A few months ago I was asked to quote for electrical work to be done as part of a kitchen refurbishment. Imagine my horror when I arrived at the customer's house to discover that all the kitchen units, cupboards and appliances had already been fitted. The kitchen fitters had a go at the wiring, but left behind a complete lash-up. After having carried-out a brief visual inspection and carried-out some testing, I decided that this wasn't a job that I would be interested in quoting for.
Homeowners are almost certainly storing-up problems for themselves whenever they allow non-qualified, non-professional personnel to carry-out electrical work in their homes. More so up here in Scotland where anyone can advertise themselves as an electrician and carry-out electrical work, and where plenty actually do.
Last week I was asked to quote for some electrical work to be done as part of a bathroom refurbishment. As the proposed work would require alterations to be made to the bathroom lighting circuit, I checked to see if RCD protection and main bonding were present. The bonding was there, but there was no RCD protection ..... just an old Wylex board containing rewireable fuses. I explained to the customer what RCD protection is and why it would need to be provided in this instance. "But the kitchen fitters who did the electrical work in my new kitchen never said anything about these RCD things", she replied. Here we go again, I thought to myself.
I asked the customer to show me the electrical work that had done in the kitchen. I wasn't at all impressed with what I was saw. 10 downlights had been installed. So I dropped three for inspection. As per usual with kitchen fitters, the terminations had been made into choc block connectors and taped over. Even so, basic insulation was showing. From my sample, I concluded that the other 7 downlights would most likely have also been incorrectly terminated. As these downlights were on the same circuit that supplies the bathroom lighting circuit, I wasn't prepared to do any work in the bathroom until the defects with the downlights were rectified. I explained to the customer that I couldn't possibly work on a circuit that I knew to be defective. I don't think she fully understood what was being explained to her.
I also discovered that the kitchen fitters had installed a new circuit to supply the hob. They ran the wiring inside mini-trunking, but didn't use fire-rated clips anywhere in the run. And to put icing on the cake, the homeowner hadn't bothered to apply for the building warrant that was required for the electrical work. I didn't bother asking her if the kitchen fitters had given her an EIC in respect of the electrical work they carried-out because I already knew what the answer would be.
And so I had no choice to but to exercise the sensible option and walk away. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of coming across the sub-standard, untested, uncertified and often outright dangerous electrical work that has been carried-out by kitchen and bathroom fitters. I'm not interested in even quoting for remedial works in these scenarios. I do sympathise with the problems that the OP is facing and hope that he finds a satisfactory resolution. I strongly advise him to ensure that whoever does any future electrical work in his kitchen is a actually a qualified, professional electrician. Demand to see evidence of qualifications!