What the job involves
A commercial installation is any electrical work in a building that is not a home: a shop, office, surgery, care home, workshop, warehouse or farm building. The work ranges from one new circuit for a coffee machine to the complete first and second fix of an empty unit. First fix is the cabling and back boxes that go in before the walls are finished; second fix is the sockets, switches, lights and the connection of the distribution board at the end.
We have done this work across the Fylde since 2004, as an NICEIC Approved Contractor. NICEIC is the body that assesses electrical firms and checks a sample of their work every year. Our commercial jobs are also covered by Safe Contractor approval, which is a health and safety vetting scheme that many landlords, care groups and councils use before they let a contractor on site.
Typical jobs include:
- Shop and office fit-outs, from a single unit on Clifton Street in Lytham to open-plan offices on the business parks at Poulton and Thornton.
- Dental and medical practices, where chairs, compressors, X-ray sets and sterilisation rooms each need their own circuits and the right protection.
- Care homes, with call systems, kitchen supplies and emergency lighting all designed together.
- New circuits and distribution boards. A distribution board is the commercial version of a fuse box, and most premises outgrow theirs long before anyone notices.
- Three-phase supplies for kitchens, workshops and the units around Fleetwood docks.
- Farm buildings around Garstang, Pilling and Great Eccleston, where damp, dust and livestock mean cabling has to be armoured and properly rated.
What we do on the day
It starts with a site visit. We look at the incoming supply, the existing boards and the condition of what is already there, and we ask what the building needs to do for the next ten years rather than the next ten weeks. From that we produce a written quote with a design: circuit schedules, board layouts and, for larger jobs, drawings you can pass to your landlord or insurer.
On site, one of our electricians leads the job from start to finish, so you are never explaining the same thing twice. We agree the programme with your shopfitter or builder, and we fit around trades that need to come before and after us. Where the premises are trading, we work out of hours so the doors stay open: evenings in the arcades on the Promenade, Sundays in St Annes, early mornings at the units in Fleetwood.
When the work is complete, our testing and inspection lead tests every new circuit before it is energised. You receive an Electrical Installation Certificate, which is the legal record that the work complies with BS 7671, the national wiring regulations, plus test results and a labelled circuit chart on the board.
What it costs
Every commercial installation is quoted from a site visit, because two shops the same size can need very different amounts of work. A dozen extra sockets in an office is a day’s work. A dental fit-out with a new three-phase supply is several weeks and a conversation with the electricity network operator. The factors above are what move the figure. The quote is itemised, fixed for the scope agreed, and any change is priced before we do it.
Who it’s for
Business owners taking on a new unit, landlords preparing premises for a tenant, practice managers planning a refurbishment, and main contractors who need a reliable electrical subcontractor. Care home operators and schools use us because our staff are DBS-checked and we are used to working around residents and pupils.
Working on the Fylde coast
Salt air is hard on electrical equipment. Enclosures on the seafront at Blackpool, Cleveleys and Fleetwood corrode faster than inland, so we specify stainless or coated fittings outside and keep boards away from external walls where we can. The Victorian hotels on the Promenade often have supplies that were sized for gas lighting and a few lamps, so we check the maximum demand before adding kitchen or air-conditioning loads. On farms north of Garstang we use armoured cable throughout and rate everything for wet and dusty conditions. And on the business parks at Poulton and Thornton, where units are let and re-let, we design boards with spare ways so the next tenant’s electrician has somewhere to go.
