Don’t get us wrong, this wee piece of writing is not about why you should or shouldn’t have a property manager. In our opinion, they are worth their weight in gold. Properties are a million-dollar investment and not worth a cheap fix that could possibly cause issues down the track.

We’re not saying that electrical work needs to be the most expensive or exhaustive, just that as a minimum it should be safe. We’ll say it again, a cheap fix on a million-dollar investment is just not worth it…

DIY cabling for free power

We were fixing a basic issue for a new tenant at a residential rental – the oven switch was sparking when it was turned on. Upon further investigation, we found that the previous tenant had tapped into the main power feed – the cables before the meter – receiving free power. Now, while that sounds like a win for the tenant, it’s an absolute disaster for the property manager and the owner. Because the power was travelling into the house through a dodgy feed and without going through a safety fuse, the property could have burnt to the ground.

Cheap patches to save money

Another time we were called in to look at a hot water cylinder because the wire had melted. That was the first red flag. We opened the meter board and it pretty much fell to pieces on the ground in front of us. Nothing was secured because the previous electrician had just been doing cheap patches – quick fixes to save the owner money. But it wasn’t at all safe and had serious potential to harm someone. We fixed the initial issue and provided a quote to make the property safe again.

Legislation around tenants is huge at the moment, especially regarding liability for harm. In fact, the property manager is liable before the owner is.

Solutions not problems

We were called in to provide a quote to redo the lighting at a central Auckland school. The regular sparky couldn’t find a particular light bulb saying that they were no longer being made. Because they were obsolete, the recommendation was for a $40,000 lighting refit. Therefore we were brought in, to provide a comparative quote.

Within one week, we found the ‘obsolete’ light bulbs and delivered them to the school. That’s a $40k saving and one now very loyal customer.

The Auckland Council were also let down by a different electrician. One of their cables wasn’t working and this particular sparky had put it in the too-hard basket and simply given up. Within our contacts, we sourced someone to come and trace the cable underground so that we could find the bit that wasn’t working and replace it. Problem solved.

If you are a property manager or a commercial caretaker who wants problems solved, we are the Auckland electricians you can trust. No Shock.