Can I get my money back? Electrical problem.

[TheFesteredStiff]

I've been having an intermittent problem with my RCD tripping. Once last Monday then several times yesterday until it kept tripping as soon as the switches went back on.

I phoned for an emergency electrician. A few hours passed between me calling and the electrician arriving by which time the switches were able to be put back on. The electrician "investigated" then came to the conclusion the problem was one of my appliances and I would have to go through a process of elimination.

All the appliances ended up unplugged overnight after the RCD continued to trip. This made no difference to the tripping so I called a different electrician today. He has done a proper investigation and has traced the problem back to wiring in a damp cupboard that has deteriorated. This has been disconnected and the power seems to have been OK since. Either he or one of his colleagues is coming to change the wiring on Thursday.

Do I have grounds to get my not inconsiderable amount of money back from the first electrician, given he failed to investigate the problem properly, failed to diagnose the problem, failed to fix the problem and has written at least 1 thing that I'm told cannot be true on the report he left? With generosity, the untruth could have been due to inadequate equipment. He was sent by one of those agency type places although I understand he also has his own business.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Difficult to say because from what you've said I'm not sure how much he did wrong. I'm not clear on exactly how long he was around for, i.e. whether he left you to do the appliance elimination yourself or was there when you were checking the appliances. In itself, eliminating appliances seems like a reasonable thing to do. And that would give the second electrician more information to be able to say what the issue was. Also, by getting another electrician involved he may say that he wasn't given the opportunity to put things right himself (I don't know if you tried to get him back out or not).

I would start off by laying out the facts to the agency and seeing if they recompense you. If they don't then you would have to go through small claims courts, and you'd have to be able to lay your case out clearly to show why he shouldn't have been paid.

Thank you for your advice.

He did leave me to do the elimination himself as he didn't have a PAT tester. Admittedly, I didn't give him chance to put things right when it became obvious there could be no way it was the appliances and I lost confidence. Nothing on the report helped the second electrician at all, he had to start from scratch and did a far more thorough investigation involving disconnecting sockets one by one.

Still, happily, the first electrician has just rung me of his own accord to let me know he has found the tester he was using was on the blink (not sure how he discovered this, hope it wasn't this thread as the story is pretty identifiable). He said he would sort it out with the agency and I'd prefer things were sorted out amicably so I will see what happens.

That sounds positive. If he didn't have the right/working equipment even more reason you shouldn't have to pay!