We had our kitchen refurbished a few months ago and the electricians completely ignored the plan and put far too few sockets in for our many appliances. My mum is disabled and cannot constantly plug/unplug appliances so its pretty important. So when a friend across the road was having his kitchen rewired today I decided to ask for the old sockets which they were taking out rather than scrap them. His house had only been rewired completely a few years back so they were practically new.

So right when they started work I mentioned we wanted to keep the old sockets to which I got a reply which I couldn't even make out, but I thought it was they would try. After a few hours listening to them working though I hear a smashing sound all too much like sockets being hit with a hammer. I poke my head in the kitchen to see I am correct. I remark "we were going to save them" to which their reply was "its council property, and the screw threads were damaged so we couldn't unscrew them, is there a problem?". I walked away, not wanting to cause problems for my friend but what I really wanted to say was "yes, there is a bloody problem, you didn't even TRY to unscrew them and they cant ALL be bad".

Firstly, how do THEY know its council property? The sockets might easily have been installed in addition to the originals and in which case they would not be owned by the council. You are only required to leave a council property safe and usable, as THEY left it. This does not automatically mean any extra sockets you installed have to be left, you are perfectly in your right to remove them again so long as you leave it safe and plastered. Its not like we could remove them before they started work as the downstairs ring main had to be disconnected and joined, and I have no backboxes or junction boxes - the whole reason we needed them.

Secondly, we know for a fact the screws were fine as they have been unscrewed before and if you ever tighten a socket/light swtich too hard it cracks before the thread gets damaged. Even if they WERE bad (only happens if they were screwed in at an angle, very rare), its a statistical impossibility that they were ALL bad. I was also keeping an eye through the kitchen window and it was clear they never even tried to unscrew them.

I am a qualified electrician but never actually done it as a job. I got the qualification then realised my health problems would prevent me doing that kind of work. Also, it was so that I could safely add sockets to my own house knowing I was following the regulations. However buying individual sockets/boxes on their own is expensive. No to mention I resent having to PAY for something Henry Boots contractor did WRONG in the first place. We will certainly be pushing for Sheffield Homes to fix the problem but having those sockets would have been a good backup plain / gotten it done a LOT sooner.

I am just lost for words as to the sheer ignorance of the electricians. When they did our kitchen they were ignorant and claimed they couldn't add all the sockets we wanted (which were on the plan drawn up by Sheffield Homes/Henry Boot) due to "tolerances", which being an electrician myself I knew was complete utter lies. Its even common sense, the kitchen sockets are wired identically (but separate) to the whole upstairs which clearly has far more sockets than you could even fit in the kitchen.

Also what happened to recycling? While the government go on about targets, Sheffield Homes allow Henry Boot and its contractors to waste insane amounts of copper and trash perfectly usable sockets and switches. Copper piping is particularly wasted as rather than save short pieces for the next job they put it in to be "recycled", which is clearly wasteful as the re-processing IS damaging to the environment (but less so than extracting fresh copper) so re-processing a piece of copper that was never used, is clearly wasteful. If it is fit for using without reprocessing then you should do so. How many times could that piece of copper NEVER actually get used due to this wasting?

I do understand the sockets cannot be reused under contract due to safety concerns, but leaving them for the tenant if they want them is just polite. The Henry Boot electrician (not the same as the team who do the kitchen rewiring) for the record has always been polite and helpful, even if they did forget to turn the electricity back on after leaving TWICE. However the kitchen ones just ignore everything the tenant has to say. Although I have to admit there have been many other occasions during decent homes work where we have been ignored or told we have no rights because Sheffield Homes can do what they want to our house, by Henry Boot staff.

The kitchen ceiling for example was just fitted over the top of the old greasy ceiling because they couldn't be bothered to remove the chipboard wallpaper or take the whole ceiling down (when I pressed them on the issue they cleverly claimed it was for our own benefit due to our asthma, even though we said it NEEDED to be done and we would be fine). But I digress.....