Hi all! Old(ish) spark looking to go it alone but unsure where to start?

[M-B-Electrical-Services]

You do it through the NICEIC online portal. It really simple.

Aw brilliant! Thanks.

 

[M-B-Electrical-Services]

Hi all.

Just thought I would do a little update.

So I've set up both my public liability and public indemnity insurance (2 mil and 250k respectively), health & safety policy and complaints procedure documents.
I just need to get my risk assessment documents written out, get a UTR number and register with NAPIT.

I have my own MFT but its a Kewtech and I'm not really happy with it to be honest.
It tends to give wildly varying readings whereas the Megger MFT I use with my current employer is much more stable and has never let me down.
I'll probably end up buying my own Megger if I'm honest and along with it will come a current calibration certificate.

I have a family member (from my biological fathers side) who I'm in contact with and he wants me to look a full rewire next week in a 3 bed terraced which is a nice start.

I can use that rewire to show to the NAPIT assessor.....

Anyone help with a typical price for rewiring a 3 bed terraced up north?
Obviously pricing is something I'm going to have to get my head around pretty quickly!!

 

[Mike Johnson]

A lot of the people on here charge per point i.e. £50 per socket, light, switch plus for a new CU and inspection certificate, I don't know the costs tup north so £50 may be too much for your area.

 

[pc1966]

There was a link to a YouTube video on here somewhere from some spark discussing pricing for a rewire on a reasonable sized property. He had priced it on time & materials but underestimated the time for various reasons, also he gave example of what it would have been doing per-point pricing and it was not massively different.

If it is for a friend/family you can afford to be a little less critical to price it in order to have something for the assessor, so probably worth looking at both approaches. Get a reasonably detailed list of what has to be done in terms of room sizes, fittings, number of circuits, etc, and make up a parts list for the big stuff. Then try to guess the little stuff (grommets, clips, label tape, etc) but remember it often adds up to more than you expect!

Try to guess at the time it will take, but probably it will be estimated in days (and probably wrong) and then see what it comes to.

Then try the same based on, say, £50 per point. See what sounds reasonable and believable.

 

[pc1966]

Prices mentioned on here vary by a large degree depending on region, size of property, if occupied or not (and if the client is a likely pain in the posterior). But I see CU changes in the £0.5-1k range, and rewire in the £4-15k range.

Others on here who do this work professionally may be willing to give you some guidance in a less-public manner than posting here.

 

[M-B-Electrical-Services]

Hi guys.

I definitely intend to use the re-wire as a project for the assessor to take a look at.
I've just popped over the road to a neighbour to borrow a wood saw and mentioned me starting up on my own and he immediately said he wants an EICR to be carried out (was last inspected in 2004) so theres another one for the assessor.

Theres a few youtubers out there mentioning £50 per point so I guess thats a good starting point.

 

[M-B-Electrical-Services]

Hi all.

I thought I would write a "year later report".

Things are going quite well, I have a good number of clients with regular referrals offered and repeat work off the same clients.
I obviously passed my NAPIT assessment and am about to renew but not with NAPIT, I've decided to with NIC/EIC as the name is recognised more readily by potential customers. Certain contracts that you can tender for will specify NIC as a "must have" so that's the reasoning behind that decision.

I've made a few mistakes along the way and I've learnt the hard way about trusting people to pay me!!
One particular client made me wait over 3 months to be paid a £3k bill! It was only the threat of legal action that finally saw the cash start to flow towards me. I'll never work for that particular client again regardless of the amount and value of the work offered.

I have learnt a HUGE amount in this one year than I've learnt in the last 10 years as everything is now on ME and my business so I need to know what I'm talking about although I have the ability to fluff my way through things at times.
Paperwork and book-keeping has really been a big eye opener and that is something I was not familiar with but now I'm starting to get to grips with it.

One thing I don't understand though, these you-tube electricians who post daily.........how do they find the time!! If I'm not on site, I'm at home doing paperwork so god knows how they fit all that in???

I sometimes sit and wonder, am I doing enough? I am working as hard as I need to? How are the other self employed lads getting on and are they swamped with work or struggling? Self doubt is horrible thing.

I have recently been looking into getting into the industrial side of things but I've no experience with motors/control panels/ aux circuits etc etc so I'm not sure how that will work?!?!?!

Anyhow, hope you're all doing ok.

Mike.

 

[DPG]

Hi all.

I thought I would write a "year later report".

Things are going quite well, I have a good number of clients with regular referrals offered and repeat work off the same clients.
I obviously passed my NAPIT assessment and am about to renew but not with NAPIT, I've decided to with NIC/EIC as the name is recognised more readily by potential customers. Certain contracts that you can tender for will specify NIC as a "must have" so that's the reasoning behind that decision.

I've made a few mistakes along the way and I've learnt the hard way about trusting people to pay me!!
One particular client made me wait over 3 months to be paid a £3k bill! It was only the threat of legal action that finally saw the cash start to flow towards me. I'll never work for that particular client again regardless of the amount and value of the work offered.

I have learnt a HUGE amount in this one year than I've learnt in the last 10 years as everything is now on ME and my business so I need to know what I'm talking about although I have the ability to fluff my way through things at times.
Paperwork and book-keeping has really been a big eye opener and that is something I was not familiar with but now I'm starting to get to grips with it.

One thing I don't understand though, these you-tube electricians who post daily.........how do they find the time!! If I'm not on site, I'm at home doing paperwork so god knows how they fit all that in???

I sometimes sit and wonder, am I doing enough? I am working as hard as I need to? How are the other self employed lads getting on and are they swamped with work or struggling? Self doubt is horrible thing.

I have recently been looking into getting into the industrial side of things but I've no experience with motors/control panels/ aux circuits etc etc so I'm not sure how that will work?!?!?!

Anyhow, hope you're all doing ok.

Mike.

Nice one. Thanks for the update.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Ten clients at £100.00hr is better than a thousand clients at £10.00hr, less quoting, less paper work, less chasing to be paid, more time for Golf, it's a mind set thing not letting it get to you for loosing out to the chaps that undercut you, when the client says "but so and so quoted much less" just reply "let them do the job, but when it all goes haywire and you need it correcting, you know where I am" don't tell the client, but remember the remedial's will be an extra to the original quote.

 

[M-B-Electrical-Services]

Ten clients at £100.00hr is better than a thousand clients at £10.00hr, less quoting, less paper work, less chasing to be paid, more time for Golf, it's a mind set thing not letting it get to you for loosing out to the chaps that undercut you, when the client says "but so and so quoted much less" just reply "let them do the job, but when it all goes haywire and you need it correcting, you know where I am" don't tell the client, but remember the remedial's will be an extra to the original quote.

Hi Mike.

Very True! I prefer to keep a small but reliable list of regular clients that I know are good payers. The bad ones get deleted off my file system and stored in my phone as "bad payer" so I know who the baddies are.

I've been undercut many times and at first I took offence to it but over time, you come to realise that it's just the nature of the game.
Some of the prices quoted are ridiculous though and you wonder how it is at all possible to get the work completed at such low prices in comparison to the price I gave but I don't budge as I know my prices are fair.
I feel sorry for some of these people as I know that in order for such low prices to be realistic, there HAS to be some hidden extras somewhere that the poor unfortunate client will soon find out about.

Another thing that has really shocked me is how many dodgy so called "electricians" there are out there! Some of the standards of workmanship are truly appalling!

 

[Mike Johnson]

I used to negotiate contracts for a major construction company, with clients and sub-contractors, we would often under quote a complicated contract knowing that the extra's would cover overall costs, (called buying the contract) with sub-contractors it was always negotiating at final contract placing for a main contractors discount, usually ending at about 7.5% off the submitted quote during tender, this was seen as normal practice, when I started my own company it surprised many main contractors that I knew how the system worked and would up my quote to compensate for the discount they thought they where negotiating, I always submitted a very expensive day-works rate that did not load the overall tender price, again knowing that a complicated contract would have lots of extras.

It's not just electricians that have bad standards, it applies to most trades in the construction industry, including Architects.

 

[UNG]

Another thing that has really shocked me is how many dodgy so called "electricians" there are out there! Some of the standards of workmanship are truly appalling!

A good mate of mine is the manager at one of the local wholesalers, I was chatting to him a few weeks ago over a beer and he was telling me that they frequently get "electricians" coming into the counter asking for advice on how to tackle and what materials they will need to do jobs. Is this why there is so much poor workmanship around

 

[M-B-Electrical-Services]

A good mate of mine is the manager at one of the local wholesalers, I was chatting to him a few weeks ago over a beer and he was telling me that they frequently get "electricians" coming into the counter asking for advice on how to tackle and what materials they will need to do jobs. Is this why there is so much poor workmanship around

That's a tough one to answer correctly because of the amount of variables. Generally, I find the older stuff (Wylex 3036 consumer units) are done to a high standard so when I see those, it doesn't concern me other than the lack of additional protection. Its when I see kitchens/bathrooms fitted in the last 10/15 years or so ago. Most of the faults I find are in a kitchen or bathroom fitted by a non qualified person. A lot of it comes down to laziness and just not giving a monkeys because they work for somebody else and are unhappy in their work as they're expected to do multiple jobs a day for not much money.

There's so many more reasons but you get the idea.

 

[Mike Johnson]

How can anyone think that asking counter assistants is going to get you the correct information to carry out any work, if they knew they would be out installing not serving.

 

[UNG]

How can anyone think that asking counter assistants is going to get you the correct information to carry out any work, if they knew they would be out installing not serving.

The wholesaler my mate works at have a rule of not offering any advice other than suggesting alternatives to something they have been asked for to avoid any comebacks on them
After being told by my mate what is happening I've had it confirmed by a couple of other wholesalers they get similar requests for advice on how to do jobs from supposedly qualified "electricians"