ᐅ Finding a Skilled Trades Contractor for Owner-Performed Work

The installation in the rest of the house already incurred additional costs. This was not included in the €2,500 (about $2,700) for the meter. Is that what you mean?

The worst thing about my electrician was that there were live, unsecured cables, the residual current device (RCD) tripped at loads over 100W when plugged in, he drilled into the vapor barrier ("doesn't matter, we always do it like this"), forgot to connect an outdoor socket (only noticed last weekend), missed several agreements, installed sockets at different heights in the same room, and so on. There are probably more points I can’t think of right now.

Of course, he was also late and didn’t clean up his own mess, but with that price, that should really be expected upfront. The issues mentioned above are actually an absolute no-go regardless of the price.

What are your expectations? Flawless craftsmanship with master-level expertise for very little money? It’s probably obvious that it’s hard to find anyone willing to do DIY tasks as a side job. Who would be willing to take responsibility for you? Usually, it’s only friends or unqualified workers who do the job for next to nothing and will not be reachable if something goes wrong later on. Fun does cost money! Interestingly, this kind of customer behavior is mostly seen only in electrical work. Programming—I’m on board with that. Especially since at the start it is almost impossible to fully specify everything (around 0% of cases), and systems evolve and change over time. But not in areas where strict regulations must be followed, and where a lot can go wrong.

I once saw a show where something exactly like this was offered. A master electrician came up with this concept. Basically, you do almost everything yourself, and he only comes at the end to inspect everything and connect the main electrical supply. So, he only does the work he would have to do anyway. This way, he saves the cost of one or two journeymen while still charging his master electrician fee and materials. Unfortunately, I forgot what it’s called. But it was something like an electrical DIY package or similar. You can try searching on the big search engine...

Yes, I know that all too well. For trades like plastering/external rendering or heating, the cost usually doesn’t matter and is generally accepted. Only the electrical work is not allowed to cost anything.

Hi, our plan so far is as follows: We will source part of the materials and the installation of the main and sub-distribution boards from the electrician. Our own contribution will mainly be laying cables (power, LAN, satellite) and connecting them in the outlets ourselves. The smart home wiring and programming will be done entirely by us, except for the power supply to the sub-distribution board. The electrician declined the job if it required handling everything due to a lack of workforce. However, we have worked with this company elsewhere before and already know the employee who will do most of the work for us. We appreciate his very professional and tidy work. The main and sub-distribution boards are not cheap, but fit well within the overall package.

With our wiring approach (our system), fortunately, there is not much room for errors. We are not using the traditional wiring method. Each load is run directly to the sub-distribution board; there are no switches, only push-buttons that are connected via signal cables (CAT7a) running directly back to the sub-distribution board, and so on.

Hello, for us, it was only possible through personal connections. My brother is a trained electrician; he installed and connected everything, and in the end, his friend, a licensed electrical master with his own company, completed the inspection.

But that was a rare exception, as he is also responsible for the work, even though he cannot know how well my brother did the job.

Personally, I don’t know if I would do something like that as a company. Probably not.