Fuseboard Upgrade Electrician

Reasons to upgrade your fuseboard

It is important to highlight the main reasons why you may need or want to upgrade your old fuse board to a new 18th Edition Consumer Unit:

•  You are having some other electrical work carried out at your Dartford home and need to upgrade it in order to comply with current electrical regulations. 
•  Your old fuse board is overloaded and starting to cause problems for the installation, such as tripping.
• Your wiring installation is in poor condition but you cannot afford a rewire, changing to an 18th Edition Consumer Unit will offer some additional protection.

Whatever the reason, upgrading an old fuseboard to a consumer unit incorporating surge protection and RCBO’s, is a job that many people will now have to consider at some point.

The above points may have been raised by another tradesperson in your home such as a builder if you are having a large building project undertaken.

Who can upgrade a fuseboard?

Please DO NOT be tempted into hiring anyone who IS NOT a qualified electrician to carry out electrical work in your Dartford home, even if they offer to carry out the work for a fraction of the price because 'they know all about electrics'.

Its not just the price that counts, a competent electrician will be fully qualified, registered with a competent persons scheme such as Napit and be fully insured to do the job AND have a lengthy guarantee on the job for years to come.

If the person fitting the consumer unit is not qualified, not registered and is not insured, it really is better to walk away. These people are not interested in your safety or future well being, they are only interested in your cash!

Still, over the years I have come across the same objections about price when quoting for a replacement fuse board. They’re usually along the lines of...

“I can buy one myself for £80 in at the local DIY shop”

“My mate that works for XYZ can do it for £xxx.”

“I’ve had a quote from the builder and he reckons he can do it for £xxx.”

“Steve down the pub said if I get the board he’ll fit it for £50”

Please don't believe anyone who tells you, you don't need a certificate or disregards the importance of certification. Not only will an electrical certificate give you peace of mind that your Dartford home is safe, it is also an important document that is needed should you wish to sell or let your home in the future.

It is not simply a piece of paper signed by the electrician, it is a legal document and the electrician needs to carry out several tests on the installation before they can issue you with the Electrical Installation Certificate.

The Electrician who carries out the installation should also be the person who issues the certificate. BEWARE some 'electricians' employ someone else to issue the certificate. This practice is NOT APPROVED and means the electrician you have used is not part of a registered persons scheme such as NAPIT.

Cost of a fuseboard upgrade

So having obtained a quote from a genuine electrician, you might be wondering how they arrive at the cost.

When you ask an Electrician to quote for a Fuse Board/New Consumer Unit, there are a number of things they will take into consideration, therefore costs will vary. You should be aware of these:

The materials involved

You can now go to a high street DIY shop and buy new Consumer Units for a reasonable amount of money, they are often cheaper brands that will come preloaded with RCDs & MCBs, which may or may not be the right rating for your circuits. You will have to add to that the cost of Meter Tails and the fact that if anything goes wrong with the unit you will need to pay to have it removed and a new one refitted.

On the other hand your electrician will have accounted for all necessary items required such as RCBO’s, Surge Protection, fire rated grommets, meter tails with gland and a new isolation switch to install after the meter. Plus because they supply the board it will be of good quality and if anything goes wrong with the unit they will have to replace it at no cost to you. You only Pay Once.

Checking the installation is in a safe working condition.

Before the fuse board is changed, the electrician will need to carry out a test and inspection of the installation to make sure it is safe for the works to be undertaken. This will highlight if there are any underlying faults that could cause tripping issues once the new consumer unit is installed. 

It is important to remember that by replacing the fuseboard the electrician is taking responsibility for the entire installation and so they need to ensure it is safe to do so.

Any faults that are found during this test will be explained to the customer along with what is required to rectify the faults and the additional cost involved. Everything should always be clear to the customer during the process so there are no hidden charges at the end.

Again someone who is quoting below market value will not have factored in time for testing prior to carrying out the work and you run two serious risks here. The first is that you are likely to be presented with an “Extras” bill at the end which could be substantially higher than your original quote or secondly the “electrician” will bodge the job in order to make it work so they can get paid the original fee, the result is you are left with a potentially dangerous installation.

The time involved for installation

This will depend on the size of the property, number of circuits and location of the old fuse board. Stripping out the old, marking up cables ensuring they are in good condition and long enough then installing the New Consumer Unit.

The time involved in Testing once the board is replaced

All of the circuits in the property will have to be tested, there is a series of predefined tests that must be applied to each of the circuits, and the results of this testing form a big part of the certification you will receive.

This is perhaps the most important part of changing a Fuse Board, however it is often the part that is not carried out correctly or at all by those who charge below market value for installing a new Consumer Unit. Often they will make up the test results and fake the certificate, because they haven’t allowed time in their cost to do it correctly or they just are not capable of testing to the correct standard.

Certification and Registration

Electricians have to comply with strict regulations, a change of consumer unit is a serious undertaking and must meet all of the relevant Standards and Regulations, in order to comply with these, electricians will issue Certification for both the Electrical Installation and Notification of the works to Building Control. Apart from the fact that doing this correctly takes time, it also requires the electrician to be registered with a competent persons scheme such as NAPIT and all the associated costs that go with that, such as ongoing training, insurance, membership fees etc.

Profit

And finally we get to Profit, which is after all why any Electrician is in Business. A good electrician who runs a good business will have built in a profit margin into their quote for the job, this is how they stay in business and can provide a good service to their clients, and please remember we have to put a little away for a rainy day and for such things as pensions.

Your cheap quote electrician, will not have factored in profit, because in their mind it is pretty much all profit, they will supply a cheap quality consumer unit, make up the test results, hide any faults that show up and then tell you they prefer to be paid in cash. They are likely not registered, not insured and possibly not even qualified. When anything goes wrong you have absolutely no comeback.

Reliable Fuseboard Upgrade Electrician in Dartford

When you take all of the above into consideration, you will appreciate that there is a big difference between what you can buy a Consumer Unit for off-the-shelf at the local DIY Chain, and the cost of a fully installed, fully certified and fully guaranteed Unit. You should ask yourself when you get a cheap quote “How can they do it so Cheap?”...”What is not getting done?”...

Most reputable electricians would agree that anything below £700+vat is too cheap and something is being missed.
Everyone is looking to make savings in the current economic climate and looking at where potential savings can be made. However cheap often means the quality isn't what you would want when considering the electrical safety of your home and that of your family.

If you are searching for a reliable, experienced and NAPIT registered electrician to carry out a fuseboard upgrade at you Dartford area home, get in touch with us at SJ Supplies.