Business premises · Southampton
Commercial electrical work in Southampton
Shops, offices, salons and small units across Southampton — alterations, testing, faults and the work that comes with taking a place on.
- Small commercial premises
- Reports your insurer will accept
- Free, no-obligation quotes
- NAPIT registeredRegistered competent electrician
- Fully insuredInsured on every job
- 15+ years' experiencePeter has been doing this a while
- Covering SO14–SO19Local to you
Taking on a unit someone else fitted out
The most common commercial job I get called to in Southampton is a new occupier discovering that the previous tenant’s arrangement does not suit theirs at all. Sockets in the wrong places, lighting set up for a completely different layout, and a distribution board that has been added to over the years by several different people.
If you are looking at a unit and have not signed yet, that is the cheapest possible moment to have someone look at the electrics. Not to find fault with it, but so you know what you would be taking on before it becomes yours to pay for.
Changing what the space is used for
A shop becoming a café, an office becoming a treatment room, a storage unit becoming a workshop: the change of use is usually where the electrical requirement jumps. Catering equipment in particular draws far more than most people expect, and the existing supply into a small unit is not always ready for it. It is worth establishing early, because the answer occasionally affects whether the space works for you at all.
Who pays — you or the building owner
In a rented commercial unit this depends on your lease, and I am not the person to interpret it. What I can do is tell you precisely what the work is and where the boundary physically sits — which end of the supply, which side of the meter, whose distribution board. That is usually the information both sides need before the conversation can happen at all.
Staying open while it is done
Small premises rarely have anywhere to move the work to, so where it is possible I stage it: the disruptive parts outside trading hours, the rest around you. Whether I can do that in a given week depends on what else is booked, so ask early and I will give you a straight yes or no rather than a maybe.
Paperwork your insurer will accept
Business insurers and some landlords ask for evidence that the installation has been inspected. You get the report as a PDF, addressed properly, with the company details on it — which is usually what is being asked for, rather than a receipt saying an electrician attended.
Questions
Questions from Southampton businesses
We are looking at a unit. Should we get it checked before signing?
If you can, yes. It is a modest cost against finding out afterwards that the supply will not carry what you had planned. It also gives you something concrete to raise with the landlord while you still have room to negotiate.
Our insurer is asking for an electrical certificate. What do they mean?
Usually a periodic inspection report on the installation. If you forward what they have sent I will confirm it rather than have you buy the wrong thing — the wording varies quite a bit between insurers.
The landlord says the electrics are our responsibility. Are they?
That is a question about your lease and I am not qualified to answer it. What I can do is tell you exactly what the work involves and where the physical boundary is, which is normally what is needed to settle it.
We are putting in catering equipment. Will the supply cope?
Often it needs checking rather than assuming. Commercial catering draws a great deal more than the equipment it is replacing, and small units are not always supplied generously. Better to know before it is delivered.
Related
Where to next
Work needed at your premises?
Tell me about the premises and what needs doing, and I will come back to you.