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Unqualified sparkies!


Twistedsanity
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So.it appears.the little.... That I was told was qualified and replaced my consumer unit last year has (according by to my current electrician) made a complete balls up of it all, he left me with one sheet of paper as a cert (begrudgingly) which he signed and apparently he has just made up a load of numbers to put in the boxes, it has no address on it and should be several pages long, surely this is illegal and I can report him to someone? If I wanted the job doing badly and uncertified I would have done it myself!

is there any recourse for this, I know I don't have a chance of getting my money back and it's probably going to cost me a small fortune to get it redone properly but surely there must be steps I can take to ensure he can't do this to anyone else?

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Report to Trading Standards, maybe?

Yes this would be my first line of offence particularly if this case wasn't a one off and he his carrying out and self certifying works to part P regulations which he is not properly qualified to do.

 

The Hertfordshire Council Trading Standards will likely bring a case against him and if your case is referred to in the case against him the court will probably award compensation to you.

 

Good luck..I've almost been the victim of similar a few years back...but he picked the wrong bloke and I effectively put him out of business...he tried to tell me a RCCB was a Registered Council Certification Board :lol: ... idiot !

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Indeed, and possibly building control? Keep seeing programmes about cowboy builders, people like that need locking up!

 

If he is trading as unregistered for part P self certification and carrying out such works Trading Standards will normally inform the LABC department anyway

 

Good luck...I hate charlatans and cowboys !

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It's a bit daft, he is advertising locally as a sparkie so I don't get why if he is qualified he didn't give me the correct paperwork to begin with, I'm.guessing he isn't registered somewhere he should be or else he would have nothing to gain from.his actions, the "cert" I got doesn't mention anything about part p on it

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It's a bit daft, he is advertising locally as a sparkie so I don't get why if he is qualified he didn't give me the correct paperwork to begin with, I'm.guessing he isn't registered somewhere he should be or else he would have nothing to gain from.his actions, the "cert" I got doesn't mention anything about part p on it

Any credentials on his van such as NICEIC or ECA ? The LABC may know if he is an approved electrician under the self certification scheme.

 

If he is displaying trade association membership logos, its easy enough to check.

Edited by Adge Cutler
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i didn't see a van, a friend is a plasterer and recommended his brother as a qualified sparks to do the work for me , i didnt realise i would need a building contingency fund to pay for other peoples mistakes, first the "architectural services" debacle, now the sparks, i wonder what comes next!

Any structural work involved ??

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Not again!!

 

Do yourself a favour and do some research before drafting these so called professionals, that way you are prepared to ask the right questions before letting Cowboys take advantage.

 

Trust a trader is worth visiting, and it's a good idea to contact previous clients where possible.

 

Good luck.

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What's wrong with the current consumer unit ? I'm a sparks part p registered with Elecsa some electricians will make a mountain out of a molehill others like myself will look at it a little differently and advise and rectify . Was it left dangerous ? There's some good installation sparks who can't test and fill in forms

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What's wrong with the current consumer unit ? I'm a sparks part p registered with Elecsa some electricians will make a mountain out of a molehill others like myself will look at it a little differently and advise and rectify . Was it left dangerous ? There's some good installation sparks who can't test and fill in forms

Agree , I was with Elecsa

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tell me about it,these ***** are a royal pain in the ****,redoing an 11 bed students house at the mo after the so called sparky got rumbled by building

regs and got shown the door.

lied to the owner he was registered ,a simple 2 min online check would have saved all the hassle.

luck has it only 2 top floors had been done, was a mess with tons missing.

sorry but a sparky who cant do testing is called a labourer.

i get regular calls from people looking for certification on finished unseen work,they get a polite **** off.

the trouble with the whole electrical part p scheme is no enforcement.

Edited by Remimax
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What's wrong with the current consumer unit ? I'm a sparks part p registered with Elecsa some electricians will make a mountain out of a molehill others like myself will look at it a little differently and advise and rectify . Was it left dangerous ? There's some good installation sparks who can't test and fill in forms

board prob full of holes and the usual lack of earthing not to mention prob charged more than a registered sparks :) Edited by Remimax
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i didn't see a van, a friend is a plasterer and recommended his brother as a qualified sparks to do the work for me , i didnt realise i would need a building contingency fund to pay for other peoples mistakes, first the "architectural services" debacle, now the sparks, i wonder what comes next!

Go back to your "Friend" and explain the situation and ask him to retify it! If he's any sort of friend worth having, he will go to his brother and put pressure on him to sort it out or at least give you a refund.

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A fair number of years ago, I worked in an office block where a succession of qualified electricians ripped the backside out of the system. In the middle of some electrical work, one of the sparks said that all the boards were labelled incorrectly and they had no idea which areas were still live. They were paid to re-label them.

 

The next firm said exactly the same, as did the third.

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The new sparks is someone I used to babysit for and have known his family for 30 years, his price is included in the build cost so he isn't trying to get any money from me there are holes drilled in the side of the new consumer unit for the tails that my daughter could stick her fingers through and the earth bonding is apparently too small and loose in addition to the fact that the guy tested nothing and made up numbers on the one sheet of paper he gave me, apparently it has to be registered with building control as a new install which it wasn't, I realise that a lot of this shouldn't happen but as he was recommended as he is a friends brother I was a little less guarded than If I had found him the paper.

The new guy is going to contact the nice something or other to see if he can inspect what has been done and register it correctly as I had a large unit put in with room for all the extra building work to add onto, apparently the regs have recently changed and they now have to use metal boxed units so he isn't sure of this can be retrospectively registered or not, if not he is going to add a new box to run his work from.to comply with the regs, I'm.not paying any extra for the new smaller additional box as its in with the building costs but really would rather use the existing equipment. So if it can't be registered as it now no longer conforms with regs I'm going to have to pay extra to have it all replaced, once I know what the score is I will be chasing down the little **** and informing him he owes me whatever the cost of the remedial work is, as far as I'm aware the guy is a qualified sparks who did it but for some reason screwed me over with the paperwork, maybe he isn't registered at the moment? I have no idea tbh.

He is listed at his mums address where he doesn't live as a limited company as electrical services, either way he needs to fetch me the correct paperwork or pay for the remedial work, think I paid him £250 for the install and I brought the consumer unit from screwfix

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You really need to appoint someone to look after all work you get done as you seem to run into lots of avoidable problems... you can chase last spark but i doubt you will get anything back so far everything is everyones fault but your own if your not sure appoint person who is..your window problems could have been avoided by having supervised build you got guys brother to do some sparking why cause its cheaper than employing a company with track record and ability to stand over things....sometimes as your finding out paying a little more is actually cheaper in the long term and less stressfull....

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No, I employed a friends brother because I trusted the recommendation and would rather give money to people I know than big profiteering companies,yes it was cash in hand but not everyone is vat registered as I'm sure you know, I have plenty of money and wasn't trying to get it done on the cheap at all as my family's safety comes above anything else, my only mistake was trusting a friend. As for the architect he came highly recommended and has been working successfuly in the area for 18 years, it's My first venture into the world of building and my inexperience is my fault, the consumer unit will have whatever needs doing to correct done regardless of the cost (I am waiting to hear from.the electrician) and the window debacle was clearly an error by the man who did the plans as he measured it wrongly. I haven't attempted to cut corners in any way whatsoever, I'm confident that problems occur in a high percentage of building projects which is why people have a contigency fund on top if their build.money. My current builder is doing a good job that I am happy with, as will the new electrician. So if trusting a friend makes me at fault then I am guilty as charged.

 

I had 5 companies in to quote for my building work, should I have employed the overpriced reputable local electrician who lied to me and informed me that I need to get my smoke alarms interlinked in order to make himself a few quid more? Or the overpriced plumber who also lied and told me that the regs said he would have to relocate my boiler into my garage at great expense? There is a reason they both have nice new sign written vans and it's not because those two are honest and hard working. Both lied to try to bulk the work out and make a few grand more which I'm sure they must do to lots of people if they tried it on with me (I'm a retired gas engineer), and no I didn't pick the lowest quote for the build either which was £12,000 cheaper than the guy I am.using.

Edited by Twistedsanity
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