need contractor in Cape Town

[Houses4Rent]

Well, our industry is supposed to be regulated and policed by the EAAB. They are in a mess on a permanent basis. It was so bad in 2012 that themselves were placed under administration for 6m...

Anyway, this forum seems to have quite a strong electrical bias. Is really nobody here who runs an electrical business in Cape Town?

[AndyD]

I do run an electrical business but it's not a good fit for the kind of work you have I'm afraid. I was hoping to see one or two other guys either last week or ths week who may be interested in which case I'll get them to cantact you through your website and mention that I suggested thay did. The problem is that all the good guys I know of are already turning work away plus most of them don't do domestic work unless it something out of the ordinary.

[Houses4Rent]

Thanks Andy. As usual the good ones are not looking for work, because work comes to them. Only the bad ones need to market themselves....

[AndyD]

I'd certanly agree to a point but I think many domestic sparkies, even good ones, would need a robust marketing plan because the return business roll over isn't there to the same degree as commercial and industrial and the project sizes or remedial work calls are much smaller and faster. How many properties are you looking for your sparky to service? Would you be contracting an electrician on a service level agreement or is the work too sporadic or infrequent to warrent this? If you're not looking to disclose info on the general forum you can send me a PM if you like.

[Houses4Rent]

Currently we manage 120 properties, growing steadily. As I said already I am looking for occasional call outs if and when required. Blown sockets, geyser elements/thermostats, DB problems, blown circuit breakers, some pre-paid meter installations etc.
If so many sparkies do industrial/commercial who is doing all the domestic work I wonder?

[DieterT]

Many sparkies make the mistake of leaving the domestic/light commercial worx. My business for example is doing alot of light/medium commercial work, but we still try our best to make time for residential clients. That is in fact how we got to the bigger clients. I do understand completely that one can be kept busy on a permanent basis with commercial/industrial work, but that is putting all your eggs in one basket. One thing thou that does change which the residential clients don't often understand, is that the company becomes more professional and therefor more expensive (including VAT)
Also as how some of my clients like to say "harde gat" since the more learnt & professional we become, the more serious we take certian things and therefor only one way or no way.

"I used to have a lot of anger issues, now I just have a passion for justice"

[AndyD]

For us it's just that it's difficult to mix the domestic with the commercial. I find it difficult to program short domestic repairs alongside commercial installation work. If I have a team on site populating a commercial panel or installing comms cabling or commissioning a system it's just not viable to drag them away to attend a domestic earth leakage tripping or geyser thermostat. I couldn't send my containment installers to fault-find a DB even if they were working right next door because it's not what they do well, I'd need to drag one of my technicians off a job and others would stand around redundant until he returned. Domestic work also comes with access problems, domestic customers often require you be there at a certain time and all too often will feel nothing at leaving you without access if the mood takes them. The financial gain from occasional small domestic jobs wouldn't come close to covering the loss in progress on the bigger installation job.

The two fields of work are chalk and cheese for us from an office logistics point of view as well. There's also the domestic spares which we don't carry as stock plus even if I added a dedicated domestic team to my business, from a bookkeeping side and office side it would be a nightmare. On the commercial side we're usually invoicing a dozen jobs or stage payments each month and tracking maybe double that number of jobs as ongoing. With domestic repairs we would be invoicing that in a day and also having to chase 30 times the number of customers for a lot of small payments each month not to mention field 30 times the calls we currently receive and track at least 30 times the number of jobs if not more. Bottom line is we're just not geared up to give a decent service or be profitable in that field of work, I've learned the hard way many years ago as we were expanding.

[BlueArc]

I have opened up my own business recently with no thanks to the DoL in the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town. Reason for opening my own business was the large companies out there have sort of forgotten the smaller residential market as this is not a profitable option anymore. I would be willing to help if you still require a registered installation electrician.

[Houses4Rent]

Dear BlueArc

You are welcome to give me a shout to discuss.

[ians]

One thing about the domestic market, there is non of the kak that comes with doing work in the industrial filed. Get to go to work in shorts and slops everyday

[Houses4Rent]

I don't care how my sparky looks as long he performs.

[AndyD]

I spoke to the only two domestic guys I could personally recommend and both are fully booked and turning away work, neither was excited about servicing a new customer at this stage. Is there seriously that much of a shortage of licensed Installation Electricians in Cape Town?

[ians]

Andy I dont think the problem is only in the Cape.

[DieterT]

We are based in Pretoria and there is a huge shortage of qualified descent electricians.

When I was still busy with my trade test many years ago the ECA said then allready we are going to be faced with a gap in the industry since SETA messed up and BEE is forcing qualified white males to leave the country for better opportunities, thus not many qualified people left to help train new guys. Also more youngsters are prefering the desk jobs rather than getting their hands dirty.

We are finalizing all our works the last few weeks before holidays, thus a large reason we don't have time for new jobs. Think most companies are the same last few weeks before xmas.

The work is so much, that where we used to do Paradox alarm systems, network integration and IP cameras, we have now cut back and only specializing in electrical. Even then we don't do construction, we mostly work on distribution & faultfinding residential, commercial and light industrial.

There is just to much work out there for electrical contractors and not enough qualified guys to do the work.

I hope you do come right thou

"I used to have a lot of anger issues, now I just have a passion for justice"

[Houses4Rent]

There is just to much work out there for electrical contractors and not enough qualified guys to do the work.

That explains their attitude. They keep saying I am an important customer and then screw up again. Clearly they have enough work to lose me as a common customer, never mind an "important one".