Choosing an electrician
How to know if an electrician is as good as they say
You cannot judge electrical work by looking at it, and that is not your fault. This is how to check anyone properly in about a minute, what good practice actually looks like, and what you are entitled to. Check me the same way.
If this has already happened to you
I want to say this first, because it is the reason most people never ask.
If you have already paid someone and something about it felt wrong afterwards, it does not mean you were careless or naive. Electrical work is genuinely difficult to judge from the outside. The whole point of a badge on a website is that you are supposed to be able to trust it. Nobody looks at a finished switch and sees what is behind it.
So none of what follows is a telling off. It is the set of things I would want my own mum to know, written down. And if you would rather just send me a photo and ask, that works too, and it costs nothing.
You cannot see electrical work
This is the part that makes electrics different from almost everything else you buy. A finished job looks identical whether it was done properly or not. Same switch plate, same wall, same light coming on when you press it. The part that matters is behind the plaster, inside the board, and in the test results.
I am not making that up to sound important. I write up real examples of it under What I Found: a protective device fitted the wrong way round for the job it was doing, an earth conductor that had come apart inside an isolator on a live system, a mismatched breaker in a board designed to work as a matched set, a ring circuit that had been cut and half of it quietly repurposed. Every one of those was on an installation that looked completely fine to the person who owned it. Somebody qualified did each of them.
That is why the paperwork matters far more than it sounds like it should. The certificate and its test results are the only visible evidence of the invisible part. When someone does not give you one, you have not just lost a piece of admin. You have lost the only proof you were ever going to get.
Check anyone in about a minute, before they come
There is one thing worth doing above all the others, it is free, and almost nobody knows it exists.
Go to electricalcompetentperson.co.uk and search by company name or postcode. Everyone listed there is registered with a government-authorised scheme, has met the entry requirements, and is assessed on an ongoing basis. If the person coming to your house is not on it, that is worth a question before they arrive rather than after.
I would rather you did. I am Bright Sparks of York Ltd, company number 14752293, and I am an NICEIC Approved Contractor. Look me up on the register before you look anyone else up, so you can see what a live registration looks like on screen. Then apply exactly the same test to whoever else you are considering, including whoever you were about to call instead of me.
A logo on a van is artwork. A logo on a directory profile is a claim someone made. Neither of them is a current registration, and neither tells you whether the individual who actually turns up is the person the checks were run on. The register is the fact. Check the fact, not the badge, and it takes less time than reading the reviews does.
Trade directories do run checks, and they will tell you what they check. But their commercial relationship is with the tradesperson, not with you, and the vetting happens when someone joins rather than on the morning they come to your house. Look at Google reviews and anywhere else independent as well, and read the ordinary three and four star ones rather than the extremes.
What good actually looks like
Not a feeling. Specific things that either happen or do not.
Before anyone starts
- You get an idea of cost before the work, not after it. Not always an exact figure, because some jobs genuinely cannot be priced until something is opened up. But you should know the basis: the rate, what is included, and what would make it more.
- Someone talks you through the options. There is nearly always more than one way to do a job, at more than one price. You should hear about them and pick, rather than be handed a single answer.
- It goes in writing. Happy to discuss it on the phone but reluctant to put it in an email is a pattern, and it is a pattern for a reason.
- You know who is coming. If a different person turns up to the one who priced it, ask.
While the work is happening
- If it is going to cost more, you hear about it before it is done, not on the invoice. Finding something unexpected is normal and honest. Deciding on your behalf that you will pay for it is not.
- The fault gets diagnosed before parts get changed. Swapping a component and hoping is not repair. If someone replaces a part without telling you what was actually wrong, you may still have the fault and now you have paid for a part as well.
- Things get explained in words you understand. Anyone can explain what they are doing in plain English. Jargon used as a wall usually means something.
After it is finished
- You get a certificate with test results on it. A certificate with no readings is not evidence of anything.
- Even small jobs get one. A Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate covers additions and alterations to an existing circuit that do not run to a new circuit, and it covers replacing accessories such as a switch or a light fitting. A separate one should be issued for each circuit worked on. Changing a switch is exactly the kind of job it exists for.
- You get an invoice. With a company name, a company number, and a way to pay that leaves a record. Cash in hand feels like a favour and quietly removes your paper trail, your warranty and your comeback.
- Payment is not demanded on the doorstep before the paperwork exists. My own habit is that the certificate is filed before I invoice. That order round is deliberate.
- You know what happens if something goes wrong later. Ask what the warranty is and who you ring.
The signs that something is off
None of these on its own proves anything. Two or three together is worth pausing over.
- No price given at all, or a number with no breakdown behind it
- Nothing in writing, and a reluctance to put it there
- No company number, no address, no trace beyond a mobile number
- A discount for cash
- Arrives for one job, finds three more, and wants a decision today
- Urgency that belongs to them rather than to you, such as a price that is only good this afternoon
- Work started before any price was agreed
- Money asked for up front, in a large amount, before anything has happened
- No certificate, or a certificate with no test results
- An invoice that never arrives, so there is nothing with a date on it
- Any answer to a reasonable question that makes you feel awkward for asking
That last one matters more than the rest. A good tradesperson expects to be asked, because everybody sensible asks.
You are allowed to say no
I have put this in its own section because a lot of people genuinely do not know it, and it is the thing that gets used against them.
It is your home. You are allowed to ask for the price in writing before anything starts. You are allowed to say you would like to think about it. You are allowed to ask someone to come back another day. You are allowed to say no to extra work you did not ask for, on the spot, without a reason. And you are allowed to ask someone to leave your house.
You do not have to be confrontational about any of it. I would like to think about it and I will let you know tomorrow is a complete sentence, and it is not rude.
If saying any of that to someone standing in your hallway feels hard, that is a completely normal thing to feel, and it is precisely what a pushy person is relying on. It is also a good reason to sort the checks out before anyone is in the house, when it is just you and a phone.
What the law actually gives you
Worth knowing, because it is stronger than most people expect.
The work has to be done properly. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 treats every contract for a service as including a term that it will be carried out with reasonable care and skill. That is about how the job was done, not just how it ended up.
If no price was agreed, you owe a reasonable one. Where the contract does not fix a price, the same Act treats it as including a term that you must pay a reasonable price and no more, and what counts as reasonable is a question of fact rather than whatever figure you are presented with. That is exactly the situation someone is in when a number appears at the end of a job that was never priced at the start.
You can usually change your mind about work agreed in your home. An agreement made in your house is normally an off-premises contract, and those normally carry a 14 day cancellation period. If the trader never gave you the written information about that right, the cancellation window can extend by up to a further 12 months. There are exceptions, including for some urgent repairs you specifically asked for, so this is a starting point rather than a ruling on your situation.
If you are in the middle of something like this, Citizens Advice will talk it through with you for free and can pass it to Trading Standards where that is warranted. I am an electrician and not a solicitor, so that is the right door rather than mine.
If it has already gone wrong
Take a breath, and do these in this order. Do not pay anything further while you work it out.
- Write down what happened while it is fresh. Dates, what was said, what was done, what you were charged. Photograph the work and anything that was replaced.
- Ask in writing for the certificate. A short, polite email. Whether it arrives, and what is on it, tells you most of what you need to know.
- Check the register. If they claimed a registration, see whether it is there.
- Get the work looked at by someone independent before you decide anything, so you know whether you have a billing dispute or a safety problem. Those are two very different situations and they need different responses.
- Then talk to Citizens Advice about the money side, armed with all of the above.
If the work was mine and you are unhappy with it, the same applies but you come straight to me. That is what the warranty is for, and I would far rather hear about it than not.
Not sure about something? Just ask me
Send me a photo of the certificate, the estimate, or the board, and I will tell you what I think. No charge and no obligation, and if it is all fine I will tell you that too, which is usually the answer. I will not ring you back to chase you afterwards.
Useful next
If you have been given findings or a quote you are unsure about, that has its own page: getting a second opinion. If you are planning building work, the cheapest time to involve an electrician is before it starts, which is covered in planning electrical work and the order of works. And if you want to know how I price things before you ever speak to me, it is all written down in how I work and what things cost and on the pricing page.