Commercial electrician for shops and small businesses, based in Bridlington.

Commercial electrical work I take on

The wiring, the emergency lights and the fire alarm are each tested as a separate job. The rest is new work. That might be an extra circuit for kitchen equipment, or the whole fit-out when a shop or café changes hands.

A commercial condition report is usually where it starts. It tells you whether anything in the wiring needs putting right and when the next inspection is due, and it's the document a landlord or an insurer will ask to see.

There's one of me, so the electrician who prices the job is the one who turns up to do it and signs it off.

Which checks apply to which premises

Every business is covered by the 1989 Electricity at Work Regulations, which make whoever controls the wiring keep it from becoming a danger. What else applies depends on the building.

In a shop or a small unit, that usually means a periodic condition report on the wiring, and an emergency lighting test if the building has emergency lights.

Guesthouses and shared houses can be wired the same way and still fall under different rules. Because guests pay to stay in a guesthouse, fire safety law covers it. A house in multiple occupation is its tenants' home, which brings in the landlord's duties on electrical safety as well as fire safety in the shared parts, and a bigger house needs a council licence too.

A holiday park is licensed by the council, and the conditions on that licence cover the park's electrics. I work on small independent sites, on the pitch supplies as much as the buildings.

Emergency lighting and fire alarms

Fire safety law adds a duty of its own for whoever is responsible for the premises. The 2005 Fire Safety Order expects emergency lighting on any escape route that would be too dark to use if the mains failed, and the equipment has to be kept in good repair and working order.

For the lights I carry out the annual emergency lighting test, where every fitting is run on battery until its rated time is up. The result goes in your logbook, and you get a certificate to keep with it.

The fire alarm can have its yearly inspection and test on the same visit. That visit comes once a year, and a commercial system also needs servicing in between, which we quote separately.

Between my visits, someone on site should test the alarm weekly, setting off a different call point each time and writing the result in the logbook.

Workshops and small industrial units

A unit on an industrial estate may have a three-phase supply and a sub-board for the machines, with cables run along the steelwork to equipment at the far end.

Each board is inspected and tested in turn, and a unit with more than one board is priced as a single job after I've looked round.

Where a board has no up-to-date chart of its circuits, each one has to be traced before it can be tested, which takes longer on a unit that has been altered over the years.

Fit-outs and new circuits

Fitting out a shop or café usually means new lighting and more sockets than the last tenant needed. A coffee machine or a commercial oven may want a supply of its own, and sometimes the board needs changing to take it all.

New circuits need an Electrical Installation Certificate. A small addition to a circuit that is already there gets a minor works certificate instead.

We price each fit-out from a free survey and hold to the price we give.

Before the visit

Have the last condition report and the logbook for the emergency lights to hand if you've got them, and tell me what has to stay powered while circuits are off, such as a freezer or the till.

In a building shared with other businesses, tell me who looks after the landlord's board and the common parts, because those circuits may not be yours to switch off.

Where I take commercial work

Bridlington is my base, and the patch runs from Hull to Scarborough.

Hull is the far end, about 55 minutes' drive off-peak, and I take on electrical work in Hull on the same terms as anywhere nearer home.