She will then decide that the price is too expensive and tells you she’ll buy the doors herself. Books you for Monday to fit them. You turn up. Only one door is on site and that is actually a 2’6″ door but the frame size is 2’9″.

Day of work lost.

She will then decide that the price is too expensive and tells you she’ll buy the doors herself. Books you for Monday to fit them. You turn up. Only one door is on site and that is actually a 2’6″ door but the frame size is 2’9″.
Day of work lost.

And why can’t you reuse the old hinges??

Exactly like that..

Called to fit a couple of 4 panel pine doors a few months ago. Lady already has the doors..gave a price.t back
Turn up
One door is so warped from where she’s stored it I had to take it back along with the other that was damaged.
Tubular mortice latches had the wrong size set-back putting the edge of the handle plate over the edge of the stile. Wrong size hinges meaning the doorstops had to be replaced…I charged a bit extra but got nowhere near my day-rate..so basically went to work for a loss.

Oldschool…You’re obviously not a craftsman/tradesperson…

Why would you use 20 year old hinges on a new door?

Why would you use 20 year old hinges on a new door?

I think he was quoting the customers words.

Back to the OP – it seems like a reasonable enough quote for a decent tradesman doing the job professionally and taking the risk involved in hooking up to something he’s had nothing to do with installing.

I drove a 100 mile round trip early Saturday morning to look at a job with no guarantee of getting it.
I easily spend a full day each week doing ‘unpaid’ stuff, probably more.
No sick pay.
No paid holidays.
Dangerous work.
Mucky.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way 🙂

We paid 350 for a new consumer unit and a new circuit for the kitchen so seems expensive to me. For comparison we also had a quote of 1050 for exactly the same job.

63 Amps?
What are you doing? Fitting Climate control and welding equipment?
Sounds alot but probably isnt really. SWA isnt cheap plus all the neccessary fittings.
You will be paying for a man to screw scews into wallplugs for some of the time . Either accept this as part of the job, or find a friendly sparkie to tell you how many fixings you need and spend time screwing screws in yourself.

tymbian – Member
Oldschool…You’re obviously not a craftsman/tradesperson…
Why would you use 20 year old hinges on a new door?

Sorry if it wasn’t obvious, but I was taking the pish.
My background is very much craft/trade based.

Sorry oldschool…no offense intended. Didn’t get the jist of it.

Just checked my garage is 63 Amps as well. Screwfix do a garage consumer unit for £4o ish , plus sockets , lights , clamps, glands , switches
You getting an alarm as well?

OK. If it was my job then it would look something like this:

Consumer unit in the house. Rework the board so that there is a non RCD protected way in the consumer unit protected by a 40A MCB. There is no need for RCDs on a distribution circuit and it will ensure that there is no nuisance tripping in the house if a trip occurs in the garage. Can’t say how I’d get armour to consumer unit as I can’t see enough on the picture but would expect a neat, properly glanded job with no single insulaton showing and hopefully some trunking used.

Armoured cable from the house to the garage. Size would be 10mm2 3 core. Big but the cost difference between 2.5mm for a 10-15m run is probably less than 50 quid and it will a) provide more than enough capacity for any future demands. b) ensure that should your earthing system ever change from TNS to PME the cpc will act as a bond and there will be no need to fit an earth rod at the garage. c) its cheaper to do it now than retrofit it in a few years time when you realise you undersized it. Cable should be at a depth of 600mm backfilled 200mm then warning tape over the top. I would either run down your wall and underground all the way or, if digging a trench that far is too much aggro, clip to the surface along the wall and bury the last bit past the steps.

Garage. Metal consumer unit to 2016 regs with properly glanded cable entries that provide fire resistance. Preferably a minimum of a couple of spare usable ways to give capacity for the future. Your choice, but my preference would be a main switch and then 2 RCBOs – 32A for power and 6A for lighting. RCBOs will ensure that if the sockets trip the lights stay on. If you want it a bit cheaper then a 30mA RCD as the main switch and 32A/6A MCBs.

Circuits – 4mm for power run as a radial. 1.5mm for lights. Double switching between back door and front door for lights. Because a garage has lawn mowers, tools etc. being moved around cables and accessories can be vulnerable, I’d run all cables in 20mm round conduit and use metalclad accessories to provide protection fron damage. Arguably over engineered but thats the way I prefer to do things. Others will just run T+E to a socket.

Outside socket so you can vacuum the car without having the door open? Your choice.

Cheap option would be 1 or 2 5′ batten lights. However, I would be looking to discuss what your intentions are regarding work surfaces because I’d like to provide the infrastructure now for illuminating them.

First and second fix all cables and accessories. Dead tests (R1R2, Insulation Resistance) Live Tests (Ze, Zs RCD disconnection times). Certificate produced to BS7671 and notification to local Building Control.

Ask whoever quotes you how they’ll do the job or tell him what you want as per above.

Watch out for:
a) running it off an MCB which is protected on one of the existing 2 RCDs
b) insufficient sizing of distribution cable
c) using twin and earth rather than armour.
d) plastic garage consumer units and no expansion capacity.
e) no certificates/building control notification.
f) armour not buried deep enough or not properly glanded (armour just cut off, not in a proper gland).

As per my previous post I still think 2 days minimum with a price between £500-£800 is probably what you’re looking at. Rates vary area to area so its hard to be specific.

Any issues either post here or email me and I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.

Rich.

Rich – cheers for that, as I say I’m not questioning the cost, just whether it is ball park, which it looks like it is top end of.

Would be happy for you to quote if you work north Bradford 😀

What are you doing? Fitting Climate control and welding equipment?

The job needs doing right as one of the sockets in the garage will be used to charge a hybrid car, that’s at least 32amp by itself.

Ok. That might change things slightly as there are rules about hybrid charging points that I’m not fully up to speed on. I’ll take a look later and advise. What might then be required is to split the incoming tails and provide a seperate fused supply across.

Cable sizing might need revising but even if you went for 16mm armour I don’t think it would be prohibitively expensive over that distance.

Rich.

Rich – why would it change anything?

The car just plugs in to a normal 3 pin socket.

I was looking at a dedicated charge point but didnt think it was worth the extra £200 cost for saving 1hr of charge time.

The existing quote I have is from a company that install charge points, and they are only quoting for 1 cable, 1 Non RCD Protected 2 way consumer unit, mcb protect 63amp cable, consumer unit in garage with mcbs for lighting, sockets, end EV non RCD.

2 x 2 sockets, LED strip lighting.

Anyhow, don’t waste your time on this, if your not based around my way.

A quick internet search brings this up ChargeMaster

I’m assuming you’re looking at something similar to the 7kW system. 7kW is just over 30A so you could go with my initial design although I’d probably look to put a slightly bigger MCB in – 50A if it’s available. You’d probably be fine with a 40A MCB but for when you’re charging the car and using the electric lawn mower from the outside socket.

In the consumer unit in the garage I’d add an additional RCBO specifically for the charging point. 32A should do it but you could go up to a 40, but only if you’ve got something bigger than 40 in the main board.

A neater solution would be to insert an isolator after the meter, then split the cables so that one set goes to the existing consumer unit and the other set via a fused isolator (KMF80 or equivalent) out to the garage. Get an 80A main fuse fitted by your electricity supplier and a 60A fuse in the isolator. 16mm armour to the garage and you could weld to your heart’s content whilst charging the car. (10mm may be ok but it’s a fraction undersized if you have a 63A fuse which are more common – I need to do some calculations to confirm it.).

If possible get the spec. of the charging point you’re planning to use and show this to your electrician. He should be able to articulate the design he’ll use to satisfy the requirements. If he can’t or won’t then look elsewhere.

EDIT.
Just seen your post above. If you’re not using a charging point, just a 13A socket then you’d be good to go with my first design. If you might change your mind in the future then do the futureproofing now.

paid for themselves to get trained and the necessary qualifications in order to be able to do work that can legally be signed off in order to make it safe from potential hazards

This is one of those things that annoys me. There’s nothing magical in a piece of paper that somehow makes either an installation or installer “safe”.

I’m also amazed at the number of people who won’t work on electrics (one death per decade or so) but will happily work on their car (a handful of deaths per year).

It proves that the installation or whatever part was worked on is safe. Ie, the full complement of tests were done and no corners were cut and the work was carried out by someone with relevant experience and qualifications.

I’m happy that unskilled people are scared to work on electrical installations, after the horrific diy bodge jobs that I’ve seen over the years. It might only be the odd death by electrocution but how many house fires etc are caused by loose connections and overloaded cables?

“This is one of those things that annoys me. There’s nothing magical in a piece of paper that somehow makes either an installation or installer “safe”.”

Maybe not, but it does signify that the person has at least attended proper training and been shown how to do things properly and safely, and hopefully indicates they are knowledgable about potential hazards etc, rather than some cowboy who thinks they know what they’re doing/is after a quick buck.

As per my previous post I still think 2 days minimum with a price between £500-£800 is probably what you’re looking at. Rates vary area to area so its hard to be specific.

But you seem to have factored in trench digging but the OP said he was getting driveway redone.

The bottom line with the original £600 quote is it depends on exactly what activities they are actually doing for that money. It it includes fitting out the garage then it is better value than just terminating a cable into consumer units at eitherend.

One option for OP is to do get the driveway contractor to lay a roped smoothwall 50mm duct from house to garage, then you don’t have the hassle of co-ordinating the civil and electrical contractors.