I’m going to be really honest with you here when you called me an electrician in and it’s to replace a double socket many of them can do it relatively cheaply and just do the job that you’ve asked them for.
Bill down the pub could change a socket for £20...
You might get someone in for £50 that changes your double socket take your money and leave your property...
But with electrics, there are hidden dangers, there is a process to follow, a system of SAFETY, for your property for you and your family!
So when you ask an electrician to come into your property, it’s more than the cost and the money side of things!!
Now let me tell you why
At this property, we arrived to change this double socket in brushed chrome.
On Testing the Earth to the socket I found there was a very high reading and that this needed to be looked into.
When we got to the fuse box, we found that the circuit protective device was broken. The fuse was hanging out at the top and was live. And couldn’t be isolated until the whole fuse box was turned off.
What’s more and after more investigation? The reading we got on the socket was due to the main earth to the building being disconnected below the fuse box.
This meant that everything had a voltage potential because the Earth wires run throughout the cables around the building and these were not grounded or earth can induce a voltage as they run alongside each other.
What this means basically for you is when you come into contact with something that is earth you become part of the circuit to earth the cables that are not provided with a sufficient earth and you would receive a shock of around 150 V at 50 Hz this could be life-threatening.
So we made a temporary connection to this earth and retested our socket.
We then got the Customer out of trouble by installing a trip switch as we didn’t have a replacement fuse for this obsolete fuse box.
We then priced up to replace the consumer unit, but sadly the customer is still thinking about it! and this pains me greatly because I am here to make the customer safer in their properties, although I think I did this on this generally small and easy job but there is still much more upgrading that could be done to protect lives and his property.
There is more to a job than just the price!
This day in April 2026 we made a difference to People’s lives and safety in Loughton.
If you'd like to enquire about a double socket replacement or fault finding in Loughton, pop us a message on whatsapp - your safety is important to us!
