A Remodel Gone Sideways --How to Proceed

[mishel]

Hi Everyone-

Thank you in advance for any ideas or comments. Here's the situation. I did a complete remodel in the basement, I designed the lighting scheme and a young qualified electrician did the rough in. This job was permitted and check out by the local inspector. I am now at the finish phase and the young man who did the rough in has had some personal issues, so I've hired another company to complete the work. The electricians from this company are having a difficult time following the logic of the person who did the rough in --lesson learned on my end, many ways to wire a house. Some drama has kicked up with many un useful comments from the current company about the prior work --essentially they are having a very difficult time getting the finish complete.

So the question is --should I go hire another company that may be able to fix this? If there was something really wrong would the inspector have seen this at the rough in phase? I've also called the young man who did the rough in and explained the situation --he's so stressed that he is unable to come and help --i could keep trying to get him in there if its really important. What are you thoughts ----does installation vary a lot from person to person?

I just keep asking myself --how bad or hard can this be ---there's a total of 12 switches and 30 outlets --just a small one bedroom. Should i be worried about anything. Everyone was licensed the place inspected. I'm dumb founded on which way to turn.

Thank you for any help, advice or suggestions. I've enjoyed learning about electrical.

 

[jeffelectric]

call a priest need to perform an exorcisim

 

[chrish_1977]

Maybe cheaper isn't always better, whoever you get in is still going to have to figure out how it was wired if its not been done to the "norm", so I think if you want it finished either persevere with the original guy or cut your losses and go with the new company

 

[bartkusal]

call a priest need to perform an exorcisim

Not sure how is this appropriate, if you cannot answer, why write such nonsense.

As per OP question.
Firstly you are in states and this is UK electricians forum, so regulations and how you interact with your building control could be different.

And yes people tend to work differently, but if the next company is professionals it would not take long to figure out what cables and what for been run, so it seems that the next team is a bunch of novices if they struggling and giving you all that hassle.

 

[Adam W]

Certainly in the UK there are different ways to wire a house, but there aren't that many and it should be easy enough to figure out what the first guy did, provided he did it in a way which would work.
It's difficult to know which side to take - the new company might not understand what he's done and not be prepared to work it out, or alternatively the fist guy might have just slung in a load of wires with no real plan as to how to connect them up. Call me suspicious but that could even be the real reason why he says he can't go back.

It wouldn't surprise me if this building inspector didn't really know what he was looking for, and even then he may have been checking for things like safe zones and structural integrity rather than if the lights will be switched correctly.

It might be worth going through your lighting design with the new company to see if you can work it out between you. Get them to point out what they don't understand and see if you can offer some suggestions. If the first guy really has messed up then it could be a case of pulling a lot of it out and starting again.

 

[Engineer54]

What might not be clear here, is that in the States they have NEC Electrical Inspectors that inspect 1st fix rough work before closures. They aren't like the usual UK building inspectors. The electrical inspector needs to issue a permit/cert before any closure can take place.