Finding a reliable and honest electrician

[frankiesamson]

Does anyone know of any reliable and honest electricians in South west London? I've asked all my neighbours, and even Estate Agents, to know avail.

I have Google searched and it seems the going rate in London is about £65 per hour. However, finding an electrician to actually openly give his rate and then honour it, is proving quite difficult. I've noticed they will be dishonest about the amount of time it takes to do the job (charging for a much longer time than it actually takes) and replace parts that don't need replacing, then also mark up the price on the new parts.

The one I hired ended up charging me around £400 labour for a couple of hours work (using our own materials- then he justified it by saying materials were included in the price), when we questioned him on what materials he used, he looked confounded but still refused to charge less.

His work was so bad I had to have most of it taken out.

I managed to find another electrician, and he gave me his hourly rate (£35), but when it came to hiring him for an hour or two's work, his rate suddenly quadrupled to around £130 an hour! He justified it by saying he only offers an hourly rate for several weeks worth of work, and prefers to price labour per job. (In other words he's extorting us)

Another electrician I found, quoted us around £400 labour for a job which he said was a huge job taking a whole day, but ended up finishing it in under an hour, yet still insisted his labour price was £400 for it.

All the electricians I can find, seem to pluck prices out of the air depending on their mood at the time.

One of our electricians told us the transformers to our spot lights were broken and all needed replacing (without even looking at them!). When I questioned that, he got a ladder and went up to one of the spotlights, then while he was disconnecting the transformer, the light started working (meaning it was simply a loose connection). He tried to cover it up and hope I didn't notice, then disconnected the transformer quickly and said "it's broken". It was obvious it works fine. When I questioned him about it, he looked embarrassed & sheepishly said it doesn't matter even if it's working, his price will remain the same. After telling us the price is so high because he had to include materials he didn't need, he didn't seem interested in justifying it, and said "that is just my price".

Can anyone at all recommend an honest reliable electrician in Southwest London?

I envy Kirstie Alsopp on Love it or List it.
She never has a problem getting work done on the houses featured. I watched last night and that thought flitted through my mind.
Sorry I'm no help as I'm in Ireland.
Do any of your friends/ relations or work colleagues have one to recommend ?
I'd be wary of an Internet recommendation.

If they did, I wouldn't be on here :)

Also.. no friends & no work colleagues

Watching. With. Interest!

Have you tried searching for a Facebook group for your part of London? I find my local pages are great for finding tradesmen as you can often track several recommendations for a person to verify their worth

yup.. got nothing from facebook (I never manage to get it to work though!). Also tried checkatrade & contacted over 15 electricians in south london & south west london. I'm on the verge of google searching how to do the electrics myself, it's becoming hilarious!

You'd think this was syria or something

It might help if you got a quote for a job rather than an hourly rate. Compare quotes for the same. We're in the NW and good gas engineers/plumbers are like hen's teeth in our area.

I think insisting on an hourly rate is only going to lead to arguments. Hourly rates are not really meaningful for small or medium domestic jobs on a single property. As there's all the time for quoting and going from one job to another to be included. You might only see them for an hour but if they're doing it properly they'll have to do paperwork and certificates in the evening.
Basically tell t the problem, ask for a price to completion of your specification, and compare 3 quotes.
Basically then they are taking the risk on the job overrunning.
Ideal solution is just learn to do it yourself.

I gave up trying to find one and pay for British Gas Homecare Four instead. If I have an electrical problem I just book an electrician online, pay £60 and job done. It’s no good for massive electrical jobs but great for repairs etc.

We've just had some work done (not electrical although we need it doing) and when I got home yesterday at 3.10 and the guy had gone my first thought was that we'd overpaid for the job. We paid for a job which was estimated at 2 days, all materials included and both days he was gone before 3.30.

When I sat and thought about it though, neither OH or I could have done the work that quickly and we couldn't have achieved that standard if we'd taken 4 times as long. The guy had previously come out to quote for the work and obviously time quoting does need to be factored in. He also obtained all materials for the job (I don't know when, but quite possibly before he showed up each day) and disposed of everything (old pavers, rotten decking in this case).

I think the advice above is good, get a quote for the job and decide whether or not you're happy with it. Don't get caught up in hourly rates; if your job takes 5 hours, the chances of the sparky being able to tie it in with another job taking 2 hours is pretty slim, so that's all he's going to earn that day.

I'm happy to pay a good hourly rate, even slightly more than it "should" be, if they are willing to do the work, to a good standard. Electrics is a not inconsequential skill in my eyes.

But, it's hard to find anyone to do anything smaller than a full rewire. Considered doing a course myself, but then you get not having part P etc issues.

OP, join 'Top Tips 4 Mums' on FB and 'The original HOME Sweet Home North and Central London, Middx, Hertfordshire', two London centric groups. I'd be surprised if you couldn't get someone from either of those. Be mindful though that partners/family members do advertise each other, so just make sure it's a genuine recommendation.

Thanks for all the comments. I appreciate the replies regarding getting 3 quotes, travel time to & from the job, time to buy the materials, covering themselves in case it takes longer than expected, time to do paperwork & dispose of waste, however, you don't seem to understand the issues in this area- it's impossible to get 3 quotes for each job when most won't reply.. all the quotes we've received were ridiculously high, the standard of work unacceptable, they made us dispose of waste ourselves, even made us finish their job ourselves, got cranky & left it unfinished if the job went on longer than a couple of hours (even though we're paying £hundreds!), insisted on cash, didn't do any paperwork, and we also supplied materials so most of that reasoning doesn't really apply in this case.

Regarding time to travel to and from a job, that is why the first hour rate is usually higher than the rest. (E.g. First hour £85, £40 per hour after that). Everywhere we've lived before that's how it worked, but in west london it seems there are so many rich folk around that electricians have learned to take advantage.

Another option would be to charge per half hour travel time as a separate price & paperwork time. I'm talking about transparency here, as opposed to the greedy money-spindling that seems to be going on. I'm confident ours aren't even paying tax as they insisted on cash, and they do no paper work, barely speak English, lie to us constantly about things that are apparently "broken" so they can charge to replace... only for us to discover they're working, then they appear guilty but insist their price remains the same (or higher!) to keep the original materials... but why?! They don't even attempt to justify it.. and the quality of their work is shocking (e.g. Using bathroom silicone to cover up a hole in a brand new light switch they broke, or leave a porch light hanging by its wires) .. they offer no paperwork or certification... they're basically rogue tradesmen yet their prices aren't any cheaper to reflect that.

The ones who do offer paperwork, either don't turn up or are impossible to get hold of, and when they finally do (months later), they insist on you paying them £hundreds to do lengthy expensive surveys before they'll change a light bulb, and want you to pay extra to update eg. A fuse board every 5 -10 years to match new build standards !

When you ask them to show you these regulations stating the entire fuse board needs replacing every 5-10 years, they can't be bothered as they know they can get some rich sucker to fall for it in the next street where houses are £3 million each.

Electricians really do seem to behave differently depending on area you live. If like some of the replies here seem to imply it was genuinely honest practise or government regulations at play, then they'd be the same everywhere, not more stringent in affluent areas & less so in normal / poorer areas!

PMd you our electrician's details

We have homecare 400 - have only had it 3 months & it's been worth it. Tradesmen just don't want the small jobs.
I keep trying to pusuade the kids that one should bea plumber the other an electrician. I think they would be an excellent working around the kids type of job.

The BG plumber who serviced my boiler last week was a young woman. She said it was a good job, she'd never encountered any hassle/ discrimination, had a supportive boss . She also said it worked well around kids. She said she could do everything a male plumber could except carry out old, corroded and rusty tanks. If I had a daughter I'd consider that as a career possibility.

Maybe if you stop questioning and arguing with the qualified electricians they would be more willing to work for you. I know they hike the bill for ‘difficult’ customers as they actually have enough work they can’t be bothered with it.

I know a very good electrician but from everything you’ve said I wouldn’t give you his details as I don’t want him stressed when he comes home at night.

John Lewis have something called John Lewis home solutions where they have tradespeople they have vetted.

I know its a bit late, but better late than never. I know an electrician, he has carried out work, is professional and not overly priced. The job stays the same price throughout and hes not out to bankrupt you in the process, which makes a welcome change. Remedy Works Electrical 07973 175 656 (Richard)

I have had a very bad experience with John Lewis Home Solutions. I needed and electrician to come and change 1 outside light and the quote was £75. The chap came and instead of changing the light fitting went away to compile a quote which took 3 phonecalls to chase and when it did, it was around £650 for a very complicated solution. I declined the quote and ended up paying £75 for the 1st visit. :-( :-( I will NEVER use their service because the trades people are from a local pool of companies and John Lewis simply charge to be the middle men. It is an expensive service so you expect it be very good. The app also has numerous bugs.

Zshirra, that's outrageous! I hope you didn't pay the £75 on the basis he hadn't done the job!

I’m afraid you have to give payment details when you book :-(

My partner is an electrician in SE London. He currently charges a day rate most of the time depending on the size of the job. My experience watching him do our place is that you never know what the state of the electrics are before you start and that does cause issues. He's refused to do work on some houses where the owner won't pay what needs to be paid to make the house compliant. It's not worth the stress of any potential liability to him. Sometimes the electrics are totally fucked or he's being asked to sort out an issue with old electrics that need replacing but people don't want to spend the money.

Also, the quote sites cost tradesman to use. They are charged to quote and unless you're very specific about what you want done and realistic about how much you're willing to spend, he won't quote because it costs him £20 odd quid. He's not going to do that for £400 worth of work and I'd guess good electricians don't want such small jobs - unfortunate but true. We had the same issue when trying to find a builder and the work was a good £15k worth but we got no interest.

Did you find anyone in the end?

Agree with others on here the good Contractors will avoid customers that argue down to the last penny. I refurbished my house last year (in Kent) used an amazing Electrical Contractors, they work on schools and hospitals, they were here for 2 days, cost was approx. £1500, but new lights fitted in every room, garage re-wired, new consumer box fitted etc. etc. it is not always down to an hourly rate, and these guys are definitely one of the best in the SE.