what customers should do before rewire ?

[JM ELECTRICAL]

what would you generally ask a customer do to prepare for us coming into rewire, i am in the middle of arranging for me to do a rewire the first one i have done on my own, things like moving furniture the kithchen, lifting carpets, laminate flooring ?

 

[Guest111]

I,ve not done many as most of my work was industrial,but if you have to do a live in then they need to empty the loft,move furniture to the centre of the room and go out while you are working.Kids can also be a problem so they need to be out of the way as well,I did one live in and the fifteen yr old son waited till we,d taken the boards up upstairs and then decided to have a bath,knowing full well that we needed access to the bathroom.he was a real pain and ended up finding himself cable tied to a lamppost outside the house,this was unfortunate really as he was unable to run off when his mother returned home and decided to belt him for getting in our way.

 

[Motty]

When you survey the job check the Incomer and see if it has a DNO Isolator fitted, so the whole CCU and customers side tails can be switched off without tampering with the seals on the head or meter. If not, get customer to phone their supplier and arrange fitting. EDF and EON don't charge for this, British Gas do but its not extortionate, around £60-70. then you can work in safety and without the threat of action by DNO for tampering with thier equipment. Allow a fortnight for this to get done.

 

[Rampantchilli]

Seriously I don't think I expect the customer to do anything( including making the tea), you discuss at time of quotation, if there's furniture it doesn't matter where it goes it will be in the way. Floor covering, if treated with care will go back down, and laminate floor? Well carefully take it up, explaining before hand that you can't guarantee it will come up without breaking. In all the years I've never expected anyone to do anything more than move the Picasso or cut crystal to a different property.
And I can't remember ever causing upset with a genuine customer, social housing tenants however can be a law unto themselves.
the main thing is to be clear about your skill and profession, " I'm not a carpet fitter love" but ill get them down best I can, or if you truly are shocking at putting them back down, pay for a carpet fitter to relay them, and factor it into you quote, much like you would with plastering if your crap at that.

 

[7029 dave]

Laminate floor nice!! upstairs your stuffed, however downstairs if the house is of the age where there is a nice big void cut a trap and send the boy underground lol.

 

[Guitarist]

I've had times where the customer refuses to have upstairs glued laminate taken up, and I've ended up having to cut hatches in the ceilings instead!
As already said, discuss EVERYTHING with the client beforehand and charge accordingly. A 3k rewire in an empty house can easily end up costing 6k by the time you've moved furniture and messed about with repowering rooms each night.

 

[rattlehead85]

Did an occupied re-wire a couple of years back where the customer refused access into his bedroom but still wanted the whole place done!! We soon understood why when one day we was up in the loft directly above the said bedroom and all we could hear was moans and groaning going on which explained why strange men were going in and out at all times!

 

[GLENNSPARK]

well..it was just the other week that we went into this place....the person ordering the work thought we could just add a few points here n there....

so, we went into the cellar...to be confronted with a board to the 16th edition...CED cutout with a Ze of 41 ohms on a TN-S...lovely

less lovely was the cables snaked around various pipework in that cellar and the hoard of joint boxes all over the place...some tucked away..others just hanging down..hmm...

explained to the client after a general lookaround that the best option was to have it all rewired as there were loads of non-conformances everyware...

trust me if i can save an install i will but this one had had it..

the property was unocupied...a good start you thinks right....WRONG!!...caus every room in that house had loads of built up flat pack furniture in it..my solution:

shift it all to the centre of the room and stack/dump/throw it all on top of each other....when it came to the carpet..out came the stanley knife...

there was loads of old laminate floor & lino...we just launched it all out of the window..

the client thought we were going to move furniture from room to room as we went along..

i had other ideas...

 

[tidyboiler]

I would recommend moving out definitely. It makes it easier for the spark and not such an upheaval for the family. A few years ago I had an extensive extension build which meant we had no kitchen, dining room, bedroom and the original wiring was not compatible with the new stuff, so that meant a rewire and a new boiler. It was supposed to be a 12 week job but turned into 6 months. We came to know every builder by name and they even left shopping lists out when they had run out of biscuits, milk and tea bags! One day I counted 15 men on the job which included plasterer, joiner, brickie, spark, plumber, roofer, pebble-dasher, inspector and his mate... the list was endless. It was a case of getting on with it, trying to keep 4 kids, a dog and a cat out of the way and smile through the whole thing. :17:

 

[R G]

I carried out rewire after rewire with SEC , its not a nice job but you get used to it , in cases where the customer has gone away it can be good , but from many of these experiences it became a problem , mostly because you come across problems that are not visible when you first looked around . Quite often you have to discuss points as you go along with furniture and decoration and quite often they have requested extra work , you would find this difficult if the customer has gone away , I have ended up discussing many things over the phone , but it is far better if you can show them the problems , as you go along , its not easy dealing with customers especially when they are paying SEC prices , I did that from 1982 right up to 4 years ago and its got harder dealing with the public, one tip is to discuss everything with the customer especially the flooring and decoration whats going to get disturbed and why because they don't have a clue and you need to show them most of the time the difficulties in getting your cables in . All the best

 

[guest119]

That's been 30 yrs hard graft Ray.
You must have arms like Popeye by now. :icon10:
I'm so glad I came out of domestic many years ago.

Boydy

 

[R G]

That's been 30 yrs hard graft Ray.
You must have arms like Popeye by now. :icon10:
I'm so glad I came out of domestic many years ago.

Boydy

I am knackered mate , wish I could have done the same as all you other guys ,but with SEC it was a case of the more you do the more they keep on giving , then I became a subby for them on price work (good money ) but boy it was hard work , the hardest part is working with customers and keeping them happy , but met some nice people, and have more respect for them than SEC , I just got stuck in that position I guess , days became years , knees and back are now knackered , when I started it was lump hammer and Bolster for chasing and each day was an onslaught ,SEC gave you 1.5 hrs per point and the next rewire was already on the schedule. Had some nice lads with me now and again.My advice to any body doing this work is discuss as much as possible with the customer , get them to move their valuables , get them to trust you in their homes if you can , if they do move out then get them to pop in later in the day and show them any problems , do this before you do something that needs their approval. Good Luck

 

[Guitarist]

You can work your balls off, have no break each day except 20mins for lunch, treat the customer with honesty and respect, and then what happens after you've finished? Some "friend" who's good with electrics tells them that they've been ripped off!
Sick of it all to be honest.