What commercial electrical work do you cover?
Lighting installations and LED upgrades, extra power and data, distribution boards, emergency lighting, and periodic inspection and testing. Fit-outs and refurbishments as well as maintenance on premises already trading.
The work itself is not fundamentally different from domestic; the constraints are. A shop cannot lose its tills at midday, a restaurant cannot lose its extraction during service, and an office with a floor of people cannot have its lighting circuits down for a day without warning. Most commercial jobs are therefore planned around when the premises are quiet rather than around when it suits us.
Can you work outside trading hours?
Usually, and for a lot of commercial work it is the sensible way to do it. Tell us how the premises run and we will plan the isolations around trade rather than through it.
What helps most is knowing early which circuits cannot go down and when. Refrigeration, tills, alarms, network cabinets and anything with a startup sequence are the usual ones. If a circuit genuinely cannot be interrupted at all, say so at the quoting stage; there is normally a way to work around it, but it has to be designed in rather than discovered on the day.
What affects the cost of commercial work?
The size of the installation, whether the premises are trading while the work happens, when we are able to work, and what the existing distribution can take without alteration.
Out-of-hours working costs more than daytime working, and phasing a job across several short visits costs more than doing it in one go, so there is a genuine trade-off between disruption and price. We will set that out for you rather than quietly picking one. Older premises also tend to need more remedial work before new circuits can be added and signed off.
We do not publish a price list, because an honest price depends on what is actually there. What we do instead is come and look, then give you a written quote before anything starts, and that quote is the price you pay unless you ask for something different or we find something that could not have been seen beforehand. If we do, we stop and tell you what it means before carrying on.
Do you handle emergency lighting and periodic inspection?
Yes, both. Emergency lighting installation and testing, and periodic inspection and testing of the fixed installation for landlords and businesses.
These are the two that get forgotten until something else forces the issue, typically an insurance renewal, a licensing condition or a change of tenant. Both are considerably less disruptive when they are scheduled rather than urgent. Our testing and EICR page covers what the inspection involves and what the report will tell you.
What we cover
- Lighting installations and LED upgrades
- Extra power and data outlets
- Distribution boards
- Emergency lighting installation and testing
- Periodic inspection and testing
- Planned around trading hours where we can
Common questions
Can you quote from a plan rather than a visit?
For a new fit-out with drawings, often yes. For work on existing premises we would rather look, because what is already in the distribution board decides a lot of the job.
Do you work with our shopfitter or main contractor?
Yes, and it usually goes better when we are talking to them directly about sequencing rather than through several layers.
Can you maintain the installation rather than just install it?
Yes. Ongoing maintenance and periodic testing are a large part of what we do for commercial customers, and a planned schedule is cheaper than reactive call-outs.