Electric knockout boxes - fixing...Is this right?

[Previous]

Box is now moved forward. They'd 'fixed' before I got back there (plumber let them back in....we're having quite a bit of work done so are living elsewhere...), so I don’t know if they've properly restored the cavity wall (several years of rain will tell sure enough) but the box is at least in a more or less normal position.

I can do a sh*t job myself. Annoyingly if left to it I'd have used a multi tool to cut a square, then chiseled out from there...arguably would've been better.

I'm unable to take leave (busy job...lucky to have it, although quite demanding) so had hoped itd be more effective to pay people to do what they are good at whilst I focus on something I pretend to be good at.

Edited by Previous on Friday 26th February 00:11

[Alucidnation]

MethylatedSpirit said:

fk me silly. Don't even bother calling him back.

You can get a tool that gives you a perfect double socket cutout, ready for a flushmount.


Edit: Looks like a cheapo socket too (I may be wrong). I'd be wanting a nice MK socket for -literally- a quid more (other brands available).

Edited by MethylatedSpirit on Thursday 25th February 23:42

It's a Click Mode socket.


MK are st.

HTH.

[xstian]

It does look a bit messy, but sometimes when you start to chase out, the wall just falls to bits. It looks like I can see the back box it the first pic, so its not screwed back to the external wall. From what you describe, it sounds like the cables have been run inside the cavity and the polystyrene ball are coming through that way. I would imagine it was wired this way prior to these electrician's.

Running cables inside a cavity has its own issues, whether they should have bought this to your attention and whether you would be willing to correct it is a different matter. Also if the sparks haven't allowed to make good, who was going to do it? If the it was the decorator, why didn't they just fill it?

There are some laughable replies on here. Chasing and fixing conduit to walls and then trying to wire afterwards? Hold money back from the bill. How much do you think would be the correct amount? Fit quality sockets like MK?

[Teddy Lop]

MethylatedSpirit said:

fk me silly. Don't even bother calling him back.

You can get a tool that gives you a perfect double socket cutout, ready for a flushmount.

if you're refering to the sds box sinker, probably try to use one before extolling their virtues. They're useless on anything but a small stars-aligned band of not-too-hard/not-too-soft/definitely no joints. I've got one rusting in the shed for all its worth if you want to try it.

MethylatedSpirit said:

Edit: Looks like a cheapo socket too (I may be wrong). I'd be wanting a nice MK socket for -literally- a quid more (other brands available).

MK haven't made anything worth extolling since looking through the Mercedes 3 point star meant you were driving the worlds finest engineered car, might as well fit that LAP st screwfix sell.

I'll grant you the first sentence. OP there's a lot of tits in the game but it's a socket and its more or less there so I'd move on and ask for recomendations for future trades, check they're listed on competent person (ie regd themselves not "borrowing/pooling")

[megaphone]

Alucidnation said:

MK are st.

HTH.

Another stupid post.

[Flibble]

Is this your Spark OP?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gshn-YzI6ic

[thebraketester]

Flibble said:

Is this your Spark OP?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gshn-YzI6ic

Haha. So accurate in many cases.

[Black_S3]

Isn’t this fairly normal for a sparky?

Also it’s a plasterer you want to do the making good before the painter/decorator turns up.

[Previous]

Black_S3 said:

Isn’t this fairly normal for a sparky?

Also it’s a plasterer you want to do the making good before the painter/decorator turns up.

Understand that. There's a difference between leaving making good and leaving in an unsafe condition though.

Excluding making good doesn't mean no need to show reasonable skill and care.

[Previous]

Thanks for all replies.

Plasterer and decorator have agreed they can make good now on top of whats there, to a good finish (hesitate to use the term 'new build standard' as Iots of horror stories about new builds!)

They want an extra bit of cash to do so.

I called the spark and said that I appreciate some times jobs don't work out as expected, I've got no desire to get into an argument however simply felt its below what was expected, and that he'd likely agree it wasn't his best work.

We agreed that perhaps I should have been clearer about my expectations and equally he should have informed me about exactly what he'd be doing.

We agreed to pay the bill minus the £300, with no ill feeling either way. That covers the extra decorating cost, and means that only the decorator is now responsible for overall finish.

Seems a sensible compromise.

Until the next issue.....

[Black_S3]

Previous said:

Understand that. There's a difference between leaving making good and leaving in an unsafe condition though.

Excluding making good doesn't mean no need to show reasonable skill and care.

I can’t see anything that’s going to be unsafe... the way i see it I’d rather pay an extra half day at plasterer rates than full day of electrician rates..... yeah it looks st, but it’s not finished!

[Gary C]

Previous said:

We agreed that perhaps I should have been clearer about my expectations and equally he should have informed me about exactly what he'd be doing.

Thats a really good point.

British Gas fitted a new boiler,

this is how they left it.





Fortunately, had some spare tiles and sorted it



Wife's choice of colour, since repainted

If they had discussed what they had to do then it might have not been as much as a shock.

[valiant]

Looks like he swiped the front flip down cover of your boiler as well

[Previous]

Gary C said:

Thats a really good point.

British Gas fitted a new boiler...

If they had discussed what they had to do then it might have not been as much as a shock.

Yes.

My issue is naturally assuming people will actively attempt to put it back to a roughly acceptable standard.

In your pics, I'd describe BG effort as a not making good (you've made good after).

Based ony recent experience BG may well however that as acceptable.

A mate has previously worked fitting bathrooms in housing association properties. I spoke with him today and he pointed out that if a trade regularly works in that environment there's no incentive to do it well - the money isn't there and it'll only get trashed again in some cases. That'll naturally follow across to other works.

Ill admit, this week has been a bit of a learning curve !

[scottyp123]

The only sensible replies I have seen on here are from practicing electricians it would seem. And I agree with them. I think the OP is expecting a bit much to be honest, when you start to chop a socket in its the luck of the draw really how it will end up, who knows what is behind the plaster surface once you start.

We are doing a re-wire at the minute that is being patch plastered after we have finished doing our bit, some walls where we have chopped in sockets look like they have always been there and others look like they have been fitted with a blunderbuss.

Looking at the original picture the box doesn't look like its that far into the wall, certainly not fastened to the outer brick in the cavity and who knows what the wall was already like after the original single socket had been fitted anyway, there might have been nothing left of the brick/block anyway. From what I can see of the block it looks like the clinker type, probably the figure of 8 sort, once you chop in a bit there is nothing whatsoever to fasten the block to, you end up jamming pieces of wood inside the block or foaming the box in or even trying to set it in with mortar which looks like has happened in the second photo.

If you expected every socket to end up just needing painting round after the spark said no making good then you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

PS, from a practicing electrician, MK IS st nowadays, terrible in fact, I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole (the socket fitted looks like either a Click or Hamilton one, both of which are top notch.) And those box sinkers are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

[Alucidnation]

megaphone said:

Alucidnation said:

MK are st.

HTH.

Another stupid post.

Maybe, but not incorrect.

[Black_S3]

scottyp123 said:

If you expected every socket to end up just needing painting round after the spark said no making good then you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

In fairness to the OP it doesn’t sound like the electrician set the expectations on that. Like there’s decorator with a pot of filler levels of making good then there’s a plasterer bonding and finishing.... there’s a lesson in it for the electrician as well seeing as he ended up paying for the making good himself rather than charging for it.

[scottyp123]

Black_S3 said:

scottyp123 said:

If you expected every socket to end up just needing painting round after the spark said no making good then you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

In fairness to the OP it doesn’t sound like the electrician set the expectations on that. Like there’s decorator with a pot of filler levels of making good then there’s a plasterer bonding and finishing.... there’s a lesson in it for the electrician as well seeing as he ended up paying for the making good himself rather than charging for it.

I don't see how the electrician ended up getting money knocked off for a socket that needed plastering when he said no plastering is included in the price, sounds like he got bullied into lowering his price. Good luck getting him back when the RCD trips off in the middle of winter and the boiler won't work.

We are always very clear about the making good, we did a job the other month, a few sockets in a kitchen. When the old kitchen units were removed it was obvious that the plaster was decrepit behind them, half the wall ended up falling off when we started. It went from him thinking he could just tile over our chases for the cables to getting the entire room and ceiling hacked back to the brickwork and being completely re-plastered, its just the way it turns out sometimes.

[Teddy Lop]

scottyp123 said:

I don't see how the electrician ended up getting money knocked off for a socket that needed plastering when he said no plastering is included in the price, sounds like he got bullied into lowering his price. Good luck getting him back when the RCD trips off in the middle of winter and the boiler won't work.

happens quite often, sometimes easier to whack some gunk in than try to explain what is obvious to anyone with a clue. OP must be a master ...um... negotiator to score 300 quid too though.


"I'm having decorators in after"

"Okay, I won't include any making good, as they will do it quicker and cheaper than me"

"Okay"

Do job

"Oh aren't you going to put plaster in that?

Really annoys me when people get all stupid and disappointed as unlike the OPs spark who seems to have borrowed the plumbers floorboard lifting roto-cultivator to make his cutouts mine I try and normally succeed to be incredibly neat!

[Gary C]

Previous said:

Yes.

My issue is naturally assuming people will actively attempt to put it back to a roughly acceptable standard.

In your pics, I'd describe BG effort as a not making good (you've made good after).

Certainly, when I talked to the fitter afterwards, there was no other alternative but to damage the tiles to install the boiler and it wasn't part of the job to restore it, but they should have made that clear before they started then I could have adjusted my expectations. Thing is, the young lad though he had done a good job and was a bit crestfallen with my reaction.

The grotty 1950's Bakelite effect junction box was also naff.

If I was allowed to, I would have put the boiler in myself (and have done in the past, its a very simple job and when your trained to do 4 bar hydrogen pipe fitting a bit of natural gas at a piddling 0.02 bar is a cinch) and made a much better job, but there you go.