What To Look Out For To Find The Right Electrician For You

You’ve just bought a ceiling light fitting, or a set of recessed downlights for your kitchen, but you need a qualified electrician to install the product. What are the next steps? How do you find a decent electrician? It might seem a bit flippant to ask, but people do not always find the task of getting a trustworthy electrician an easy project. For some, it might even be a bit daunting for reasons we’ll discuss below.

The anticipation and excitement of receiving the light and opening its box when it’s delivered is great, finally getting your hands on the ceiling lights, or it might even be a ceiling fan is brilliant. Your mind starts to race on exactly where the product will go in your room. You might have even planned this project ages ago, but the key thing is, you’ve now got the light in your hands.

In some cases, you don’t even need to call an electrician because you are not changing out the ceiling rose, so you don’t need to touch any electrical cables. All you are buying is a lamp shade:

The Farraday basket pendant ceiling shade is easily fitted to the cord grip lamp holder with a shield ring. You basically unscrew the shade ring and attach the lamp shade and put the shield ring back. The Reni pendant shade in chrome and grey is another example – just screw the shade onto the lamp holder. There are hundreds of lighting products like this and more on sale.

However, not all lamp shades can be fitted by you – in some cases you will need a qualified electrician because you have a light fitting that is a little bit more complex. For example, its ceiling rose is a different size to the one you are replacing, or you might even need new cabling putting in because the light is a completely new fitting.

For instance, a plate ceiling light will require a qualified electrician because its design is totally different to a conventional ceiling rose. Or if you’re planning a project to renovate your kitchen, bathroom or lounge or dining room with recessed downlights, this project will especially require an electrician.

Search and due diligence

It’s important the electrician knows what they’re doing, have experience with light fittings or recessed ceiling lights, and are not shifty. If you think it’s too rude or inconvenient to ask for references, you can search online for them. A good place to start:

1. Google reviews. Search for either their name or their business name.
2. Same on Facebook, search their name or business and look for their customer reviews. If they’ve NO review, usually not a good sign.
3. When you search on Google you might indirectly find links to business directories like ratedpeople.com, or trustatrader.com and Yell – search on there too for customer opinion and reviews.
4. Of course, if you know someone like a colleague or friend, they can recommend or vouch for a decent sparky.

Experience

Same as the point above: do your due diligence – are they qualified? And experienced enough for the job? Age is not always a guarantee of experience and knowledge, but it is often a good barometer. You will usually find an electrician has an apprentice that shadows them and learns their trade from the sparky. However, if an 18 year turns up to do your job, you will need to judge that for yourself.

At the end of the day, we all want a job done properly; we all expect high-quality service and results for any lighting installations.  So expect your electrician to have had training, and experience, and this is typically completed in an apprenticeship over 4 years by getting a Diploma and NVQ.

Get more than one quote

Get at least 3 quotes, and never just go with the first quote if the electrician is nice and friendly. You must always get more than one quote. Not only will it give you peace of mind, it will also give an insight and understanding of the industry. You will come to have better knowledge of prices and demand, and you can better manage your expectations of price and cost.