Domestic & small commercial electrical work
Wiring you can leave alone for twenty years
Third Dapple is a two-van electrical contractor working on rewires, consumer units, stubborn faults and EV supplies. Every job is tested, certificated and written up before we pack the van.
Lost power, or something smells hot?
Isolate at the main switch, leave the circuit off and work through the triage table below. It tells you what a symptom usually means and whether it can safely wait for a booked visit.
What we take on
Six lanes of work
We stay narrow on purpose. If a job falls outside these lanes we will tell you at the enquiry stage rather than learning on your house.
01
Full and partial rewires
Replacing tired cable runs, rotten rubber-sheathed wiring and undersized circuits. We work room by room where you still need to live in the property, and keep one lighting circuit and one socket circuit live wherever the layout allows.
02
Consumer unit replacement
Swapping fuse boxes and early plastic boards for a metal-clad unit with RCBO protection per circuit, so one fault no longer takes out half the house. Includes testing every existing circuit before the new board is energised — faults found here are reported before we continue.
03
Fault finding
The unglamorous work: tracing an intermittent trip, a borrowed neutral, water in an outside light, or a nail through a cable from someone else's flooring job. Charged by the hour because honest diagnosis cannot be quoted blind, and stopped the moment we know the cause and cost.
04
EV charge points
Supply assessment first, install second. We check the main fuse rating, earthing arrangement and the route to your parking space before recommending a unit, and we will say plainly if the supply needs upgrading before a charger makes sense.
05
Lighting plans and dimming
Layered lighting for kitchens, extensions and awkward older rooms: where the switching should land, what dims cleanly, and which fittings we would avoid because the driver fails long before the lamp. Drawn up as a plan you own, not a parts list.
06
Condition and landlord reports
Periodic inspection for owners, sellers and letting agents. You get the coded report, photographs of anything classified, and a priced list of remedials separated into what must be done now and what is simply worth planning for.
Before you call anyone
What the symptom usually means
Written from the jobs we actually attend. This will not fix anything, but it should tell you how worried to be and what to say when you send an enquiry.
One breaker trips, always at the same moment
Usually a faulty appliance rather than the wiring — kettles, washing machine heaters and outside lights are the regulars. Unplug everything on that circuit, reset, then reintroduce one item at a time.
Can wait
Breaker trips randomly, nothing obvious running
Often moisture tracking in an exterior fitting, a damaged cable under flooring, or a shared neutral between two circuits. This needs insulation resistance testing to pin down; guessing at it tends to cost more.
Book soon
A socket or switch plate feels warm
A loose terminal arcing behind the plate. Heat means resistance where there should be none, and it does not improve on its own. Stop using the socket and isolate the circuit.
Same day
Burning or fishy smell near the board
Overheating insulation or a failing connection inside the consumer unit. Turn off the main switch and leave it off — this is the one symptom on this page we would attend ahead of booked work.
Same day
Lights flicker across several rooms
If it affects more than one circuit, suspect a poor connection at the board or the incoming supply rather than the lamps. Worth checking whether neighbours see it too before anyone starts changing fittings.
Book soon
Dimmed LEDs buzz or glow when switched off
Nearly always a mismatch between the dimmer and the lamp driver, or a neutral switched instead of the line conductor. Cheap to correct once the fittings are identified.
Can wait
Shower or cooker loses power under load
A high-current circuit sized or terminated marginally, often where an appliance was upgraded but the cable was not. Needs the load, cable size and protective device checked together.
Book soon
If you have isolated a circuit and the property is safe, send the enquiry form with the symptom and the make of anything that failed. We arrive with the likely parts instead of a second appointment.
Testing and paperwork
What gets left behind
Certification is not an upsell and it is not optional. It is the only record that the work was measured rather than assumed.
- Dead and live testing on every circuit touchedContinuity, insulation resistance, polarity, earth fault loop impedance and RCD timing — recorded as numbers, not ticks.
- The correct certificate for the jobA minor works certificate for an added socket, a full installation certificate for a rewire or board change, a condition report for an inspection.
- A board you can readEvery way labelled with what it actually feeds, and a schedule left inside the cover for whoever comes next.
- Notification where it is requiredWork that needs building control notification gets notified, and the compliance certificate follows by email.
- Photographs of anything hiddenCable routes and junctions are photographed before they are closed up, so the next person is not drilling blind.
How it runs
From enquiry to certificate
Four stages, no surprises in the middle. Anything that changes the price gets agreed in writing before the tools come back out.
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Enquiry and triage
You describe the job or fault. We reply with whether it sits in our lanes, what we would need to see, and an honest booking window.
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Survey
A visit to look at the board, the earthing, the cable routes and the access. Small jobs skip this and go straight to a fixed price.
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Quote and sequence
A written price with the order of work, the days power will be off, and any unknowns named as unknowns rather than buried in a contingency.
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Work, test, hand over
Installation, full testing, labelling and certification. We walk you through the board and the results before invoicing.
Working in an occupied home
We plan around the parts of the day you need power. Boards come out in the morning so they are back on before evening, dust sheets go down before the first floorboard lifts, and we tell you the night before which circuits will be dead and for how long.
If you work from home, say so in the enquiry and we will keep the router and office circuit live wherever the installation allows it.
Questions we get weekly
Straight answers
How long will my power actually be off?
For a consumer unit change, expect the supply off for most of a working day — we isolate in the morning and energise once every existing circuit has been tested. For a rewire it is intermittent: individual circuits go down as we reach them, and we keep at least one socket circuit and the kitchen live at the end of each day unless the layout makes that impossible.
Our wiring is from the sixties. Does all of it have to go?
Not automatically. Age alone is not a fault. What matters is the condition of the insulation, whether the earthing is adequate, and whether circuits have been extended beyond what they were designed for. Rubber and lead-sheathed cable usually does need replacing; sound mid-century PVC often does not. An inspection tells you which you have before you commit to a rewire budget.
Can you do a small job, or is there a minimum?
Small jobs are welcome and we group them geographically, so a single socket or a light fitting may be offered a specific half-day slot rather than a date of your choosing. If you have a list of three or four minor items, send them all in one enquiry — one visit is cheaper for you than three.
The property is tenanted. How is access handled?
We deal with the tenant directly on timing once you have arranged notice, and we confirm the appointment with both of you. Reports and remedials quotes go to whoever instructed the work. If a tenant turns us away at the door we tell you the same day rather than silently rebooking.
Will my supply take an EV charger?
Often yes, but it depends on the main fuse rating, the earthing arrangement and what else draws heavily at the same time — electric showers and heat pumps change the answer. We check this first and will tell you if load management or a supply upgrade is needed instead of fitting a charger that nuisance-trips all winter.
Do you supply the materials or should I?
We supply everything as standard, listed on the quote, because we carry the warranty on it. If you want particular light fittings or a specific charger, buy them and we will fit them — we will just check them first and say so if we think the driver or enclosure is a poor bet for the location.
What if something fails after you have gone?
Our workmanship is guaranteed, and manufacturer warranties on supplied parts are passed to you with the paperwork. If a circuit we worked on misbehaves, tell us what it is doing and we come back to look at it before anything is charged. Faults on circuits we never touched are quoted as normal fault finding.
Lead time, not a queue
Request a visit
Tell us what is happening and we will reply with a booking window and what the visit will cost before anyone turns up.
- Detail helpsMake and model of anything that failed, and which breaker is involved if you know.
- Safety firstIf you have isolated a circuit, leave it off and say so here.
- No obligationA quote is a quote. We would rather lose the job than talk you into one.