Argh - electrician has cocked up and caused £300 worth (at least) of remedial works

[GrendelsMum]

Just what the title says, really.

Arrgh.

This is not a good start.

As far as I can see, we need all the work redoing, plus we now need to fix the damage. Also one of our expensive lights seems to be damaged. Really not good.

Can I have some unMumsnetty virtual hugs?

He should be paying for it surely? Have you asked him to.

We've only just found out about it, so we're going to have to negotiate what happens next.

I don't know how much we can ask him to pay for, really.

There's one thing which is definitely his fault, but the rest of it he might well say 'well, I couldn't fit the new plug sockets without causing damage to the walls'. Whereas if I'd realised how much damage it would cause, and the extra expense of plastering, I wouldn't have asked for the extra plug sockets. I expect his thinking was that we had plasterers in, so that more plastering didn't matter, whereas we're paying by the metre, effectively.

What do people think would be reasonable? Not to pay him? To get him to pay for the damage?

Well you can fit sockets without damaging the walls, even my DIY hubby can. Yes, I think you should tell him to pay for the damage and if he doesn't then withold payment. Or if his bill is more than the £300 pay the difference.

Take photos.

Stripey, clever trick.

Talk to your local trading standards - we have found them really helpful, they usually have standard form letters you can send and should be able to give advice as to what is his responsibility and what is not.

Have now got home and gone through the builders comments with DH.

I don't know whether it's aargh or not. Aargh to DH for stressing me out at work when I couldn't see any of it for myself.

Electrician should have consulted us before doing what he did, but probably didn't have an option / didn't realise he might have had an option because he's not a specialist in old houses. If asked, we probably would have said, yes, there's no option so go ahead.

And it was DH who damaged the light. That bit didn't get mentioned in the messages to me at work.