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There is no comparison to a garage, manufacturers time themselves to do every repair on their own vehicles so that when garages do warranty repairs the times they charge are set by themselves, the manufacturer. And most main dealers will tell you these times aren't realistic, and most main dealers do not use repair times to charge for retail work.
As every house, and job, is different there is no way to set a known time. We all work differently, and use different parts. If you want an out of square consumer unit, loosely fixed to a wall, with some of the circuits half tested, and no certificate, then three hours will do. If you want neat, tidy, fully tested, fully certified, fully warranted, then its a day.
 
Heres the start of a 200 quid CU change

Oh balls, the old tails aren't long enough. I know, lets not use new tails, but move the main switch over to suit. LOL

Replacing (RCD) fuse box CU 003 - EletriciansForums.net

Do they do Electrical Trainee course in vehicle mechanics yet?
 
A better analogy would be to ask how long it takes to fit a gearbox to a "vehicle". The garage will charge you according to whether it is a nissan micra or a double-decker bus. Same with a Consumer Unit... 3 circuits or 10? 20 sockets on each ring which need testing or just 6? There is no actual fixed price, unless you are talking about a series of houses all with exactly the same spec.
Hope that answers your question.
 
Is there some 'body' which sets guidelines and standards on how long a job should take? I know, for example, that if I take my car in for a part to be removed and fitted some 'body' has agreed that will take x hours. It's all very well for you here to say I'll spend all day doing that, if it can be done in 3 hours or 4 hours why should I pay for someone (who may be less efficient) to spend 8 hours doing it?

Yeah there is............... the "body" of the person doing the work for you. You get what you pay for in electrics same as everything else in the world.

£200 for a CU change with parts, testing and certs is way way too low.
 
has he hanged himself on a pendant?
 
No yet again they get caught out and we all end up talking to ourselves either that he has just come back from his holiday in Bermuda and his new jag has been delivered so he is full of remorse and will pay his electrician a fair wage for a fair job I DONT THINK

Now he is just a lurker until he find the unsubscribe line on the email
 
As a customer (and you all will be customers for other trades at some point or another) all we want is a good job for a fair price. Of course we would all like to think that we are worth £bigbucks an hour because we are so well qualified doing highly skilled work that can only be done by the super intelligent. This job can be done in 3 hours. You can then dance around testing whatever for another hour and fill in some paper worl for another hour. At best you've got 5 hours work that means that you believe that your skills and qualifications make you worth £50+ per hour that puts you on an annual salary of in excess of £100,000. You of course are happy with that but would you be happy to pay the plumber, carpenter, builder etc., that kind of salary and what about the teachers, nurses etc, surely they should be on an equivalent salary. That's how Greece ended up where it is!
 
Yes they do make a guide as such, however I can also guarantee that by the time you have added the 0.01 or whatever it is hours for a screw and a plug and the 0.003 hours per clip etc you will probably end up at a day also!

Why not get 3 or 4 estimates and then look at it that way.

Or take the word of 3-4 electricians.... oh wait, you've already had those and because they didn't fit in line with what you wanted you disregarded them. Instead looking for a holy grail of electrical estimating, which I also guarantee wont say - Consumer unit 4 hours... doesn't work like that!
 
I think the problem here is no one wants to pay £350-£400 which is what i charge! And everyone always has that mate who does it for £200 and it doesn't get notified and no paperwork but it works so what the hell!
This is what gets my back up about our trade being a professional just dont make the difference to people!!
 
I charge £400-£500 as my theory is I would rather do 1 CU at this price than 3 for £200 each Works for me plus I remind the customer that if you want the job done right then driving the price down you will get what you pay for.
 
I think the problem here is no one wants to pay £350-£400 which is what i charge! And everyone always has that mate who does it for £200 and it doesn't get notified and no paperwork but it works so what the hell!
This is what gets my back up about our trade being a professional just dont make the difference to people!!

I think it gets ALL our backs up mate. It's pretty much the same in instrumental tuition though... I spent years in my spare time getting qualified to teach, along with thousands of pounds in lessons for myself, yet when you start talking about a professional fee, it's "only music"....
 
A £200 Consumer Unit upgrade?

So what are we looking at material wise?

Let's see, you can get a board for £50.00, 25mm tails for what? £26'ish so there's £76.00 in basic materials alone. So now someone is now going to spend 3 hours of their time carrying out the work. Lets say 3x£25 p/h (as I know some charge this) so another £75.00.

Now we're at £150 materials and labour.

So £50.00 pays for annual Part P registration, cost of certificate, time completing certificates and notifying work to Local Authority Building Control, Fuel and consumables?

I think not, can't see that a Part P spark who's been in the trade for £20+ years would work for such an amount.



Now then taking the garage scenario into consideration, an electrician has told you that the job will take 3 hours. So are you going to stand there with your stop watch and time him?

At the end of the day, it takes as long as it takes. The only time to worry is when additional faults are found that need rectifying at additional cost before being installed into the new CU.
 
A £200 Consumer Unit upgrade?

So what are we looking at material wise?

Let's see, you can get a board for £50.00, 25mm tails for what? £26'ish so there's £76.00 in basic materials alone. So now someone is now going to spend 3 hours of their time carrying out the work. Lets say 3x£25 p/h (as I know some charge this) so another £75.00.

Now we're at £150 materials and labour.

So £50.00 pays for annual Part P registration, cost of certificate, time completing certificates and notifying work to Local Authority Building Control, Fuel and consumables?

I think not, can't see that a Part P spark who's been in the trade for £20+ years would work for such an amount.



Now then taking the garage scenario into consideration, an electrician has told you that the job will take 3 hours. So are you going to stand there with your stop watch and time him?

At the end of the day, it takes as long as it takes. The only time to worry is when additional faults are found that need rectifying at additional cost before being installed into the new CU.

Don't forget the MCB's/RCBO's for the board mate. £50 will get you a bare-bones unit only. I pay a lot more than that for the Starbreaker units I install.

I wonder if the OP is still reading these posts :)
 
you can get a fully loaded board for 50ish now.

I have no idea on quality of said board though.

https://www.screwflix..com/p/britis...?cm_sp=Homepage-_-Electrical-_-BGConsumerUnit
 
Found the BG units to be fairly good for the price. There have been problems with the screws being a little stiff and I did have one with the neutral tails for the RCDs the wrong way round but apart from that they get a thumbs up. Shame you are stuck with the populated MCBs.
 
Don't forget the MCB's/RCBO's for the board mate. £50 will get you a bare-bones unit only. I pay a lot more than that for the Starbreaker units I install.

I wonder if the OP is still reading these posts :)

I was just using the cheapest price of a board that comes with a selection of MCB's, RCD's and Main switch etc just to show how little is in the job:thumbsup

It's just not worth all of the aggro for such a job. This price doesn't even reflect costs of collecting materials before hand or visits required if there were to be a return visit required.
 
Prime donnes!

Some of you need some reality pills. Because you can charge someone £400 for an easy sub 5 hours work doesn't mean that you deserve it. You are not highly trained, highly qualified, doing a job that only the most intelligent can do. You all know and I know how much time and effort it takes to qualify as an electrician . . you need nothing more than average intelligence and three years part time study. Ninety percent of the population could do what you do after a few months training. Nurses need to study longer and harder, teachers need higher qualifications; you can charge what you like but if you are charging more than £30 and hour for your 'expertise' you are simply ripping off your customers. That's OK, you are not alone, I (the customer) have been ripped off many times I know it and you know it.

http://www.electriciansforums.net/electrical-courses-electrical-nvqs/11788-qualifying-domestic-installer.html

Each and everyone of my posts does not appear until it has been checked by a moderator hence it's about one a day!
 

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