Initial Electrical Fault Finding Tips

If something goes amiss with your plugs, lights or sockets then follow the advice given by The Electrical Safety Council on THIS PAGE.

If these initial checks do not solve your problem then you will need our help - our fully competent fault finding team at Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. are always on hand to help.

To contact us visit our website at www.stirlingelectrical.co.uk or call 01786 813916.

Electrical Safety Advice - Top Tips For Garden Safety

Over the past few weeks Stirling Electrical Services Ltd in conjunction with The Electrical Safety Council have been linking to various Electrical Safety Leaflets to help with advice on using electricity safely.

Today's advice is titled TOP TIPS FOR GARDEN SAFETY and contains some excellent advice.

If you would like to discuss the contents of the leaflet with Stirling Electrical Services Ltd we would be delighted to offer our advice on the subject. To do so email us at info@stirlingelectrical.co.uk or call 01786 813916.

CLICK TO VIEW THE ADVICE PAGE - Top Tips For Garden Safety

Building Warrant Work in Scotland

In May 2005, a new system was brought in to enforce the Building Regulations in Scotland.
It aims to improve the standard of building work. The new system includes rules for electrical installations, which has been controlled by the Building Regulations for many years.

Under the new system, any electrical work carried out under a building warrant (the legal permission you need from the local authority to start building work) will either have to be approved by a registered installer (known formally as an ‘approved certifier’) or be checked by the local authority. What is the building standards system in Scotland?

Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. are an Approved Body and employ Approved Certifiers - full information on the service we provide for Building Warrant Work can be found on our website

You can find full details about the building standards system in Scotland on the Scottish Building Standards website at www.sbsa.gov.uk.

For even more information you can download this excellent leaflet by The Electrical Safety Council on the Building Standards in Scotland.

Electrical Safety Advice - Using Electricity Abroad

Over the next few weeks Stirling Electrical Services Ltd in conjunction with The Electrical Safety Council will be linking to various Electrical Safety Leaflets to help with advice on using electricity safely.

Today's safety leaflet is titled USING ELECTRICITY SAFELY WHILE ABROAD and contains some excellent advice.

If you would like to discuss the contents of the leaflet with Stirling Electrical Services Ltd we would be delighted to offer our advice on the subject. To do so email us at info@stirlingelectrical.co.uk or call 01786 813916.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD LEAFLET - Using Electricity Safely While Abroad

You may need to download PDF viewing software such as Adobe Reader

Electrical Safety Advice - Guide to Fire Safety in Home

Over the next few weeks Stirling Electrical Services Ltd in conjunction with The Electrical Safety Council will be linking to various Electrical Safety Leaflets to help with advice on using electricity safely.

Today's safety leaflet is titled ELECTRICITY IN THE HOME - GUIDE TO FIRE SAFETY and contains some excellent advice.

If you would like to discuss the contents of the leaflet with Stirling Electrical Services Ltd we would be delighted to offer our advice on the subject. To do so email us at info@stirlingelectrical.co.uk or call 01786 813916.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD LEAFLET - Electricity In The Home - Guide To Fire Safety

You may need to download PDF viewing software such as Adobe Reader

The Season Is Over

The 2007/2008 football season for Stirling Albion is now over in what has been a frustrating season in The Scottish League Division One.

Relegation back into Division Two was confirmed more than two weeks ago and we now have a three month wait until the new competitive season starts in late July.

In the meantime The Stirling Albion Official Website will update fans with all the latest news in the close season.

Electrical Safety Advice - How Safe Is Your Home?

Over the next few weeks Stirling Electrical Services Ltd in conjunction with The Electrical Safety Council will be linking to various Electrical Safety Leaflets to help with advice on using electricity safely.

Today's safety leaflet is titled SO YOU THINK YOUR HOME IS SAFE? and contains some excellent advice.

If you would like to discuss the contents of the leaflet with Stirling Electrical Services Ltd we would be delighted to offer our advice on the subject. To do so email us at info@stirlingelectrical.co.uk or call 01786 813916.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD LEAFLET - So You Think Your Home Is Safe?

You may need to download PDF viewing software such as Adobe Reader

We Recommend - Appliance Repairs

If you require repairs to household appliances such as washing machines, tumble driers, fridges then Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. recommend you contact A1 Appliances* on 01786 464748.

If you have problems with your cooker, then give us a call on 01786 813916.


*Other trades/businesses recommended by us have no financial or other partnerships with us and we cannot be held responsible for any problems resulting from recommendations.

Electrical Safety Advice - Home Safe Home

Over the next few weeks Stirling Electrical Services Ltd in conjunction with The Electrical Safety Council will be linking to various Electrical Safety Leaflets to help with advice on using electricity safely.

Today's safety leaflet is titled HOME SAFE HOME and contains some excellent advice.

If you would like to discuss the contents of the leaflet with Stirling Electrical Services Ltd we would be delighted to offer our advice on the subject. To do so email us at info@stirlingelectrical.co.uk or call 01786 813916.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD LEAFLET - Home Safe Home

You may need to download PDF viewing software such as Adobe Reader

Rogue Trades- What About Some Rogue Customers?

Heres another news item on Cowboy Rogue Builders - this time by The BBC.

I'm not disputing there are rogue tradespersons and companies out there, and I'm not disputing the gentleman in the BBC video but do you think The BBC or programmes like House of Horrors or Rogue Traders will ever produce a news feature or a tv episode on Rogue Customers.

Maybe if I show these tv companies our Bad Debtors list where we have carried out work and the person we have worked for disappears into thin air before settling their invoice, we could be first on a new tv show called - Hunt Down The Rogue Customers.

There are many excellent reputable tradespersons and companies out in the so called big bad world, just the same as there are many excellent trustworthy customers only too happy to pay for services carried out, its just a pity tv companies don't highlight the few rogue customers the same way they highlight the few rogue tradepersons, instead of tarnishing all companies involved in trade work with the same brush.

Electrical Safety Advice - Using Equipment Outdoors

Over the next few weeks Stirling Electrical Services Ltd in conjunction with The Electrical Safety Council will be linking to various Electrical Safety Leaflets to help with advice on using electricity safely.

Today's safety leaflet is titled Using Electrical Equipment Outdoors and contains some excellent advice.

If you would like to discuss the contents of the leaflet with Stirling Electrical Services Ltd we would be delighted to offer our advice on the subject. To do so email us at info@stirlingelectrical.co.uk or call 01786 813916.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD LEAFLET - Using Electrical Equipment Outdoors

You may need to download PDF viewing software such as Adobe Reader

Home Videos of DIY Disasters

Always call or seek the advice of experts in whatever building work needs done - DIY can be dangerous and as you can see from the video it can also hurt

PAT Testing

We do lots of PAT Testing, all over Scotland, but we'd love to do more.

We do PAT Testing for landlords, housing companies, nursery schools, factories, tourist centres, restaurants, letting agents, owners of flats that are rented, mobile discos, in fact any workplace, business or public place, where owners must ensure their electrical appliances are maintained in a good safe working order.

We'd love to offer our PAT Testing service to you and your business. We believe our service is very competitive and also provides a service in which we constantly review our prices and technical service that we provide to clients.

So if you need PAT Testing done ? - then give us a call on 01786 813916, email us at info@stirlingelectrical.co.uk or visit the PAT Testing section of our popular website at www.stirlingelectrical.co.uk

Stirling Albion FC Official Website

Im also involved in the Stirling Albion Football Club Official Website.

To visit the website please click this link.

Poor Stirling Are Relegated

Its been nearly a week since the inevitable happened, Stirling Albion were relegated from The Scottish League Division One. To be truthful its been on the cards for a couple of months, but nonetheless it still hurts when it becomes a reality.

So our status as the Yo Yo team of Scottish Football is continually confirmed and its back to Division Two football, where in truth thats the level the club deserve to be, as our lack of ambition off the field doesn't merit a higher place in Scottish Football.

Theres only two matches to go this season, before a three month break and then the competitive matches begin again and if its anything like our last season in Division Two its sure to be an exciting season - I'm not certain though if we will enjoy that same success. Time will tell though.

Lightning Strikes

This Sunday was spent unexpectedly working at one of our main clients premises in the Trossachs. Late Friday afternoon various parts of their premises was struck by five strikes of lightning resulting in loss of power.

Just as work finished on Friday having received a telephone call from site, I managed to determine by phone that the loss of power was external to our clients site and the next 24 hours, saw the electrical power company install new transformers and cables throughout the Trossachs to restore power to various areas of the Trossachs.

Unfortunately power being restored on Saturday only brought to attention a multitude of other problems. There was no live telephone lines on isdn, analogue or broadband lines - the internal nortel telephone exchange system was fried, various parts of the security alarm system were affected and alarms were going off everywhere, cctv cameras were down and the internal computer server and network was all over the place - what a mess.

Thankfully during Sunday the alarm and cctv problems were on their way to being rectified and are now back up running. The computer system was 90% back to normal by end of day Sunday, but there was no way BT engineers were going to get out their bed on The Sabbath Day, meaning BT would not start investigating the dead lines until the start of the week.

The thing is, these thunderstorms must have been isolated to a very small area, as 25 miles away in Stirling and even only 10 miles away from our clients site, there was not a hint or any indication of what was happening over our clients site.

Hello Aprille

I can confirm that we have appointed a new Office Manager.

Aprille Mitchell will begin her employment with Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. next week.

Aprille brings to the company a wealth of experience and will be in control of all our office duties including customer relationships and job scheduling.

We are all excited about the appointment and are looking forward to the work planned to progress the company in the coming months and years.

Clients telephoning us will have been used to the energetic voice of Maureen over the last few years but don't worry Mo will still be around, as she will be slotting back into her old role working in our Taxi business. Maureen has been a star over the past few years, juggling a number of roles within the two businesses and has played a big part in moving the electrical business forward.

I'll bring you more news on the progress of the development of our office structure in the coming months.

SELECT INSPECTION

We recently had our routine Technical Inspection by our electrical trade organisation SELECT and I am delighted to announce that we passed and can continue to work under the umbrella of SELECT.

SELECT Members are recognised and respected for the safety, quality and technical excellence of their work and as a company we are proud of our membership of SELECT, which we believe gives our clients and prospective clients reassurance that our company strive to deliver an excellent standard of electrical work.

We believe the standard of electrical work we undertake must be coupled with providing a high standard of customer service, which must be consistent throughout our relationship with clients.

Where Does The Time Go

Was it really mid-February I last posted - where does the time go. I better get back to posting regularly before I forgot how to.

Isle of Mull Photos

I travel to the Isle of Mull, Western Scotland, a number of times throughout the year. I was on Mull again last week working for a couple of days and I took advantage of the lovely February weather and took some photos.

Click here to see the photos.

Operations/Admin Co-Ordinator Required

We are looking to fill the below important position within the company

* OPERATIONS/ADMIN CO-ORDINATOR

Location
FALLIN,STIRLING,STIRLINGSHIRE
Hours
37.5 HOURS PER WEEK, MONDAY - FRIDAY, 9.00AM-5.00PM
Wage
£15,000-£17,500 PER ANNUM DEPENDING ON EXPERIENCE
Work Pattern
Week Days
Employer
Stirling Electrical Services
Pension
Not presently
Duration
PERMANENT ONLY

Description
Essential requirements are of a similar working experience in a service industry company and previous production/Job scheduling experience. You must be able to deal with Customers and build client relationships, have a highly competent level of IT literacy (Word & Excel in particular) and an excellent telephone manner. Financial or stock control experience is desirable. Training will be given on our job scheduling software. Duties include maintaining and updating company procedures, scheduling electrical jobs and trades people's time allocation, administration of job details and management of diaries, invoicing and credit control duties, reports management and forecasting, dealing with wholesalers, ordering stock and materials and dealing with customers.

CV by post or email. The email address is: finance@stirlingelectricalservices.co.uk

How to apply
You can apply for this job by sending a CV/written application to Scott McLean at Stirling Electrical Services, 12 Queen Street, Fallin, Stirling, Stirlingshire, FK7 7JG.

or email finance@stirlingelectricalservices.co.uk

Kentallen, Lochaber

Well our two day break to celebrate my Birthday in Kentallen, Lochaber is over with already. Kentallen is situated on the shore of Loch Linnhe, south west of Ballachulish near Glencoe on the road to Oban.

As I posted last week we stayed at he Hollytree Hotel and Leisure Club and we had a fabulous time just chilling out in the swimming pool enjoying excellent fine dining in their seafood restaurant.

We read mixed reviews on Tripadvisor about this hotel, but to be fair most of the bad reviews were from when they were carrying out renovation and extension work at the hotel last summer, but I can thoroughly recommend this hotel, especially at this time of year as a short break.
Photos of our short break can be found here...

Booking Accommodation

Im heading away over the next few days for some relaxing time away in the Scottish Highland's to celebrate my Birthday, so its over to Maureen and Co. to keep the wheels turning back in Stirling. Work takes us to the Scottish Highlands and Islands throughout the year, so as Im heading that way again, I get the feeling I must like that particular part of the World.

We are heading to The Holly Tree Hotel and Leisure Club in Kentallen - I'll review the hotel when we return.

It took me only a few minutes today to book this hotel, but try booking a accommodation in Aberdeen. It took me nearly two hours today to find a Premier Inn/Travellodge type of place that had vacancies for two of our electricians tonight.

PS - I've been told to leave work at home over the next few days, but Im planning to sneak our new Electrical Wiring Regulations book into my luggage - do you think that will go down well with the wife!!!!

Changing a Light Fitting

Changing a light fitting is the sort of job that a DIYer would expect to do very easy, but on many occasions it isn't. The DIYer might expect to see three wires - live, neutral and earth. But most of the time they will see a whole lot more wires than that.

Depending on how your lighting circuit is wired your light fitting can double as a junction box, so you have one cable coming into the light from the previous light in the circuit, then a cable going down to the switch and back, and then a third cable running off to the next light fitting.

Many DIYer's attempt to change a light fitting themselves and often the wiring is as above, and they fail to take note of where the wires are terminated in their existing light fitting before they take it down or fail to understand the wiring altogether. This usually results in two problems, 1- the DIYer puts all the same colours of wires together and when they put the electricity back on - it goes bang and blows the fuse or trips the circuit breaker, or 2- again the wires are connected wrongly, but this time there is no bang, but lights in adjacent rooms do not work.

At this point this is where we normally receive a phone call and are called to rectify the problem and do so usually within a matter of minutes. I am not the biggest fan of DIYer's carrying out electrical work but taking two minutes to take note of where the wires go in the existing light fitting can save a lot of problems when installing new light fittings. If DIYer's take note of the wires and are still not sure of the theory behind where the wires should go in the new light fitting please do not attempt to guess, as this can be very dangerous and can damage your new light fitting, not forgetting damaging themselves. It usually takes only a few minutes for us to install new replacement light fittings and usually at a cost much less than your new light fitting.

Do not take any chances if you are not sure.

Photo Updates

January is nearly over and 2008 is already one month down. This time of year is always very busy for us at Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. and I have not had much time to blog. I'm determined to find time in our busy schedule to post on here so look out for more posts in February.

Until the next post here are a couple of links to photos.

The first link is from my New Year trip to Isle of Bute with my wife Jennie, where we stayed at St Blanes Hotel, Kilchattan Bay. click to view photos

And one of the many jobs in January was to carry out the electrical, networking and audio visual work in converting a foyer space at the Falkirk Wheel into an Information Centre - click for a few photos of our work

Vacancy - Electrician

Due to further expansion an Electrician is required for installation, maintenance and testing work in domestic, commercial and light industrial premises mostly in Central Scotland but on occasions throughout Scotland. Applicant must be fully qualified to BS7671 and time served with valid SJIB card. Inspection and Testing experience required preferably with 2391 qualification along with good fault finding skills. Applicant must have clean full driving license.

Minimum 37.5 hours per week over 5 days - rate of pay £11.48 - £12.50 per hour depending on experience.

You can apply for this job by sending a CV/written application to Scott McLean at Stirling Electrical Services Ltd, 12 Queen Street, Fallin, Stirlingshire, FK7 7JG or by email to info@stirlingelectrical.co.uk or by fax to 01786 811447.

We're All Back

Technically today is our first official working day of 2008, so it would be remiss of me not to wish you all a Happy New Year and wish you all the best for the coming year.

I say today is our first official working day as its today when we are back to a full workforce after most of the team arrive back at work since the festive break. For two of us though and that includes myself, we have been working over the break, either on stand by or on designated working days within the break.

So it was good to be back to a full workforce today and any hopes that we would be eased back in gently were wishful thinking as its been a hectic day with many jobs and enquiries coming in thick and fast - infact it seems as if everyone had their phones on a timer and scheduled to call us today - but would and we have it any other way? - of course we wouldn't.

Its good to be back, so if you've been putting off that little electrical job, well now is the time to call us.

Happy New Year

So yes its good to be back and

Standards and Demands of the Electrician

A recent survey has found that almost a quarter of the country has employed an electrician in the last two years, while another survey has found that only 0.2% of complaints by consumers to the Governments advice service Consumer Direct were about electricians.

I have always had a bee in my bonnet about the low entry level required to set up an electrical business. Its so easy in this country to advertise yourself as an electrician and be set loose on the unsuspecting public. Thankfully over the last few years though trade organizations such as SELECT have been more proactive in the public domain in driving the message that it is best to choose an electrician that is part of organization such as SELECT.

So does these stats above prove that the message by SELECT is getting through to the public - well in some ways yes i think it is, but there is a long way to go. Personally I believe there are far too many easy opportunities for the public to openly buy electrical items that they have no knowledge of installing themselves but you just know they will try - this issue though is for another blogpost, so lets look back at some of the stats found in the surveys above.

1.5 million complaints were made to Consumer Direct last year on a whole range of topics, but top of the list with 74,000 ( 4% of the 1.5 million ) complaints were for "Home and Maintenance Installations". Drilling down the data though of the 74,000 complaints in this sector Electrical Services and Installations was 8th on the list with only 2,997 complaints. Other trades in the list were Plumbers(6,661), Bathroom fittings(6,117), Roofing(4,610), Central heating installation and maintenance(6,995), Fitted kitchens(12,819), Tarmac and paving(4,448) and General Building Work(17,503). So of all the complaints to Cosumer Direct, only 0.2 % were about electricians and 4% were in the Home and Maintenance Installations sector.

Another survey by YouGov has found almost 25% have employed the services of an electrician in the last two years just behind Plumbers, with builders on 16%. 1 in 5 people had difficulty in finding skilled tradesman in the last two years.

2997 complaints about electricians is still far too many though and thats why as part of our own drive we will always be focused on Customer Satisfaction coupled with High Standards of Electrical Work and that will continue to be our motto in 2008.

Merry Christmas

Its been a busy 2007 for Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. and we are looking forward in continuing to build the company around good quality workmanship and customer service in 2008.

So to celebrate 2007 most of the team attended a night out on Friday at the ten pin bowling centre in Stirling, where we tucked into food and drink, while trying to bowl straight.

We all enjoyed the evening and are now looking forward to the festivities over the next few days and I would like to thank the team for their efforts in 2007 and to wish them and all our clients a very Merry Christmas and here's to a happy 2008.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Photos of the bowling can be found below.

Look Out For Our New Vans

Wow, thats been a busy few months and we still have one week to go before our Christmas break ( but you can still contact us if you need us as we will have emergency cover throughout the festive period ).

One of the projects over the past few months has been the purchase of two new vans which will be sporting our new van livery and over the next month or so our other vans will have the new livery installed.

So wherever you are in Stirling and indeed Scotland, look out for our new vans and livery which will be driving down and working in a street near you soon.