Electrical Estimating,

Good question Zoom lad.

Worthy of your weekend quiz - Is it comming back that there quiz? Hope so.

Anyway back to the plot.

I pick my customers as much as my customers pick me.

Some homes are - gosh I`d better wipe my feet on the way out.

Some customers are "clever gits" and think they know everything, I avoid them.

Some customers try to nail you down with "I want a budget price" or "a competetive price". or such as "You can buy a consumer unit at B & Q for £50 and it takes 3/4 an hour to fit, I`ve seen it done". Yes I avoid them.

Some customers do not seem to care about asking likely price, I avoid them thinking will I get paid, customers who show some care about price to my mind shows the intend to pay you when done.

Some places are so full of clutter you have not even a tiny place to put your toolbox. Some folk are hoarders.

90% of folk are reet as rain, 5% are hard work and 5% you could rip em off if you were like that.

That is my overall experience from the domestic market which is 90% of my work.

Some folk tell untruths, why:-

1/ They believe what they tell you.

2/ They are deliberately lying.

3/ They are too embarrased to tell the truth.

Those things usually occour when they (or a friend, relative) has been meddling and beggared summat up.

Sometimes you walk into the job, you immediatley see things that must be done for starters but they say no way, again I walk away.

That is worse than it looks, there is half an inch of water on that carousel and the smell from the wet garlic was something else, but I installed the main protective bonding as required.


I work in some really bad homes, I have driven for  four hours each way to get to a job that the local electricians would not do , because of the state of the house including the excrement on the landing carpet, yet I have refused to work in the posh homes of "professionals and business people"  locally, because I sense I am going to get ripped off.


People who are struggling to cope living in their own homes and have gotten themselves into a mess I can cope with, it's the people at the other end of the social scale I seem to end up walking away from, because of a lack of trust.

The photo is a HMO where there's six people living in a house with a shared kitchen, but no one will take the lead to sort issues out, the problem then escalates because some tenants will then stop using the kitchen and start cooking in their rooms creating hazards that should not exist.


I am an expert on how other people live!

I never was never ripped off by a customer until I was in my fifties, for over thirty years I got paid in full for every job I did. I am not sure if I got to be a softer touch and too trusting or if the customers have become less trustworthy.


One of the first I had trouble with had a Porsche and a 4X4 on the drive to his nice house, both for his own use as his wife had left him, there's red flags there I ignored! Three days into the job with wife called by to pick some stuff up to take to her new home and said "Nice to meet you, best of luck" with a look on her face that just added to my anxiety that was already building because I had not taken a deposit, at the end of the job the guy basically deducted 20%, a grand, from the invoice and told me it was my problem, not his.

I feel quite lucky that I have never felt the need to refuse to work somewhere and have never had a customer rip me off although a couple have tried to get discounts on the quoted price. I did have a commercial customer go bust owing me £10K which hurt.


On bad customers: A bricklayer I knew did some work at a large country house. When he finished he went and asked for payment. The householder said "I know about people like you. Here is 70%, you can sue me for the rest but I am a barrister and it will take you years and cost you a fortune" He took the money and told his mate who said he would be with him in a minute as he had a little tidying up to do. A few days later they drove past the house on the way to a job he noticed a Dynarod van in the drive and commented to his mate that he must have a blocked drain. His mate said "All his drains are blocked. I put a bag of cement down them as I know you would not do anything"