UK Opinion on these pics please

[Apple1973]

Hi,
I am the wife of an electrician feeling absolutely gutted. We have had a complaint from a customer who is seeking a £500 refund for a consumer unit change that my husband undertook for her. I joined here in the hope other electrician's could shed some light on what's happened as I have no clue what consumer unit wiring should look like. I can't confront my husband over this at the moment as his mum is dying and I don't want to add to his stress so I am trying to figure it out myself. My husband has been an electrician 30 years. He is a part P domestic installer, Niceic registered and 18th edition updated last year. We have hundreds of happy customers since he went self employed 2 years ago. I do all his books and customer communication etc and he has never had a complaint up until now.
So basically he started on a job where there were other tradesmen present , including another electrician who was retired .My husband did lots of various electrical jobs for this lady who paid us promptly after each installation and was very happy with his work ,even leaving a good review on Google ads for him ..but then something happened, roughly 4 days after he replaced her consumer unit she called us to say it keeps tripping. He went back over there to try to figure out what was happening and spent half the day there. He came back very frustrated saying he couldn't figure it out. There were 5 other tradesmen there,( the place is being renovated) including this other electrician who apparently couldn't understand why it was tripping either. My husband said he ended up ripping all the wires out in order to get to the bottom of it. ..It ended with my husband telling the customer he was completely stumped and that she should get a second opinion.... I then get sent these pictures a week later from the customer of what she says is my husband's work. I am baffled! To me it looks a mess but I realise she probably took this photo AFTER he dissected it for the tripping fault??
Please can anyone of you guys offer me some opinions here as I'm really distressed by this.

 

[Baddegg]

What circuit is tripping?.....

 

[Dustydazzler]

Rip it out, start again with an Rcbo board

 

[timhoward]

Does your husband have any notes of test results after he finished the board change, and did he get as far as writing out a certificate? Or have the family circumstances meant it hasn't been tested?
The reason I ask is that if one of the other trades has damaged something somewhere since (which is perfectly possible) then a fresh round of dead-tests will a) quickly show where the issue is and b) prove it happened after he left.
Either way the quickest way from here is to test and build up from scratch again as others have said.

 

[LewisM]

If it started tripping 4 days later and there are other trades on site then they have possibly damaged something? Its an occurrence which is all too common although the other trades will of course deny doing anything.

 

[timhoward]

This looks interesting:

 

[timhoward]

With picture enhanced a bit:

 

[cloverman]

To be honest it does look a mess and like others have already stated it needs to be tidied up.
To be fair with all the other trades around, your husband was probably under stress or perhaps he has been stressed for quite a while and you may not have noticed, sometimes the ones closest don't see the signs of stress. He may have taken his eye of the ball so to speak.
Obviously the fault needs to rectified and perhaps it was some occurance after your husand's work that caused it, I doubt anyone will owned up to that so it's a case of returning and investigating the installation or passing it on to a trusted friend who could maybe assist in putting it right.
Personally speaking I would return and carry out inspection/testing of the installation and try to win this customer back on side, one unhappy customer can make your business go downhill fast if they start to spread tales of your workmanship.

Under the circumstances though, it may be better if your husband is under a great strain at present and to save yourself getting really stressed about the situation to refund or someone you know and trust to act on your behalf to put matters right.

 

[stevethesparks]

This looks interesting:
View attachment 65218

What's the interesting bit?

 

[timhoward]

What's the interesting bit?

To me it looks like neutral conductor connected to cpc terminals. Could be wrong, 2nd photo slightly clearer.

 

[Baddegg]

To me it looks like neutral conductor connected to cpc terminals. Could be wrong, 2nd photo slightly clearer.

Good eyes mate ?

 

[littlespark]

Could be the black of a 3 core swa being used as an earth, but I don’t see the corresponding grey on the N bar

 

[stevethesparks]

I was wondering what the item looking like an earth clamp is on top of the CU

 

[timhoward]

Could be the black of a 3 core swa being used as an earth, but I don’t see the corresponding grey on the N bar

Yeah - I also wondered if it is simply a cable extension without tape - anything is possible! But it caught my eye, and whoever wired it originally clearly did have earth tape.

 

[Vortigern]

To be fair to all concerned I think a refund is in order. This is clearly a difficult time for you both and sometimes it's hard to see the woods for the trees. I would say that if the price was for the consumer unit supply and fit then the customer should pay for the materials and not the labour. So in the first instance in your shoes I would suggest this to the customer. As to the fault, no doubt someone will come along and find it and that will cost xyz, I would offer to cover the cost of this for the customer. This may amount to more than £500 refund. Everything is negotiable and of course you would wish to at least attain an equitable solution for all parties. So either refund the £500 or take the alternative route as above. Of course it may be as suggested above, one of the trades has unwittingly drilled a cable or something and if this is shown to be the case then reserve the right to insist the guilty party (so to speak) pays for the rectification of the fault. Believe me, I think most sparks here have had a bad day with things like this and these things do happen try not to take it too hard.

 

[Mike Johnson]

To be fair to the original electrician, do you actually believe that he would have left the CU in that condition, I think someone has been playing around with it since he did the original installation and that is what I would be saying to the client, together with "there were no faults on any circuit when I left site on (insert date important as it establish's a time line of first visit) therefore I would suggest that some damage has been done to the installation since I completed my work on the first visit, I would be only to pleased to return to try and solve this problem, my hour rate is £....