Advice wanted - unhappy with rewire

[Sarah123]

Hi all

Hoping I could get some independent advice on here. We've just bought our first property and had to get a full house rewire on the property (3 bed semi). Our electricians had finished the work within 2 days (2 electricians working on it). When asked when they were coming back, they said they didn't need to come back for a second fix as they'd finished it all. As we didn't know any better, we assumed all was fine and paid up because that said they wouldn't give paperwork till payment was made.

Since then, we have had a few issues. Our plasterer has been really surprised at the poor standard of work - they have had to plaster around all sockets and spotlights in kitchen.

1. The holes made to put in the sockets are generally quite a bit larger than the face of the external socket casing.
2. One of the sockets had a loose wire that was not connected when the plasterer was plastering around.
3. Another socket melted the builder's plug (smoke coming out as well), but didn't activate the trip switch.
4. An armoured cable they put in to light the garage is coming out of the consumer unit and through the floorboards in the bedroom in front of (rather than behind) the skirting board.
5. No paperwork 3 weeks after despite chasing him for this before everything else happened.

Would really appreciate any feedback as not sure if these are common or we really are within our rights to be taking this further? We tried contacting the electrician a couple of days ago, but he's not able to come till Monday evening, but his general response is telling me that he's blaming the plasterer's work.

Thanks!

 

[Spoon]

For all you know the plaster could of been yanking it around left, right and center.

From the pic, it wouldn't have taken much for the cable to come out, as it looks like it's only had connection at the tip of the wire.

Lets see what he has to say on Monday.

 

[Leesparkykent]

From the pic, it wouldn't have taken much for the cable to come out, as it looks like it's only had connection at the tip of the wire.

View attachment 47971

Lets see what he has to say on Monday.

Yes but could of also tested fine and it was just a poor termination?

 

[Blaspark]

Yes but could of also tested fine and it was just a poor termination?

Was this your job or something?

 

[Bob Geldoff1234]

I'm off to get some popcorn as I think this thread will be going for a while

 

[Leesparkykent]

Was this your job or something?

No.....why?

 

[KEV 1 N]

Many moons ago as an apprentice, I had my spell on “house Bashing” Four of us, 1 electrician, 2nd and 3rd year apprentices and a labourer. We could rewire a house in a day, mostly done by 2/3 o’clock, some times we were there till 8pm!
We would chop out, fix boxes, wire, cap then 2nd fix in the day, the plasterer would follow the next day....this was standard on Housing Association properties. Not ideal but it is done that way.
So 2 electricians over two days is about the same pace.

The chasing isn’t the best but it certainly isn’t bad.

The melted socket is likely to be caused by what has been plugged into it (plasters 110v transformer would be my guess)

The loose wire is a bit more worrying and is probably down to rushing. Proper testing should have detected that issue.

The SWA going in front of skirting.....who knows why, perhaps there was something obstructing the route behind the skirting or being in a rush it was quicker to put it in front

 

[westward10]

Was this your job or something?

I have seen some stupid comments but that takes the biscuit.

 

[Leesparkykent]

I have seen some stupid comments but that takes the biscuit.

Bit of a school boy comment wasn’t it....Thought I was back in the playground

 

[Deleted member 105166]

If a customer is unhappy with any trade’s work or service, the first course of action is to approach the company or individual to discuss and agree remedial work. I don’t understand why @Blaspark is suggesting reporting the electrician to their scheme, the council, etc. particularly when the sparky has already arranged to go back on site. If he/she could not be contacted or had been dismissive that would be a different case, but that’s not what Sarah has outlined here. Anyway, even if the scheme were notified, their first course of action would be to contact their member, whom would rightly say the job is not yet finished and there’s a visit already arranged with the customer for Monday. No further action is needed at this stage.

 

[The Ghost]

Hi @Blaspark you do have a point but this is not a war. I think you are saying exposed live parts/sockets should not be left for the client to deal with. You are correct. Is that right?

 

[Cid]

Good plasterers would normally unscrew the accessories and cover it up with masking tape before plastering.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Proper testing should have detected that issue.

The line conductor that pulled free probably won't have shown up in tests. The screw seems to have indented the copper (albeit in the wrong place) so there would have been a solid metal-metal connection when the testing was done. It was mechanically weak because it wasn't inserted far enough into the terminal.

The problem with this issue is that while it is probably a one-off, it could also point to a bad termination technique on the part of one of the installers, who might simply not be in the habit of tug-testing etc and might have done the same in other fittings.

The burnt socket could be anything, possibly the plug that was inserted. If the front of the socket is more burnt than the terminals at the back, it wasn't the electricians' fault. If the terminals are badly burnt, I would suspect another inadequately inserted cable and would then be keen to have all accessories checked. OP- you wouldn't necessarily expect anything to trip due to bad contact that causes overheating. The MCB would trip in the event of a short-circuit, and the RCD in the event of a leakage e.g. shock to a person. Means to detect this kind of fault (AFDDs) are just being tentatively introduced. They have to be pretty sophisticated to tell the difference between a heater heating up and a plug heating up!

 

[telectrix]

2 days, 2 blokes. rushed job, i'd have allowed a week for 2 skilled sparks to do the job right. ( used to be 4 days, but at 72 i is slowing down a bit, knees and back refusing to obey brain ).

 

[Risteard]

Proper testing should have detected that issue.

I wouldn't agree there. To be honest inspection would be far, far more likely to pick that up than testing. If there was fortuitous contact between the conductors during testing there is no likelihood of finding that through test readings. It's possible to pick up poor contact resistance but it really depends how the two conductors are seated. If the contact is good between them (though not securely screwed together) I don't think passing 200mA through them will tell you much.

 

[telectrix]

basically old scholl like what i was taught. wriggle and pull.if it don't come out, it's good. sod these digital devil's overpriced MFTs. eyes have been finding faults long before the LCD screen with half the characters missing were invented.