Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Electrician costs - adding downlights after handover 2Feb 15, 2012 8:13 pm budgnbear The project builder is charging $95 per d/light so trying to figure the difference. Assuming your $95 includes all the wiring and the actual downlight, it's ok but not cheap. It's been a long while, but this is what we paid roughly. $35 per light point (downlight or not, wired by my builder and bayonet point supplied) $15 per downlight (I bought the 240V types, so no transformers, 1 less thing to fail) $15 per downlight installation by an external electrician Sums to $65 per downlight installed. It did take a day and a half for me, although I had 40 to get installed So I guess first check with your builder how much just to pull the wires and supply you with a bayonet light point, then shop around for lights online and look for a trustworthy electrician, then decide. Hope that helps cheers jim Re: Electrician costs - adding downlights after handover 3Feb 15, 2012 8:42 pm jimnsal budgnbear The project builder is charging $95 per d/light so trying to figure the difference. Assuming your $95 includes all the wiring and the actual downlight, it's ok but not cheap. It's been a long while, but this is what we paid roughly. $35 per light point (downlight or not, wired by my builder and bayonet point supplied) $15 per downlight (I bought the 240V types, so no transformers, 1 less thing to fail) $15 per downlight installation by an external electrician Sums to $65 per downlight installed. It did take a day and a half for me, although I had 40 to get installed So I guess first check with your builder how much just to pull the wires and supply you with a bayonet light point, then shop around for lights online and look for a trustworthy electrician, then decide. Hope that helps cheers jim Remember to factor in the possible need for an extra circuit or two - we added a few extra lights and and points here and there and had to shell out for I think two additional circuits. Not saying it is a given if it's just downlights (I think our extra power points were the main factor for us), but it's worth looking into just to be sure so you don't get any surprises - an extra circuit cost us $168 per at the builders price. Some people apparently have nothing better to do than comment on other people's sigs. Re: Electrician costs - adding downlights after handover 4Feb 15, 2012 9:00 pm The builder can do just the one fitting (batton) & switch as a standard inclusion so it effectively costs nothing for that. However, if we add the downlights, we obviously need four where the one batton is. What I'm not sure about is whether any additional wiring is required to add the four d/lights. Obviously the electrician will have to make the 'holes' in the ceiling. In our current electrical quote with all the bells & whistles (ie with the builder doing all the downlights), there are additional circuits factored in @ $240 each. Re: Electrician costs - adding downlights after handover 5Feb 15, 2012 9:13 pm budgnbear The builder can do just the one fitting (batton) & switch as a standard inclusion so it effectively costs nothing for that. However, if we add the downlights, we obviously need four where the one batton is. What I'm not sure about is whether any additional wiring is required to add the four d/lights. Obviously the electrician will have to make the 'holes' in the ceiling. Each additional downlight will have its own separate wiring that needs to be done (they are just all connected to the one switch) - in essence you will have an additional light point for each downlight. The wiring provision is usually included in the cost of installing the light point though. budgnbear In our current electrical quote with all the bells & whistles (ie with the builder doing all the downlights), there are additional circuits factored in @ $240 each. Seems a bit pricey, but then again we don't have downlights (actually it was probably our inclusion of fans with lights that might have contributed to the need for additional circuits) so you may require upgraded circuits compared to what we needed (or your builder is just charging you more - our prices were from way back in December of 2010). Some people apparently have nothing better to do than comment on other people's sigs. Re: Electrician costs - adding downlights after handover 6Feb 15, 2012 11:54 pm 95 is a bit steep. u could just ask for junction boxes and not worry about having to fill the hole left by the batten. I charge about 35 per light when the downlight is supplied depending of course on the specifics of the job. if its a new home then its a piece of cake. ask a local sparky what they charge and then take it from there Oct 10 - Council Approval Oct 23 - Site scrape Oct 29 - Footings and Prelay OCT 30 - Slabbed Nov 6 - Bricks Delivered Nov 13 - Brickwork started Re: Electrician costs - adding downlights after handover 7Feb 16, 2012 10:49 am If you are going to get the down lights straight away you can ask your builder to put the batten in a certain point in each room where you are thinking of putting the row(s) of down lights, so you will just replace the batten with a down light so you will not have to patch up the hole Re: Electrician costs - adding downlights after handover 8Feb 16, 2012 11:16 am Frexor If you are going to get the down lights straight away you can ask your builder to put the batten in a certain point in each room where you are thinking of putting the row(s) of down lights, so you will just replace the batten with a down light so you will not have to patch up the hole Thanks - thing is, builder charges $55 for extra battens. Sparky finally got back to me, he charges $20 to install d/l, add the cost of downlight & globe (around $30) and I'd be looking at total of $105 per light) if we went that method (as opposed to $95 per d/l from builder). But .. if sparky does wiring as well, he charges $40, add the cost of downlight & globe (around $30) and it's $70 per d/l (as opposed to $95). So .. approx with 30 d/lights the saving seems to be around:- Builder @ $95 per d/l = $2850 Sparky @ $40 per d/l wiring & install plus $30 for materials= $2100 I've probably lost everyone by now with my calculations but think that's the best method. When you say patching up the hole, do you mean paintwork etc ? I was hoping the hole is small enough so the rim of the d/l will cover any mess. Re: Electrician costs - adding downlights after handover 9Feb 16, 2012 11:53 am Hi Budgnbear The batten leaves a small hole no bigger than a cm in diameter. Thing is though because of this you will either need to patch it up when you remove it or cover the hole with a DL which is easily done as DL cutouts are a lot bigger. With a junction box/placing the batten somewhere you would put the DL you will eliminate the need to cover the hole left by the batten if you are not covering that specific area with a DL Most sparkys do not measure the exact centre of the room when installing a batten. this could cause an issue for you if you are covering a hole with a DL that is not in the centre of the room - thus causing the rest of your DLs to not be perfectly aligned. Frexor meant that you could ask to put the batten in a different area of the ceiling rather than adding an extra one. Oct 10 - Council Approval Oct 23 - Site scrape Oct 29 - Footings and Prelay OCT 30 - Slabbed Nov 6 - Bricks Delivered Nov 13 - Brickwork started Re: Electrician costs - adding downlights after handover 10Feb 16, 2012 12:33 pm eeep... I'm still not sure I understand, sorry, please forgive my ignorance. let's say we have our living area. If the builder installs a batten, standard inclusion, that costs us nothing. Understand what you're saying if he doesn't measure out the centre of the room for the batten. But if we had him install it where just one of say 4 d/lights would ultimately be, would he measure that out anyway ? Given he's not installing anything other downlights, just putting one batten off centre ? Alternatively we take the 'risk' that it's relatively centered, and we replace it with a d/light, then add the other four, giving us five. Electrician costs - adding downlights after handover 11Feb 16, 2012 1:40 pm budgnbear But if we had him install it where just one of say 4 d/lights would ultimately be, would he measure that out anyway ? Given he's not installing anything other downlights, just putting one batten off centre ? Alternatively we take the 'risk' that it's relatively centered, and we replace it with a d/light, then add the other four, giving us five. I think you are safer asking for your batten to be put where you want one of your downlights, and tell the electrician that you want to replace it with a downlight, otherwise your run the risk of the batten being installed too close to a roof truss for you to be able to replace it with a downlight. Paul Re: Electrician costs - adding downlights after handover 12Feb 16, 2012 3:08 pm paulw11 budgnbear But if we had him install it where just one of say 4 d/lights would ultimately be, would he measure that out anyway ? Given he's not installing anything other downlights, just putting one batten off centre ? Alternatively we take the 'risk' that it's relatively centered, and we replace it with a d/light, then add the other four, giving us five. I think you are safer asking for your batten to be put where you want one of your downlights, and tell the electrician that you want to replace it with a downlight, otherwise your run the risk of the batten being installed too close to a roof truss for you to be able to replace it with a downlight. Paul Yep. I spoke to the builder, they are going to do that for us. Thanks for the input everyone. 0 1347 Hey, I am wanting to add a second toilet to my house, bit we have limited room. There is a hallway/entry that is never used, so was thinking this could be an option. Only… 0 4709 Can you give advice on how to get missing certificates needed for a form 21? Our bank requires us to provide one but we are missing 4 building certificates from our first… 3 71815 |