Letting Agents PIR Prices

[skiandy]

Hi some of my competition are charging a flat rate of £50 + VAT for a domestic PIR to agents... Is anyone else doing this?

 

[johnboy6083]

are these the same people that are doing 50p per item PAT testing? they are probably just filling in certs mate.

 

[skiandy]

Yeah but the agency's don't care, we have spoken to a few and they all say the liability passes onto the contractor carrying out the works. My guess is they are doing it as a loss leader, but then you have to make it back in the remedial. Its hardly an unbiased report then is it?

Basically its really annoying........

 

[Amp David]

For 50 quid let them do it.

They aren't going to be doing a fullPIR for that amount.

 

[mogga]

Iv not done domestic PIR but for£50 I expect they are getting a cert filled out without the tester coming out the bag possibly a visual inspection but not a full and proper PIR

 

[Sparky Ninja]

I've seen it done before. I was QS at a housing association and one of the contractors we were subbing to was offering the checks for £65 a hit. So I played the part of the tenant on an arranged PIR.

The guy came in, did the ze, PFC within 2 minutes (ze was carried out incorrectly). Wrote down the circuit list on a piece of paper, counted points. He then did the r1, r2, rn readings (I guess he's decided that you can't risk missing an open circuit). Then it was a walk around, plug in loop test, and he did a zs on the lights, but not on the furthest point. He chose the easy access ceiling rose on the landing. He finished with the rcd, and about 5-10minutes observation. All in he was there for just under half an hour.
He's done 4 of these a day for us, getting home by lunch to fill in the paperwork.

Needless to say we don't use him anymore. It took an awful lot for me to convince my managers that we couldn't use the guy. They were really not concerned about the end product. They just like the cost and numbers.



Unfortunatley because of people like this, the idea of making solid living from just testing has become slightly obscure.
It's not just one man bands either, I was offered work with a very well known company, who are often referred to on here. They also provide training, and have a very impressive training facility. Anyway, I posted there 'target testing scheme' here a while ago. It's cheapest method including obtain R1&R2 from the measured ZS value. I explained to them that this test method is not in accordance with BS7671 plus the obvious concern with the presence of parallel paths proving that all R1&R2 will most likely be incorrect. Their response to me was 'yeah we know'.
They are registered with ECA and I am still considering reporting them.

 

[mogga]

When I made comment to Gaffer on a targeted system I was told that "its a client driven" pricing structure in other words the client wants a cert we give them a cert I was asked if I wanted to go books in I said No TYVM

 

[ian]

I use to do PIR’s for a letting agent and charge them £90.00 as long as I could do 2 per day (a long day) and they were close to each other. But I got sacked because I was “far to expensive”. They have now got a young lad doing them at 40 quid a pop. Just imagine how accurate they be….if they are lucky, he may record the correct number of sockets and lights.

Ian

 

[Des 56]

Unfortunatley because of people like this, the idea of making solid living from just testing has become slightly obscure.
It's not just one man bands either, I was offered work with a very well known company, who are often referred to on here. They also provide training, and have a very impressive training facility. Anyway, I posted there 'target testing scheme' here a while ago. It's cheapest method including obtain R1&R2 from the measured ZS value. I explained to them that this test method is not in accordance with BS7671 plus the obvious concern with the presence of parallel paths proving that all R1&R2 will most likely be incorrect. Their response to me was 'yeah we know'.
They are registered with ECA and I am still considering reporting them.

Pir testing for lettings agents must be a bigger shambles than part p
You are too right regards sparks doing a proper job unable to take part in this market
I usually tell people ( genuine sparks excluded)that the vast majority of Pirs for letting agents are a total and utter waste of paper
If anything has to be regulated,surely its the Pir
The problem being insurance companies are happy to accept toilet paper pirs because its in their interest to have this for reasons of washing their hands of liability possibly based on incompetence of the firm supplying the toilet paper

 

[johnboy6083]

i worked at a university not long ago, in the science labs. each floor had 2 DBs feeding a corridor, and the rooms off it. Their testing was done by CLM. while i was there, i was ditching old circuits, and making safe, in order to add new ones for refurbished labs. All of the DB's i was working on had been tested the week before by some lads from CLM. The trunking was so tightly packed, that the lid was bowing, and on most of the run, was non existant. At corners, the singles were just spilling over the side. The DB's were old ones, with no IP2x protection once the cover was off, and they were the ones with the bare 200A terminals at the bottom. nothing was labelled properly, and most of the circuits on the schedule were labellled untraced. How had this passed a periodic inspection? they wanted us to remove all old cables completely, and reuse the existing routes. I point blank refused, because i was not going to be blamed for leaving the installation in a mess, and opening a can of worms.

I bet the uni are happy though,because it works, and CLM give a cheap price for the testing

 

[Benny_Boy]

I had a call from an agency recently wanting a spark to inspect and test voids in Notts. They were paying £25 per PIR and expected a proper job for each one. I found myself "unavailable" but someone is doind that job right now!!! You've got to knock out 4 tests a day all year to make £25k at that. it's a joke. or not....

 

[D80]

nd of the day a PIR is a peace of paper with a signature on it, that means nothing. The buck is passed around and if thrown at the spark, well it wasn't like that when he did the PIR. Pretty much the same as PAT testing. Why buy a tester when you can back a few rolls of Pass stickers for so much less.

 

[Guest123]

If I was short of work I'd sooner sit at home and do nothing than carry out one of these "drive by" reports for £25!!!!

Just couldnt do it.

 

[skiandy]

Its just plain wrong though! I've tried to explain that its impossible to carry out a report for those prices, and the response I get is "its not our problem....." thats from all of the major agents here.

 

[drywax]

I believe that some time next year a few things are going to change ie must have 2391 to do pirs so that might go to making a bit of difference. As 7671 will be a must for part p schemes. Can't come sooner IMO

 

[nickblake]

I had a guy working for gas elec doing landlord safety certificates ,NO they are periodics simple as, and ill be honest it wasnt worth the paper it was written on ,all he did was a loop test on each circuit , but the funniest and most anoying thing was he slagged me off to the letting agents saying i was trying to make money , then to rub salt into the wound , i had a job at his house to uprade his CDU why i here you say , yes he wasnt qualified and couldnt do it ,nor was he Part P regestered ,but issued certificates to land lords ,2 houses he tested i condemed in fact one was issued with a danger notification ,made my blood boil again , lets see them do it for £50.00 when Amendment 1 comes in ,because the sample periodic sheet was 11 pages long (down loaded from the ESC website) yes yet more paperwork

 

[oldtimer]

Makes you wonder why you bother I had a similar problem years ago with burglar alarms " A well you see you are just a one man band and we all know that you guys do not do the job right anyway like us registered big national companies" No true I said I go out of my way to it to the correct standards but this we are a registered company only means that you are self policing with little or no outside monitoring.
So how can these companies do a PIR for £50 easy they pay the registration fee set themselves up screw everything in sight and when it all goes bang they go bankrupt and the business name gets the blame as the individual wanders off to the sunset with the cash and as for the registered bit well the comments are yes we need to tighten our procedures up to stop this practice reoccurring.

As for can you do this for £50 well no I would rather work in Tescos stacking shelves for a day to earn the same money and get a good night sleep to boot and as far as I am concerned the letting agents are as much to blame as the £50 bucks companies and if something does go wrong then they should be held negligent.

Forgot to add we as electricians are no better when we work for these companies and play along with it

 

[DurhamSparky]

just recently. did work in a landlord property that the TENNANT paid out of his own pocket as he did not trust the agents....!!

i replaced the box, found a horrendous amount of faults, installed bonding, and replced all the plastic fittings as they were broken/shabby...

he asked me how the gas fire worked and it was caked in dust so obviously no gas cert had been done either!! oh yeah the agents claimed they had....! hence his delay in moving in! lol......! going to issue a retrosopective danger notification for the open ring on 32A MCB along with broken sockets and pendants wired up with the earth terminal used as the loop ...!! just to highlight the problems and hopefully he can claim some cash back from landlord!

 

[nickblake]

My appologies chaps the amendment 1 is found here www.----------/technical my tiny mind got confused as it was published in the ESC switched on mag sorry chaps

 

[kung]

The actual Amendment has an expected publication date of July 2011