JimCee
DIY
Hi,
My son has just (last week) had a rewire done on his house in Leyland. He has just bought the house but a "domino" type consumer unit was spotted and so a rewire was deemed necessary.
He wanted to move in with his girlfriend and 2 month old son as quickly as possible so phoned a website to get electricians to call him with quotes based on the job being done ASAP.
Electrician gave him a quote £3000 and he accepted - work could be done the following week. The day arrived and was completed in the day by "a load of very young people" and the house was in a right state.
They have run 4 spurs in the house which I thought was pretty poor for a rewire and I don't know if this is to regulations.
But the real problem came when I was reboarding the loft. There were a load of chopped wires in the way of the boards so I pulled them back as far as possible and cut them further back. Whilst pulling the wires, the skirting board fell off. Behind the skirting board, there was a hole in the plaster board and an old fashioned connection block (with screws) fell out as did the ends of 2 conductors. One of the 3 wires that came out of this block was in the way of the boards. As conductors had dropped out, obviously an old wire I thought and so started cutting it with my electrical cutters and the upstairs socket ring tripped.
On investigation, the new upstairs socket ring has been cut, the earth conductors cut back - breaking the earth ring, the positive and neutral conductors having been pushed into the connector but not screwed down properly and the cable that I had cut - upon tracing was actually an open live cable - just lying under the loft insulation.
Looking round, the new lighting circuit has been extended - also by means of an old fashioned type connector block with screws in and taped up.
I was furious and phoned the electrician who between my rants told me that it was perfectly reasonable to extend the lighting circuit by means of a taped up connector block with screws to secure the conductors.
The electrician has given my son an electrical certificate (which I haven't seen and probably wouldn't understand) but on reading info on the internet, I cannot understand how he has done a test with the earth conductors on the upstairs ring being cut back at the loose connection block breaking the circuit.
The guy is coming back on Monday to "have a look what is going on" but apart from being outright dangerous with an open ended live cable, are the old fashioned screw type connector blocks acceptable - whether taped or un-taped, are spurs to standard and can I report this guy and if so, who to?
Thanks for any advice,
Jim.
My son has just (last week) had a rewire done on his house in Leyland. He has just bought the house but a "domino" type consumer unit was spotted and so a rewire was deemed necessary.
He wanted to move in with his girlfriend and 2 month old son as quickly as possible so phoned a website to get electricians to call him with quotes based on the job being done ASAP.
Electrician gave him a quote £3000 and he accepted - work could be done the following week. The day arrived and was completed in the day by "a load of very young people" and the house was in a right state.
They have run 4 spurs in the house which I thought was pretty poor for a rewire and I don't know if this is to regulations.
But the real problem came when I was reboarding the loft. There were a load of chopped wires in the way of the boards so I pulled them back as far as possible and cut them further back. Whilst pulling the wires, the skirting board fell off. Behind the skirting board, there was a hole in the plaster board and an old fashioned connection block (with screws) fell out as did the ends of 2 conductors. One of the 3 wires that came out of this block was in the way of the boards. As conductors had dropped out, obviously an old wire I thought and so started cutting it with my electrical cutters and the upstairs socket ring tripped.
On investigation, the new upstairs socket ring has been cut, the earth conductors cut back - breaking the earth ring, the positive and neutral conductors having been pushed into the connector but not screwed down properly and the cable that I had cut - upon tracing was actually an open live cable - just lying under the loft insulation.
Looking round, the new lighting circuit has been extended - also by means of an old fashioned type connector block with screws in and taped up.
I was furious and phoned the electrician who between my rants told me that it was perfectly reasonable to extend the lighting circuit by means of a taped up connector block with screws to secure the conductors.
The electrician has given my son an electrical certificate (which I haven't seen and probably wouldn't understand) but on reading info on the internet, I cannot understand how he has done a test with the earth conductors on the upstairs ring being cut back at the loose connection block breaking the circuit.
The guy is coming back on Monday to "have a look what is going on" but apart from being outright dangerous with an open ended live cable, are the old fashioned screw type connector blocks acceptable - whether taped or un-taped, are spurs to standard and can I report this guy and if so, who to?
Thanks for any advice,
Jim.
