What electrical work costs in York My published rates, and how I price everything else

Two rules run through all of it

I will not publish a total for a job I have not seen. A total given blind is either a guess or it carries enough margin to cover the guess, and you pay for that either way.

Nothing lands on your bill that you have not already agreed. The estimate is the price. If something changes on site, you hear about it before it happens, not after.

What is charged by the hour, and by whom

My hourly rate is £60 plus VAT. If a second person comes with me on work charged by the hour, they are charged at their own lower rate rather than at mine, and that rate is shown on your estimate before the work starts. On a fixed-price job the price on your estimate is the price, whoever comes with me.

That is worth reading twice, because it is the part people expect to go the other way. A second pair of hands on site does not double the hourly rate. The second person is charged at the second person's rate. And on a fixed-price job a second person costs you nothing extra at all, because you already have the price in writing.

Minimum charge

My minimum charge is £95 plus VAT (£114 including VAT). No visit comes to less than that, however short the job turns out to be.

The minimum applies to the visit rather than to each job. If you have two or three small jobs waiting, it is worth having them done in the same visit, because you only pay the minimum once.

Fault finding

Fault finding is charged by the hour at £60 plus VAT (£72 including VAT), capped at two hours. If I have not found it by then, I stop and tell you what I think it will take, so the bill cannot run away with you.

Investigation has to be charged by the hour, because nobody can tell you in advance how long a fault will take to find. The cap is what stops that becoming a blank cheque. At two hours I put the meters down, tell you what I have ruled out and what I now think it is, and you decide what happens next. The repair is priced separately, once the fault has a name. More on how that works on the fault finding page.

Consumer unit upgrades

There is no published price. I price it once I have seen the board, because what sits behind the board decides most of the work. Circuits are what get connected and tested, so circuits are what the price follows, not the number of bedrooms. Count the switches in your existing consumer unit that actually feed something, not the number of spaces in it. Boards are usually fitted with room to spare, and every one I have tested has had between one and three empty or blanked-off ways. The main switch is not a circuit either, and neither is an RCD sitting at the head of a group. The detail is on the consumer unit upgrade page.

EICR

An EICR in York is £180 plus VAT (£216 including VAT) for a consumer unit of up to six circuits, then £15 plus VAT (£18 including VAT) for each circuit above six.

Outside York there is a distance charge on top:

• More than 6 miles from York: £15 plus VAT (£18 including VAT)
• More than 10 miles from York: £30 plus VAT (£36 including VAT)

So an eight-circuit house 8 miles out of York is £180 plus VAT for the first six circuits, £30 plus VAT for the two extra ones and £15 plus VAT for the distance, which comes to £225 plus VAT (£270 including VAT). Count the switches on your board that feed something and you can work your own figure out before you ring me. The full breakdown is on the EICR cost page, and what the inspection involves is on the EICR page.

Emergency call-outs

I don't offer emergency or out-of-hours call-outs. If something is dangerous, switch off at the main switch if it's safe to. For a power cut, ring 105, and for fire or smoke, ring 999. Then get in touch and I'll book in fault finding, charged as above.

The jobs I scope on the visit

These all have their own page, and none of them carries a headline figure, for the same reason each time: the price is set by what is already there.

• House rewire. The survey sets the figure, and anything offered before the survey is not worth the paper. House rewiring in York →
• EV charger. The charger, the cable route and what your consumer unit can take all move the price. EV charger installation →
• Electric shower. A like-for-like swap on a sound existing circuit is the cheaper case. A new circuit costs more, and the cable run is what moves it. Electric shower installation →
• PAT testing. Priced per item, and worth batching into one visit. PAT testing →

How the money works

You get a written estimate first. Nothing starts until you have it in front of you and you have said yes to it.

• Materials and certification costs appear as their own lines on the estimate rather than being buried inside the labour, so you can see what the parts come to.
• VAT is charged at 20 per cent.
• Certificate costs are passed through at what they cost me, shown as their own line on the estimate.
• Invoices are payable within 7 days.
• I work Monday to Friday, 8am to 4pm.

The longer version of all this is on how I work and what things cost, and the summary rates sit on the pricing page. The contract you sign is on the terms page, and what happens if something I fitted goes wrong is on the warranty page.

Questions

What is your hourly rate?

My hourly rate is £60 plus VAT. If a second person comes with me on work charged by the hour, they are charged at their own lower rate rather than at mine, and that rate is shown on your estimate before the work starts. On a fixed-price job the price on your estimate is the price, whoever comes with me.

Do you have a minimum charge?

My minimum charge is £95 plus VAT (£114 including VAT). No visit comes to less than that, however short the job turns out to be. The minimum applies to the visit rather than to each job, so if you have two or three small jobs it is worth having them done in the same visit.

Does a second person on site double the hourly rate?

No. A second person is charged at their own lower rate, not at mine, and that applies to work charged by the hour. On a fixed-price job the price on your estimate is the price, whoever comes with me, so a second pair of hands costs you nothing extra.

Are your prices with or without VAT?

Prices are shown excluding VAT, with the VAT-inclusive figure alongside for household customers, so you can see what you will actually pay. VAT is charged at 20 per cent.

How much is fault finding, and can it run away with me?

Fault finding is charged by the hour at £60 plus VAT (£72 including VAT), capped at two hours. If I have not found it by then, I stop and tell you what I think it will take, so the bill cannot run away with you.

How much does an EICR cost in York?

An EICR in York is £180 plus VAT (£216 including VAT) for a consumer unit of up to six circuits, then £15 plus VAT (£18 including VAT) for each circuit above six. Outside York there is a distance charge on top: £15 plus VAT if you are more than 6 miles from York, and £30 plus VAT if you are more than 10 miles.

How do you price a consumer unit upgrade?

There is no published price: I price it once I have seen the board. Count the switches in your existing consumer unit that actually feed something, not the number of spaces in it. Boards are usually fitted with room to spare, and every one I have tested has had between one and three empty or blanked-off ways. The main switch is not a circuit either, and neither is an RCD sitting at the head of a group. Or send me a photo of the board and I will count them for you.

What do you charge on materials?

Materials and certification costs are shown on your estimate as their own lines rather than being buried inside the labour, so you can see exactly what the parts and the paperwork come to before you say yes.

When do I pay, and what days do you work?

Invoices are payable within 7 days. I work Monday to Friday, 8am to 4pm.

Can you give me a price over the phone?

For anything on the published rate list, yes. For everything else I need to see it, because the price is set by the cable routes, the condition of what is already there, and what your consumer unit can take. I would rather spend twenty minutes looking than give you a number I have to take back.

Why does an hourly rate look like a lot?

There is an honest answer to that and it is longer than a line. I wrote it up in why electricians seem expensive.

Will you match a cheaper price?

No. But I will tell you honestly if the cheaper price is for the same work, and sometimes it is.