I would suggest that an uninformed Joe Public CANNOT identify a good electrician from a bad one, and any attempt to try will simply be leading themselves up the garden path.
As you say, they may form a general idea of some basics of professionalism, character etc, however i'm sure we've all heard of or dealt with cowboys who come across REALLY well, talk the talk, look the part etc.
Theres a slightly amusing exchange that goes on here every time someone asks electrical questions, usually involving comments like "why dont you ask your electrician". Now i can see one side of that, is an attempt to stop folk trying to jump in and DIY stuff thats over their heads, especially as the same old excuses are rolled out ("Hes on holiday and i cant ask him" etc etc). On the other, if you explain to someone how somethings supposed to be done, it goes a long way to allowing them to identify BS coming out the mouth of a so-called professional. Its also multi-faceted, in sofaras some electricians wouldnt like working for someone who knows a little, and is perhaps trying to "tell them how to do their job"
A personal example: A few years ago i moved into a rented property and the electrics were a mess. After some chat with the landlord he got a spark out to sort it. I had a good chat with the guy and he came across really well. He recognised that i new a bit about what was going on, we discussed the supply to the garage/workshop and he said he'd stick in a nice 40A supply to give me the power i needed to run the welder, compressor and other tools i had out there. I got a good feeling about him and was pleased he was doing me a favour with the decent garage supply, when he could have ran a 16A feed out to one socket and one light.
Then when he started work the cracks began to show. To begin with it was small things; the circuits all had loads of spare cable under the floor boards near the CU, so ideal for easy retermination, however he insisted on hauling thru ALL the slack and cutting several meters off each cable before terminating it into the new board. Probably wanted the scrap metal, but ofcourse fks up any future possible changes and means the cables are now all pulled tight under the floor access hatch which makes getting into the crawl space a bloody nightmare. The SWA to the garage he ran along the top of a fence, which isnt really allowed. There was a socket beside the CU which was originally spurred off something stupid, but he forgot about it and ended up taking a spur off the ring main MCB to power it, rather than incorporating it into the ring like it should have been. And most importantly, the downstairs ring failed the insulation resistance check, but "the RCD stayed in so it must be ok". After some conversation he insisted that it was probably just an ariel booster or something that was still plugged in, even though it obviously wasnt. There was also a double stacked RCD, as the garage feed came off an RCD protected way in the house CU. He told me this made it safer, clearly more BS.
Now overall i looked at the end result and it annoyed me as a shoddy job. However to Joe Public, it would be great. They'd never have noticed the issues i picked up on, would be happy with the nice new CU, RCD's everywhere and a decent garage supply.
- Anything I've missed
