07/05/2023
Bank Holiday Weekend. Phone call on Saturday 6pm and a lady has lost her power and heating. We don't have an on-call policy.
In April I received a voicemail whilst in a pub basement with no signal from the same person. I checked later on, at home they had found an electrician and they said they were fine but now clearly not.
Problem: Same as April, all their sockets and boiler lost power and wouldn't reset. (The customer was told the boiler thermostat needed replacing and was causing the issue then paid £300 for a new HIVE system as well which certainly wasn't near the actual issue)
Within 30 mins I was on the premises to help, testing the circuit trying to find the issue. When I left at 10:30pm, I had found the problem but parts were required.
2 Kitchen sockets and heating were isolated until the morning, not too bad for a May day.
Next morning, out to buy parts, split the ring main sockets / boiler across 2 seperate circuits, heating back on and tested, all sockets back on and tested. Faulty cable isolated with no need to replace.
The last 2 electricians that went, charged £135 (little did the customer know it was PLUS VAT so 20% more) per HOUR as it was an emergency and hadn't actually fixed the issue. As I'm local and the lady was a single parent of two children and mostly blind, I charged my normal rate out of hours and emergency (though I have never charged such an hourly rate ever). Not a lot of people would be so kind.
Everything fixed (also now complies with regulations due to the kitchen not complying to ANY regulations (spur off a spur found))
Cost:-
7hrs labour (reduced to) £200
Parts £47.48
Coronation bank holiday weekend across a Saturday & Sunday.
Follow-up call to check all is good 5hrs later.
Thats local difference!
If it happens to you, think hard but please have a little patience, I'll get back to you same day. ☺️
