How many Downlights can an electrician install in a day?

[Mworks89]

Hi

I have an electrician over and he took over from an incompetent builder. The builder already installed the wiring but the electrician told me that he will need to test the electrical wiring that was done in my extension, which I thought was fair.

I wanted to know how long would it take to cut the holes and install 8 downlights (bearing in mind the wiring was already done and he already spent a whole day to test the wiring in the extension area and he noted where the downlights need to be installed). This is because once the ceiling was plastered and painted he came again to install the lights. He took 4 hours just to install 8 downlights.

Was the electrician doing this on purpose as I was paying him a daily rate? And if the wiring and testing were already done shouldn't the installation of the downlights be a bit quicker?

Also how many downlights can an electrician install from start to finish in a day?

 

[Mworks89]

You are on the clock now, quick has you can, whip ready.

Put yourself in my position if you were not a specialist in this field and in the past you have seen electricians complete tasks quicker than what I experienced this time. (Btw all the lights installed by the previous electrician work exceptionally well for more than 15 years) Surely you would want to ask why it took him longer than what I have seen in the past. Especially if he is taking daily rates.

A lot of customers are getting exploited by tradesman because “Customers don’t know the trade” and taking advantage of the customers is not ethically right is it?.

 

[westward10]

Did he have to plot the holes or were they already identified?

 

[Mworks89]

It hiss me off when people asking am I
Being over charged.
Next time you take car to a garage and see what they charge.

You can charge a million pounds an hour if you want to, but be clear how long it would take to complete the task or give a fixed rate. If we are happy to we can proceed if not then thats fine we can ask another tradesperson.
Customers have budgets, money is not free my friend. As you would know from your hard work.

A lot of trades people do this, they insult the customer and take advantage. It’s not fair at all.
Btw not all do this. I had an electrician few years back and he was honest about his price and kept to his timeframe and did a wonderful job. He charged £400/day which was fair. But he has retired now otherwise he was my go to electrician.

Sadly they don’t make the older generation electricians anymore who are honest and trustworthy.

 

[Mworks89]

Did he have to plot the holes or were they already identified?

So the ceiling was not plastered nor did it have plaster board when he did his tests. Im pretty sure he told me that he has taken pictures so he knows where the wires were after the area has been plastered and painted.

 

[buzzlightyear]

A lot of trades people do this, they insult the customer and take advantage. It’s not fair at all.
Btw not all do this. I had an electrician few years back and he was honest about his price and kept to his timeframe and did a wonderful job. He charged £400/day which was fair. But he has retired now otherwise he was my go to electrician

There is a contrbuting factor here, some people north of UK charge less then London,you could go on check a trade see what they say on the Webb page.
Me if the spark has not given you the correct price to which you want you should have got a few qoutes.

 

[Mworks89]

There is a contrbuting factor here, some people north of UK charge less then London,you could go on check a trade see what they say on the Webb page.
Me if the spark has not given you the correct price to which you want you should have got a few qoutes.

I did. One said testing for the electrical testing work in the extension would cost £300 fixed price. And I was completely happy with that. Another said similar. To install the 8 downlights only they quoted £200, which again I was completely happy with. They said the installation of downlights will not take more than 2 hours as all the testing and wiring would have been done by then. They said the testing will take them the longest. And to complete this whole job they said a day and a half.

But the person I went with said daily rate of £300. So I thought as previous electricians have said it would take them a day and a half to do this job then this was a good deal. As it would have cost me £450.

But this electrician spent literally 2 hours on their phone talking to another client. He should have done that in his own time. In total it cost me £750 with him. Apologies I didn’t mention in my previous post that he took a day to test the electrical area before any works (which is fair) and then another day (where he was speaking to other clients and on his phone) to test the electrics after installation.

 

[nicebutdim]

It can be difficult enough to fit downlights which you wired yourself, once builders have moved well clipped wiring when it comes to boarding a ceiling. Then they builders might decide to trap one or those cables between plasterboard and joist.

Fitting out down lights wired by someone else has the added complication of not knowing where wiring is and not knowing if it will work with customer's planned location of each downlight.

Unless the downlights had already been cut out in correct locations, with wiring pulled through (and no wiring issues found), I wouldn't consider 30 min per light to be unreasonable - in fact it could be very fast work.

 

[goasis]

If you have a plan for the downlights, and all you are doing is cutting out and fitting them then yes, 8 downlights in 4 hrs is slow.
Fixed price work versus day rate, you take your pick and deal with whatever the cost ends up as.
I had the opposite recently when I took down 3 ceiling lights and fitted 12 downlights in a finished ceiling (obviously a few holes cut and patched.) On a fixed price. Went smoothly, all installed and tested in 5 hrs (not including certs and paperwork) so to the customer it probably looked like a big bill for "not alot of work", but at least they knew upfront what the cost was, regardless of time taken.