Croscombe sits in the valley of the River Sheppey, with stone cottages lining the A371 and backing onto the river. We work in the village for owners, buyers, sellers and landlords. This year that included bonding tests with a written confirmation for a buyer's surveyors during a sale. Inspections, alarms, consumer units and rewires are all done by our own electricians and priced as a fixed figure.
Croscombe grew along the valley floor, so many of its houses stand right on the road with the River Sheppey behind them. They are solid stone, mostly older than any wiring in them, and the electrics have been fitted into rooms that were never designed for cables. In practice that means sockets and switches mounted on thick walls, runs dropped from the floor above, and the occasional circuit taken through an outbuilding or along a back wall to reach a garden or store.
Solid stone walls in a valley can hold moisture, particularly low down and on the side facing the ground or the water. Damp does not suit old accessories or cable sheathing, and it is one of the reasons an insulation resistance test is worth having on an older cottage. The test puts a voltage across the conductors and measures how well the insulation is holding; a low reading points to a problem long before anything trips. It is a routine part of every inspection we carry out, and the readings go on the schedule so you can see them.
Where work is needed we plan the routes before anything is chased, follow existing paths through floors where we can, and keep the disturbance to plaster to what the job actually requires.
House sales often bring electrical questions. A buyer's surveyor, lender or solicitor will often ask a question about the electrics, and the seller needs a clear written answer quickly enough to keep the sale moving.
The question we were asked in Croscombe this year was about bonding. Main protective bonding is the green-and-yellow conductor that connects incoming metal services, such as the gas pipe, back to the main earthing terminal so that they cannot sit at a dangerous voltage if a fault occurs. We tested the continuity of the bonding to the gas service, recorded a reading of 0.05 ohms, and gave a written bonding confirmation the buyer's surveyors could rely on.
For a fuller picture, an EICR inspects and tests every circuit and codes anything it finds:
Any C1, C2 or FI makes the report unsatisfactory. No law sets an inspection interval for people who own and live in their home, but the common guidance is roughly every ten years and whenever a house is bought or sold. Our EICR page for the Wells area explains the inspection in detail.
Many Croscombe cottages front straight onto the A371, and we will be straight with you: a home charger needs a safe, legal cable route on your own property, from your supply to a point where you can park off the road. We cannot run a lead across a pavement or a public road. If your house has a yard, a driveway, a garage or parking at the back, a charger is usually possible, often with armoured cable taken along a wall or through a duct.
Where it works, we fit a dedicated circuit with a Type A RCBO, check the earthing at survey (some properties need an earth electrode), and notify the distribution network operator for you. We fit Hypervolt, Zappi, Ohme and Andersen chargers and set the app up before we leave. The price depends on the charger you choose, the cable run and the board, and the written quote sets out exactly what is included, charger and all. See EV charger installation near Wells.
If you are nearer the Shepton end of the valley, the same work is covered on our Shepton Mallet EICR and Shepton Mallet fuse board pages.
The A371 runs between Wells and Shepton Mallet through Croscombe. The village is about two miles west of Shepton Mallet and about three miles east of Wells, so it falls under both our Shepton Mallet and Wells area pages. Both towns are part of our regular patch from our Mid Somerset base.
We price by the job, not the hour. Send photos and a short description and we will tell you whether we need to see it first. Larger work gets a survey and a written, fixed price with VAT shown separately.
Pilton lies on the A361 about two miles south-west of Shepton Mallet and about four miles south-east of Wells. It is a village of stone cottages, farmhouses and barns, with the tithe barn and the festival site nearby. This year we fitted lighting, multi-sensor heat and CO alarms and an EICR at one cottage there, and traced a fault to a nail through a cable under the floor at another.
Wookey is the village about two miles west of Wells, separate from Wookey Hole. It is where we installed a Hypervolt charge point this year with 48 metres of armoured cable taken through a duct and across a garden, a good example of how a long run to a parking spot can be done neatly and safely when the property has the room.
Coxley sits between Wells and Glastonbury, about two miles south-west of Wells. For anyone moving between Croscombe and Coxley, or buying in either, the same pre-purchase questions come up: is the board protected by RCDs, is the bonding in place, and when was the last inspection. An EICR answers all three in one visit. Where the report raises something, we price the remedial work as a fixed figure so it can be dealt with before completion.
Doulting is on the A361 about two miles east of Shepton Mallet, on the other side of the town from Croscombe. Its freestone went into Wells Cathedral, and the village is mainly stone cottages and farmhouses, so the work there leans towards older-house inspections, consumer unit upgrades and supplies to outbuildings. Farmhouse supplies to barns and stores are worth including in any inspection there.
All from this year, with names and addresses left out.
Leave your details and a line about the job. We will ring you back to talk it through and arrange a survey or a written price.
Yes. We test the continuity of the main protective bonding conductor between the gas service and the main earthing terminal, record the reading, and give you a written confirmation to pass on. We did exactly this for a Croscombe sale this year. If the bonding is missing or undersized we tell you what is needed to put it right and give you a fixed price for it, so the sale is not left waiting on a vague answer.
There is no law requiring an owner-occupier to have one, and no legal interval. The usual guidance is roughly every ten years and when a house is bought or sold, and buyers or their lenders often ask for one. A satisfactory report gives a buyer something concrete; an unsatisfactory one tells you exactly what needs doing and lets you price it before the negotiation rather than after. The price of a domestic EICR depends on the size of the house and the number of circuits.
Only if there is somewhere off the road on your own property to park and a safe route for the cable to reach it. A lead trailing across a pavement is not something we will install. If you have parking at the back, a garage or a yard, we can usually run armoured cable to it and fit a charger there. Send us a photo of the front and back of the house and we will tell you honestly whether it is possible.
Damp is worth checking, not panicking about. An insulation resistance test shows whether moisture or age has weakened the insulation on each circuit, and it is part of every EICR we carry out. If a reading is low we trace which section is responsible, whether that is a socket low on an outside wall, a back box that has corroded, or a length of cable, and give you a price to repair or replace just that part.
We work from our Mid Somerset base and cover both towns and the villages between them, so Croscombe is on our regular patch whichever way we arrive. Prices are the same either way: fixed by the job after we have seen it or a set of photos, with VAT shown separately. Call 07889 334849 or use the enquiry form to arrange a visit.
Priced by the job, not by the hour. A written, fixed price after a survey, NAPIT certification on every notifiable job.
07889 334849