Playbook, electrical contractor
The two electrical prices that cannot be a number in advance
Somebody with a board that keeps tripping wants to be told what it costs to make it stop, and there is no such figure. Not out of evasion: what they are buying is a period of testing, and the testing is what discovers whether the answer is a five pound part or a circuit that has to come out of a wall. The same shape turns up again in a consumer unit change, where the published price is entirely real right until the old circuits get tested.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for pricing questions holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Fault finding is sold in units of time rather than as a repair, because nobody knows whether the outcome is a faceplate or a floor until circuits have been isolated and measured, and a customer who thought they had bought a fix reads the second invoice as a trick.
- A consumer unit change is one of the few electrical jobs with a genuinely published price and it is also the job most likely to move on the day, because testing the existing circuits can find one that will not sit behind a modern protective device.
- The minimum charge rather than the hourly rate is what a small electrical job actually costs, so quoting the rate to somebody with one dead socket understates the bill, and quoting the minimum without saying what block of time it buys sounds like a fee for parking outside.
- Materials swing the total here in a way labour does not: an accessory costs pennies and a charge point unit or a board does not, so the price with materials and the price without are two different numbers and the published version has to say which it is.
How it arrives
- do you charge by the hour or by the job
- how much to find out why it keeps tripping
- whats your minimum charge for a small job
- is the price for a new fuse board fixed
- does that figure include parts
- how much for a spur off an existing socket
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The minimum charge and exactly what time it buys | The figure, the block of time it covers, and the rate after that block runs out. Customers hear the minimum as a fee for turning up and resent it. Described as a purchased hour it stops being a penalty, and that reframing has to be in the document rather than left to the reply. |
|---|---|
| How fault finding is charged, and what happens when the block ends | The diagnostic period, whether the finding time comes off the repair, and what you do when the period runs out without an answer. That last moment is the one customers are not expecting, and it is the one worth writing down in advance. |
| The board change price and the condition attached to it | What the published figure assumes about the existing circuits, and what happens when testing turns up one that will not pass. Written before the job, in the same place as the price, rather than explained on the day by somebody holding a screwdriver. |
| Which published prices include materials, stated per price | Not as a blanket footnote. An accessory swapped on an existing circuit and a charge point unit are not the same kind of number, and one note covering both misleads on whichever one the reader cares about. |
The reply
Fault finding is charged by time rather than as a price for a repair, because the time is the work: circuits get isolated and tested until the cause shows itself [1]. The first block is the minimum charge on our prices page and it buys a stated amount of time on site rather than a result. A board change works differently and does have a published figure [2]. The one condition worth hearing now is that the existing circuits are tested as part of it, and occasionally one will not sit behind a modern device, which gets quoted separately. I cannot price your job from here, because nobody can price it before the testing.
It names the unit being sold before it names any number, since the argument in this trade is about what is being bought rather than about the amount. The board change condition is volunteered rather than waited for, which is the difference between a term and an excuse. The last clause makes the refusal an argument about the job instead of an apology about the assistant.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor describes their own fault and asks what fixing it will cost, or asks whether the published board change figure will hold at their address.
I can read out the published figures but I cannot price a fault nobody has seen, and I have no way to check what is behind your board. Leave me your name, an email and what the circuit is doing, and the office will tell you what the visit costs and what that covers.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never estimate how long a fault will take to find, because the honest range runs from ten minutes to a second visit and the bottom of it is the only number the customer will remember.
- Never give the hourly rate as the price of a small job when the minimum charge is what is going to appear on the invoice.
- Never say a published board change price is all it will cost, since the existing circuits have not been tested and that condition is the entire point of the figure.
- Never quote a price for a part or an accessory that is not on the published list, because material prices move and a chat window is a poor place to discover that.
Questions
- Why not just publish a fixed price for fault finding?
- Because there is not one. Firms that publish a fixed fee either load it heavily against the bad days or put a time limit under it, which is the hourly version wearing a hat. Publishing the block of time and the rate after it is the honest form, and it converts better than a fixed fee with a paragraph of conditions attached.
- Can it work out a total from our rate and a description?
- No, and it must not be allowed to try. It can read out the minimum, the rate and what each covers. The moment it multiplies anything it has produced a quote, and a customer holds you to a quote in a way they never hold you to a rate.
- Does warning about the board change growing put people off?
- It puts off the customer who was going to be furious on the day. Everybody else reads it as a firm that has opened a lot of old boards, and it makes the published figure more believable rather than less, because a number with a stated condition is obviously a real number.
Keep reading
- Everything for a electrical contractorCall out charges, EV charger enquiries and landlord certificates are answerable. A described electrical fault is an escalation, not a question.
- Handling pricing questions in generalPublished price versus the price for this buyer. Bands, ranges and from pricing, and why a firm number for unscoped work is the damaging failure.
- Who the invoice goes to is rarely who opened the doorThe tenant let you in, the agent instructed the job and the landlord pays. The invoice and the report go to different people.
- The complaint that arrives the day after the report doesA coded observation on an inspection reads to some customers as an upsell. That complaint is about trust, not about wiring.
- Answering hours, working hours and the hours the power can be offThe phone is answered until five. A job that turns the supply off cannot start at three, and a test may only run when a building is empty.
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