I need some advice please.
We have recently bought a property and are having some major renovation work done. We aren't living in the house as we're having a new loft conversion, bathrooms, extension & kitchen, so the whole place has been gutted. We are temporarily living around 30 miles from site.
We were quoted £4,500 for electrical work and it was listed in the spec the work to be undertaken. We're still in the preliminary stages and to our surprise, the electrical switches & sockets have been done first (new brushed chrome ones!). Is this normal practice? However, this isn't my main issue, but I'm mentioning it as this I guess is when the initial alarm bells started ringing.
A few more bits & pieces of wiring were apparently done, before we were told that the electrician needed to do a complete re-wire of the house. We have been been given an ESTIMATE for this of a further £2,600 + £500 max to put walls right. We thought this would have been something spotted initially by the electrician and factored in to our original quote. However, our builder did the original quote and then got the electrician on board to carry out the work, who has apparently himself just discovered this, at this later stage. Although the consumer unit was new when we bought the house, it may have been assumed that all wiring was too. The house was built in 1969. We have spoken to an electrician whom we know to get a professional opinion and he can't understand why a) the electrician did not run an initial test to ascertain that re-wiring was needed first of all, prior to any other work being carried out and b) why he is fitting light switches & sockets first (although this second point has become slightly irrelevant since discovering the re-wiring situation).
We asked the builder why the re-wiring wasn't initially discovered and the response was a blunt : "there is no way I would have known, I do not not have x-ray vision through walls, it's only when you work on a house you discover these things". He got extremely defensive and missed the point that we were actually referring more to the electrician's work more than anything. He also turned it around by saying "you said yourself that the consumer unit was new when you bought the house" as if I am an expert and this was a justifiable reason!
The issue is, I don't think I can argue that the £4,500 for electrical work should soak up the re-wiring costs as re-wiring is not in the agreed spec, as they keep pointing out. However, I do not know what they have done for £4,500 in the first place, if they are then adding on £2,600 estimate for re-wiring!
I then asked for a cost breakdown for the re-wiring costs, so I could see what was being done for the extra money. I was bullied into agreeing to the re-wiring job first as the electrician was onsite Monday to do a 'few bits & pieces' and I was led to believe he would also start the re-wiring then, even though we only found out about the re-wiring costs on Saturday (2 days before)!! I have asked 5 times for a breakdown (this is all been recorded by email) but my requests are being ignored.
Oh, and if this is needs to get more complicated, the builder is FAMILY. We are now realising we have been lured into a false sense of security with him. Conversations at the start were 'don't worry about this and that, we can sort that out, we're family etc', now he's playing hardball, quoting the spec and the contract left, right & centre, and all these extra costs are being thrown at us without any back-up. He is being extremely cagey and in some cases aggressive about things, as he knows he's not doing things right by us. We have been told that he is getting "p***ed off" with us apparently micro-managing them, when I think all we've wanted is just a standard level of communication and clarity on what extra is being done as it has a financial impact on us. We are feeling like mugs because of it, even though normally we're not gullible people, but feel we're being taken for a ride by our own flesh & blood, and it's a huge breach of trust. It goes without saying this has been one of the worst period of our lives, so very stressful and as we're not on site it makes things even worse. Their communications skills are abysmal. We feel to much of an extent, helpless. Of course we agreed a cheap cost (yet still 6 figures!), however they asked us if we wanted them to do it, not the either way round, and we were getting 'family rates'. Now there's all these extra costs with no justification, and now we're paying for not being more savvy at the start. But then we would have been accused of not trusting them 'as family' if that was the case, so you can't win! So, you could say we feel rather scuppered. If we tell them where to go, we will NEVER get the work completed with the budget we have.
There are a million things we're not happy with, and I could be on here forever further digressing from my initial question, so if anyone advise on this scenario with electrical costs, I'd be very grateful!
Thanks
We have recently bought a property and are having some major renovation work done. We aren't living in the house as we're having a new loft conversion, bathrooms, extension & kitchen, so the whole place has been gutted. We are temporarily living around 30 miles from site.
We were quoted £4,500 for electrical work and it was listed in the spec the work to be undertaken. We're still in the preliminary stages and to our surprise, the electrical switches & sockets have been done first (new brushed chrome ones!). Is this normal practice? However, this isn't my main issue, but I'm mentioning it as this I guess is when the initial alarm bells started ringing.
A few more bits & pieces of wiring were apparently done, before we were told that the electrician needed to do a complete re-wire of the house. We have been been given an ESTIMATE for this of a further £2,600 + £500 max to put walls right. We thought this would have been something spotted initially by the electrician and factored in to our original quote. However, our builder did the original quote and then got the electrician on board to carry out the work, who has apparently himself just discovered this, at this later stage. Although the consumer unit was new when we bought the house, it may have been assumed that all wiring was too. The house was built in 1969. We have spoken to an electrician whom we know to get a professional opinion and he can't understand why a) the electrician did not run an initial test to ascertain that re-wiring was needed first of all, prior to any other work being carried out and b) why he is fitting light switches & sockets first (although this second point has become slightly irrelevant since discovering the re-wiring situation).
We asked the builder why the re-wiring wasn't initially discovered and the response was a blunt : "there is no way I would have known, I do not not have x-ray vision through walls, it's only when you work on a house you discover these things". He got extremely defensive and missed the point that we were actually referring more to the electrician's work more than anything. He also turned it around by saying "you said yourself that the consumer unit was new when you bought the house" as if I am an expert and this was a justifiable reason!
The issue is, I don't think I can argue that the £4,500 for electrical work should soak up the re-wiring costs as re-wiring is not in the agreed spec, as they keep pointing out. However, I do not know what they have done for £4,500 in the first place, if they are then adding on £2,600 estimate for re-wiring!
I then asked for a cost breakdown for the re-wiring costs, so I could see what was being done for the extra money. I was bullied into agreeing to the re-wiring job first as the electrician was onsite Monday to do a 'few bits & pieces' and I was led to believe he would also start the re-wiring then, even though we only found out about the re-wiring costs on Saturday (2 days before)!! I have asked 5 times for a breakdown (this is all been recorded by email) but my requests are being ignored.
Oh, and if this is needs to get more complicated, the builder is FAMILY. We are now realising we have been lured into a false sense of security with him. Conversations at the start were 'don't worry about this and that, we can sort that out, we're family etc', now he's playing hardball, quoting the spec and the contract left, right & centre, and all these extra costs are being thrown at us without any back-up. He is being extremely cagey and in some cases aggressive about things, as he knows he's not doing things right by us. We have been told that he is getting "p***ed off" with us apparently micro-managing them, when I think all we've wanted is just a standard level of communication and clarity on what extra is being done as it has a financial impact on us. We are feeling like mugs because of it, even though normally we're not gullible people, but feel we're being taken for a ride by our own flesh & blood, and it's a huge breach of trust. It goes without saying this has been one of the worst period of our lives, so very stressful and as we're not on site it makes things even worse. Their communications skills are abysmal. We feel to much of an extent, helpless. Of course we agreed a cheap cost (yet still 6 figures!), however they asked us if we wanted them to do it, not the either way round, and we were getting 'family rates'. Now there's all these extra costs with no justification, and now we're paying for not being more savvy at the start. But then we would have been accused of not trusting them 'as family' if that was the case, so you can't win! So, you could say we feel rather scuppered. If we tell them where to go, we will NEVER get the work completed with the budget we have.
There are a million things we're not happy with, and I could be on here forever further digressing from my initial question, so if anyone advise on this scenario with electrical costs, I'd be very grateful!
Thanks
