Domestic maintenance electrician

stevo · Oct 5, 2011

hey peeps

was wondering if someone in the domestic electrical maintenance sector could give me some advice. i have applied for a job doing this type of work(for an electrical contractor) and was wondering what its like? i have been a sparky for 10 year and have mainly done domestic(rewire/new build). i have been told that, to start with there will be about 30 maintenances a week to complete and the jobs will come thru to a PDA. what i was worrying about is what if i dont manage to do all 30 jobs in a week, because some of the jobs have taken longer to finish? would the housing association/council be on ya back and will they add another 30 jobs the following week onto any existing jobs that werent complete the previous week? these are qustions i will ask my employer, so i guest all im asking for is any bodys own experience with this type of role.

any storys/advice will be helpful

thanx

mogga · Oct 5, 2011

before everyone jumps down my throat im generlising they type of tennant who doesnt take care of stuff

You should learn to march ( prevents sticking to the carpets
expect things like broken socket ( I slipped with the hoover and the socket broke) no sign of carpet having been hovered this millenium
broken light switches ect ect
as for the 30jobs a week this will probably be an average some jobs will take longer some will be quicker also there may be some time when you havent got any jobs to do or you have to go assist plumber ( watch they have a habit of removing earth clamps even tho there are " Do Not Remove" lables on them

stevo · Oct 5, 2011

thanx for the reply, so general the work can be ok. all im worried about is if i dont get done all the jobs they send me, then they come back at me and say i have to work the weekend to catch up even tho, it isnt may fault. plus there will be a call out routa every other week which seems alot. i want a good amount of work, dont get me wrong, i just dont want loads of work piling up on top of me. im sure its the council/housing association that will be sending me the work to the PDA, and im dam sure the person who sends it wont be down with how electrics work. ive had it before where non electrician has done the routa for electricians and doesnt understand how long it takes to do stuff, or just assumes the work will be simple.

sorry im moaning now

ian · Oct 5, 2011

Back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was anapprentice the company I used to work for had an old guy doing this sort ofstuff and I was paired with him for 5 or 6 weeks. As long as the jobs were in the same area we could easily get through 40 odd a week. But this was around 33 years ago and the only testing we did was the flash / bang test.

From memory the majority of the jobs we did involved replacing broken sockets, lights etc, so the van was always well stocked withFCU’s DP switches, pendants and sockets.

Ian

alarm man · Oct 5, 2011

stevo said:
hey peeps

was wondering if someone in the domestic electrical maintenance sector could give me some advice. i have applied for a job doing this type of work(for an electrical contractor) and was wondering what its like? i have been a sparky for 10 year and have mainly done domestic(rewire/new build). i have been told that, to start with there will be about 30 maintenances a week to complete and the jobs will come thru to a PDA. what i was worrying about is what if i dont manage to do all 30 jobs in a week, because some of the jobs have taken longer to finish? would the housing association/council be on ya back and will they add another 30 jobs the following week onto any existing jobs that werent complete the previous week? these are qustions i will ask my employer, so i guest all im asking for is any bodys own experience with this type of role.

any storys/advice will be helpful

thanx

its only 6 jobs a day,some will take 10 mins some 2 hours,i wouldnt worry man,loads of companies do this,its all about graphs and charts,some jobs will be part complete be it parts or you dont have time,you finish them off in the slack days..

Engineer54 · Oct 5, 2011

stevo said:
thanx for the reply, so general the work can be ok. all im worried about is if i dont get done all the jobs they send me, then they come back at me and say i have to work the weekend to catch up even tho, it isnt may fault. plus there will be a call out routa every other week which seems alot. i want a good amount of work, dont get me wrong, i just dont want loads of work piling up on top of me. im sure its the council/housing association that will be sending me the work to the PDA, and im dam sure the person who sends it wont be down with how electrics work. ive had it before where non electrician has done the routa for electricians and doesnt understand how long it takes to do stuff, or just assumes the work will be simple.

sorry im moaning now

Sounds like a soul destroying job to me, i hope you can stick it out!!

stevo · Oct 5, 2011

thanx for replys guys.....even engineer54. yeah i hope it goes ok(if i get it), i guess i just want to impress. like i said im domestic and have done mainly new builds, but the last company i worked for f**ked that up for me.....i hate new build stuff now, i wanna break out of it. to be honest id rather get into industrial/commerical(im in the derby area if anyone has any jobs) and expand my knowledge, but what with the way the economic climate is at the moment its differcult.

MarkieSparkie · Oct 6, 2011

From my experience mate your biggest time waster will be trying to get your PDA to sync and communicate with the base server.

stevo · Oct 6, 2011

lol, can see this PDA being thrown at the wall. but as for the work was it alright markiesparkie?

Knobhead · Oct 6, 2011

One problem will be your booked to arrive at between xxam and xxpm. But the householder has gone shopping when you arrive.

Rappid · Oct 6, 2011

stevo said:
thanx for replys guys.....even engineer54. yeah i hope it goes ok(if i get it), i guess i just want to impress. like i said im domestic and have done mainly new builds, but the last company i worked for f**ked that up for me.....i hate new build stuff now, i wanna break out of it. to be honest id rather get into industrial/commerical(im in the derby area if anyone has any jobs) and expand my knowledge, but what with the way the economic climate is at the moment its differcult.

Stevo

What's wrong with new builds? I'm trying to get onto some new builds round where I live but without success, is it a case of who you know rather than what you know?

Thanks.

stevo · Oct 7, 2011

hey rappid,

yeah new build can be good, it helps you get quick and its good knowledge to have for when you want to do your own side jobs. im sorry if it sounded like i was say saying new build work is s**t, i didnt mean it like that. i trained up doing new builds and the guy i worked for was awesome, it was all about quality and doing a good job. but sadly he pasted away and the company closed down. i did a stint doing commerical and a bit of industrial and i really enjoyed it because it was differnt and more technical. but the last place i worked for was domestic/new builds and they just made domestic work a nightmare. it was all rush rush rush and the pay was awful, they had such a huge turn over of sparkies, it was insane. plus they have none qualified people doing 1st and 2nd fixes. they people installing up to 15 lights on 1mm cable, putting only 2 rings in a 3 story house. they never really had a good code of practise. i would defo say with the new build sector its who you know, the only way to get in is to be cheaper than the next person, but to also have a good standard of work(or at least try to). i have noticed that since the rescission has hit, alot of the housing companys have become very ---- about the work. they want all this extra s**t doing for nothing. new build site are not like they used to be, where you could just go on site, do ya work and go home.