of the first sparks I got to do an EICR six years ago I would have just had to re-do some of what he advised me to do.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 07/12/2020 - 08:45
As I said previously, a regulation change does not necessarily require an upgrade, it just means you'll have more C3 codes.
The majority of C1 and C2's I see exist through poor workmanship, not because of a regulation change.
Just because a regulation has changed, does not make your installation dangerous overnight.

Reply to the comment left by Mike at 06/12/2020 - 23:06
Do electricians have a CPD commitment?

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 07/12/2020 - 10:46
Yes, when new regulations come out you MUST retake the exam in order to subscribe to a Competent person Scheme (CPS). Therefore, as long as your electrician belongs to a CPS scheme (NICEIC, Napit etc.) you know his/her competence has been independently verified EVERY year.
That's why I say, never use a contractor who is not part of a CPS, also if their work is not up to scratch, the CPS will correct this for you at no expense for 6 years. So a free 6 year warranty provided by the CPS.
So why risk having a cowboy.......

Reply to the comment left by michaelwgroves at 07/12/2020 - 11:27
That's interesting: So it's not just the case that they have to do CPD, they actually have to revalidate.

Is there also a requirement to do a certain number of hours of CPD every year? Or it is just the revalidation?

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 07/12/2020 - 13:05
We don’t need to complete a set number of hours, but we do need to prove we keep abreast of recent changes to the regulations. This is done as part of your yearly on-site assessment. The assessor will check the quality of your work and ask about 30 questions on BS7671 and building regulations. It’s not just about connecting wires, that’s the easy bit.