arrrgh

[Gavin A]

I just had an email from a customer from last november saying his leccy bills haven't been reduced, so I'm thinking it must be another of the siemens meters that clocks forward no matter which way the power is flowing, but no, it's not that at all, from the picture he's sent it's obvious that my spark has inexplicably managed to connect the system to the wrong side of the suppliers meter.

Now, this leaves me wondering exactly how many times he's actually managed to do the same thing without me realising, as I reckon he's probably wired up the mains connections for around 80-100 installations in the last year.

I really didn't need this sort of idiocy coming back to bite me in the backside right now.

Actually, it gets worse, I've just remembered that both my sparks were on that job working together, while I did the panels... one had been with us for a year, the other for 6 months by this stage, so I expected that between them they were actually capable of doing something as simple as connecting the system in to the mains correctly without me needing to be checking their work.

I think I'm going to have to go and have a bit of a cry in the corner or something.

 

[whinmoor]

Bummer. But it could work to your advantage. Offer to go round your previous customers as a gesture of goodwill for a free visual inspection / service. This may give you the opportunity to drum up new business such as Immersun, V-phase or even a solar lead to a friend/neighbour.

Maybe also make a point of taking photos of electrical work you do. The roofwork looks great on websites and that's what customers want to see but a quick snap of inverter and consumer unit before leaving would be handy for your files.

 

[Eco Deal]

Or it could empty your pocket when you repay them for the units that should have been FREE

 

[dansk]

Oh mate, mistakes happen, ive had half an array not working and paid back the lost kwh (£180) - even the best trained eyes can be blinded by the trees.

 

[SolarCity]

We had this happen twice with the idiot sparky that we started using. We had to put them both back right and luckily the customers were understanding.

 

[Energetic]

We had a Gen meter wired backward in the last week of the Nov chaos. The customer didn't tell us till march! we had to compensate... Just lucky he noticed before the summer!

 

[jerriais]

We had a Gen meter wired backward in the last week of the Nov chaos. The customer didn't tell us till march! we had to compensate... Just lucky he noticed before the summer!

If I remember correctly we had more sun in March than in the summer anyway :coolgleamA:

 

[Gavin A]

we had the same with a generation meter around march from a nov install.

tbh I'm fuming about these sort of stupid mistakes from well paid, supposedly well trained experienced electricians. There's just no excuse for something as basic as this.

 

[SolarCity]

tbh I'm fuming about these sort of stupid mistakes from well paid, supposedly well trained experienced electricians. There's just no excuse for something as basic as this.

It annoys me too. We seriously struggle to get hold of anyone that is half decent. There are loads of sparkys out there but I genuinely believe that it is actually the large majority of them that are below par.

 

[MorganPVI]

the large majority of them that are below par.

2 weeks training and a multi guess test and any bloke off the street can call themselves a sparks. Sad and dangerous state of affairs imo.

 

[Worcester]

I sacked six sparks during november and december last year, all 'fully qualified'. One of my apprentices even had to show one them how to install a CU properly with the correctly sized cables....

 

[Gavin A]

we fixed this on thursday btw, and will be compensating the customer shortly.

 

[sedgy34]

we fixed this on thursday btw, and will be compensating the customer shortly.

Are you not using trained sparks for solar? Normal sparks just don't get it or understand it

 

[Gavin A]

Are you not using trained sparks for solar? Normal sparks just don't get it or understand it

yes, but the training courses are mostly shockingly bad IME.

This was from last novembers mad rush, done on a saturday, and IIRC we'd been working til 9pm the night before getting 3 jobs done in the day between 2 teams, so I think this was just an aberation, possibly because one of them took over from the other part way through or something. I do think I'm going to have to recheck a selection of the installs from that period just to be sure though.

 

[Gavin A]

in fact, oddly enough IIRC they'd both actually just been on the NIC course about a month earlier than this, and came back with all sorts of strange ideas in their heads about the requirement to bond every single array to the MET, and similarly stupid notions, so this could well have happened because of something they'd been taught on the course.

prior to that I'd been teaching them on the job, and double chacking their work - well for about 6 months for the one who'd been with us longest who'd done 40 odd installs before going on the course, and the other one had been with us 3 months before the course and had seemed to understand it all fine before he went on the course and got confused by mixed messages.

they were both on this job, so I assumed 2 of them with 100 installations between them by that stage would have been capable of a basic wiring job without me needing to supervise them, as I was doing the roof side of things.