How do we make this job pay?

[alarm man]

Agreed. I chose the apprenticeship route and feel i will be better for it. dont get me wrong....i`m all for folk trying to better themselves but its a case of "you signed the cert...you take the rap" and i think the ammendments to part p are long overdue......

certs and receipts will be few and far between with the 'part p electrician' as they like to advertise on their vans

 

[3wayselectrical]

your pricing is not making sense you say its two weeks for a rewire at £150 a day so thats £1500 are you paying £2k for materials then
they maintain a profit by getting the maths right

The point I'm trying to make is that £150/day is not enough to to cover overheads, expences and a living wage for a skilled trade. You take your car to a garage for servicing or repair and you'll pay alot more than that for labour. The figuers I've quoted are generalised examples. Here is a case study for you:

3 bed detached referb complete rewire.
parts = £1350 (this inatal called for 47 fire rated downlights, 28 double sockets on the ground floor, 16 sockets 1st floor)
commition on parts = £100
Labour = 12 days @ £150/day = £1800
test & commitioning = £50
quote total = £3,300

Th job was awarded to a quote of £2,450.

 

[malcolmsanford]

was the material quantities your recommendation or the clients as 16 sockets in 3 bedrooms/hall is quite a lot of sockets.

 

[3wayselectrical]

was the material quantities your recommendation or the clients as 16 sockets in 3 bedrooms/hall is quite a lot of sockets.

Costomers request/insistance.

 

[morph]

The point I'm trying to make is that £150/day is not enough to to cover overheads, expences and a living wage for a skilled trade. You take your car to a garage for servicing or repair and you'll pay alot more than that for labour. The figuers I've quoted are generalised examples. Here is a case study for you:

3 bed detached referb complete rewire.
parts = £1350 (this inatal called for 47 fire rated downlights, 28 double sockets on the ground floor, 16 sockets 1st floor)
commition on parts = £100
Labour = 12 days @ £150/day = £1800
test & commitioning = £50
quote total = £3,300

Th job was awarded to a quote of £2,450.

good luck with that !

 

[hyperloop]

Ive recently completed a 3 bed rewire (inhabited) with 19 additional double sockets!!! new dual rcd DB all certificated - £2150. Completed in 2 weeks, after parts and plastering around £1400. £700 per week labour which im happy with yes it was hard work, but theres a recession on and better to get the work than bury your head in the sand and moaning about how much you could charge before everyone was skint!

 

[3wayselectrical]

If you can get that sortof work on a regular basis then yes you can make a living at it. How many of these total rewire contracts do you get in a year? Once you've paid out for insurance, registration, bank charges, accountants fees etc. hoe much profit do you put in your pocket? As a limited company it costs me about £5000 per year in the above mentioned overheads without taking into account milage and time spent producing quotes and all the paperwprk involved. If you could do 1 rewire a month them you may stand a chance of breacking even. 2 rewires a month (and thats going some) you may even get to pay yourself a wage at those rates.
An average rewire is about £3500.00, that's £1500.00 for materials and £2000.00 labour. If you can crack it off in 2 weeks that's £25.00/hour which is not unreasonable as an hourly rate for a skilled worker when compared to for instance servicing or repairing your car which is on average £50.00/hour is it ?

 

[Rampage]

.....which is send from a fixed premise, so they have the same overheads plus:
Council Tax,
Business rates,
heating, lighting and power,
buidlings insurance,
higher cost business insurance,
maintenanc costs,
cleaning etc.

 

[Lux]

I would like to think that these guys that are ridiculously under cutting will not last to long and they certainly wont be getting any repeat business. If you don't make enough on a job then you certainly don't want to be going back to fix all the faults that are caused by all the shortcuts taken. Good luck to the cheapskate homeowners as well, you get what you pay for I say.

 

[Deleted member 19807]

I would like to think that these guys that are ridiculously under cutting will not last to long and they certainly wont be getting any repeat business. If you don't make enough on a job then you certainly don't want to be going back to fix all the faults that are caused by all the shortcuts taken. Good luck to the cheapskate homeowners as well, you get what you pay for I say.

they may not last long but there is a constant stream of new ones thinking they can do the job for next to nothing and leaving a trail of poor work behind them.

 

[needasparks]

As long as its acceptable to change a light bulb in your own garage and use that job to get qualified to work in the industry then the trail of poor work will continue.

They stand out like a sore thumb in the wholesalers in white plimpsoles and no socks !

 

[3wayselectrical]

Half the problem is that the new legislation is far too complcated and most customers are either confused or completely cluless as to what and what ins't work which requires a registered electrician. With six different registration bodies, most of whome the average person has never heard of and no real logical ruling on what is a restricted location; for instance kitchen, bathroom, out door installation but not utility room ( eh? ). It is all too easy for them to be led down the garden path as to who is or is not capable to do the work.
Why not have a simple liscence with your mug shot on it, issued to you as a cirtified electrician. A data base can be made to ensure that all your qualifications are up to date and a points sytem for transgressors. Your liscence fee is part of the cirtification cost which is either by exmination or assesement. If the work involved is anything more than changing a light bulb then its down to a qualified electrician who has to show the liscence to the punter before he starts the work. All that is needed then is the liscence number on the test cert and your signature and everybody knows whos done what when where and most of all properly.

 

[needasparks]

I seem to remember that Tommy Walsh trying to get that with the CSCS card but the only people that took it up was the big construction companies.

 

[malcolmsanford]

Half the problem is that the new legislation is far too complcated and most customers are either confused or completely cluless as to what and what ins't work which requires a registered electrician. With six different registration bodies, most of whome the average person has never heard of and no real logical ruling on what is a restricted location; for instance kitchen, bathroom, out door installation but not utility room ( eh? ). It is all too easy for them to be led down the garden path as to who is or is not capable to do the work.
Why not have a simple liscence with your mug shot on it, issued to you as a cirtified electrician. A data base can be made to ensure that all your qualifications are up to date and a points sytem for transgressors. Your liscence fee is part of the cirtification cost which is either by exmination or assesement. If the work involved is anything more than changing a light bulb then its down to a qualified electrician who has to show the liscence to the punter before he starts the work. All that is needed then is the liscence number on the test cert and your signature and everybody knows whos done what when where and most of all properly.

Not sure of your age old mate but I was told back in 1970 that this is what was coming into force. A body that will register you and ensure that proper qualified electricians can only work on electrics .............it was called the JIB and I had to do a JIB approved apprenticeship, which I did. and it never ever got off the ground, in the end it was never a legislated body as such, just the start of us having to pay someone for doing something for us.

41 yrs later we are still wanting a licence but unfortunately it will never come because we have too many limbs to our electrical tree. Would you have grades of licence, such a DI one, an alarms one, a UPS one, perhaps a fire alarms one, or an industrial one, or perhaps a off shore one or explosive environments one, the list would be endless and we have this all with the JIB.

Unfortunately IMO there is no real training for an "electrician" or very little. You can't train apprentices to be rounded electricians when there is very little industry to train them on, or very little variety on commercial installations the scope is not there now and the whole industry is in turmoil.

As an apprentice I done fire alarms, single and 3 phase installation, wired control panels, learnt how to run containment and how to pull in 240mm armoured, how to run data cables in offices and install industrial kitchens and laundries and even managed to rewire a few houses when projects were on hold. Wonder what licence I would get.

 

[Engineer54]

Not sure of your age old mate but I was told back in 1970 that this is what was coming into force. A body that will register you and ensure that proper qualified electricians can only work on electrics .............it was called the JIB and I had to do a JIB approved apprenticeship, which I did. and it never ever got off the ground, in the end it was never a legislated body as such, just the start of us having to pay someone for doing something for us.

41 yrs later we are still wanting a licence but unfortunately it will never come because we have too many limbs to our electrical tree. Would you have grades of licence, such a DI one, an alarms one, a UPS one, perhaps a fire alarms one, or an industrial one, or perhaps a off shore one or explosive environments one, the list would be endless and we have this all with the JIB.

Unfortunately IMO there is no real training for an "electrician" or very little. You can't train apprentices to be rounded electricians when there is very little industry to train them on, or very little variety on commercial installations the scope is not there now and the whole industry is in turmoil.

As an apprentice I done fire alarms, single and 3 phase installation, wired control panels, learnt how to run containment and how to pull in 240mm armoured, how to run data cables in offices and install industrial kitchens and laundries and even managed to rewire a few houses when projects were on hold. Wonder what licence I would get.

Trainee 1st grade. You haven't got the latest buckshee C&G numbers.....Only the old one's, so you can't be that much cop!! Right?? ...lol!!!