F & A Electrical is an NICEIC Approved Contractor working across Childs Hill and Cricklewood, NW2 — Granville Road, Cricklewood Lane, Finchley Road, Hendon Way, Dunstan Road, Platts Lane, Crewys Road, Llanvanor Road, Nant Road, Basing Hill and the streets behind Childs Hill Park. EICRs, fuse board and consumer unit replacement, fault finding, rewires, extra circuits, EV chargers, and landlord and commercial work. We are based at Ten 87 Studios, Markfield Road, Tottenham N15, which is about 35 minutes across — the A406 to Henlys Corner, then down the A41. Part P registered, BS 7671 18th Edition, fully insured, 9.32/10 from 242 Checkatrade reviews. Call 07407 627542 or 07500 721453.
NW2 is an awkward postcode to be an electrician in, and it is worth saying why up front. Childs Hill sits in the London Borough of Barnet, but the ward runs west into Cricklewood and east towards Golders Green, and Cricklewood itself straddles three boroughs. Walk down Cricklewood Lane and you can cross from Barnet into Camden and Brent in a few hundred yards. The south-east corner of Childs Hill, the old Telegraph Hill ground behind West Heath, is in Camden now. That matters for building control notification, for parking, and for who you ring about a licence — and it is the thing most quotes for this area get wrong.
What we do in NW2
- EICRs for homeowners, landlords, HMO licence applications and solicitor-led sales, with the report and the remedial quote the same day where we can manage it.
- Fuse board and consumer unit replacement — RCBO boards, with the main earthing and bonding put right in the same visit rather than written up as a C2 and left for someone else.
- Fault finding — RCDs that trip at night, dead sockets, a dead lighting circuit, water in an outside run, a burning smell at a board.
- Main earthing and main protective bonding, including TT conversion and an earth rod where the network cannot provide an earth terminal.
- Rewires, partial rewires and single circuits — showers, cookers, loft rooms, garden offices, garages and annexes.
- Communal and landlord’s-supply work in the Granville Road blocks and the Finchley Road mansion blocks — risers, landlord’s lighting, lift and pump supplies, staircase emergency lighting.
- EV charge points where there is genuine off-street parking, and an honest answer where there is not.
- Landlord and HMO compliance — EICR, fire alarm, emergency lighting and PAT testing, planned as one visit where the building allows it.
- Commercial — the Cricklewood Lane and Finchley Road parades, salons, cafés, clinics, small offices and the converted workshops off Granville Road.
Prices in Childs Hill and Cricklewood
These are labour and certification only. Materials — boards, accessories, cable, fittings, EV units — are itemised separately on the quote at cost, so you can see what you are paying for. Our minimum charge is £108 including VAT, which is one hour at the standard rate of £90 per hour plus VAT. Nothing is priced below that, including a five-minute job, because the van still has to get to NW2 and park.
| Job | Labour + certification |
|---|---|
| Attend, trace the fault, make safe (first hour) | from £108 — comes off the job if you go ahead |
| EICR, 1–2 bed flat | from £140 |
| EICR, 3 bed house or maisonette | from £170 |
| EICR, 4 bed house | from £200 |
| EICR, 5 bed or large semi | from £250 |
| EICR, large detached or more than one board | £300–£400 |
| HMO EICR | £250–£500 by room count and number of boards |
| Commercial EICR | from £220, quoted per circuit after a survey |
| Consumer unit replacement, 6-way | from £550 |
| Consumer unit replacement, 10-way | from £650 |
| Consumer unit replacement, 12-way or larger | from £750 |
| Board replacement and EICR on the same visit | from £690 |
| Main earthing and protective bonding alongside a board | from £108 |
| Flat rewire, 1 bed / 2 bed / 3 bed | £2,200–£3,200 / £3,000–£4,500 / £4,200–£6,000 |
| House rewire, 2 bed terrace upwards | £2,800–£4,000, rising to £9,500–£14,000 on a large detached |
| Partial rewire | £1,600–£3,000 |
| EV charge point, standard install | from £450 |
| PAT testing | around £5 per appliance, £108 minimum visit |
| Emergency lighting, annual test and certificate | from £180 up to 10 luminaires |
| Out of hours, evenings, weekends | £60 + VAT per half hour on top of the job |
Fuller breakdowns are in our EICR cost guide for London, the fuse board replacement guide, the rewire cost guide and the out-of-hours pricing guide.
What we actually find in NW2 wiring
Childs Hill was brick and tile ground in the 1700s, then brickfields, and Granville Road was cut across the old workings in the early 1850s. The houses went up from the late nineteenth century onwards — leafy semis on the higher ground towards Platts Lane, plainer terraces on the flat. Then came four tower blocks and a scatter of mid-rise flats. Three different building periods, three different sets of problems.
- Rubber and lead-sheathed cable still live in loft spaces. On the late-Victorian terraces off Granville Road and the Crewys, Llanvanor and Nant Road group, a 1960s or 1970s rewire is now fifty years old. The sockets have been changed, the board has been changed, and the original lighting drops above the lath-and-plaster ceilings never were. Insulation resistance tells you in ten minutes.
- Lighting circuits with no earth at the switch or the rose. Standard on anything wired before the mid-1960s and perfectly common here. It is a C2 if there is a metal fitting or a metal switch plate on it, and it is the single most frequent reason an EICR on an NW2 terrace comes back unsatisfactory.
- Main protective bonding missing after a water main was replaced. Thames Water renewed a lot of the incoming mains around here in plastic. The old 10mm bond to the stopcock either got cut or now bonds a plastic pipe, which does nothing. The gas bond is often undersized at 6mm or clamped to a painted pipe.
- Borrowed neutrals on two-way landing switching. Very common in the three-storey terraces and in houses converted into two flats. It will hold until you split the circuits across RCBOs, and then nothing works and the board gets blamed.
- Meter positions that make a shutdown awkward. Outside cupboards at the front on the terraces, and in the blocks a meter in a communal riser with no local isolator ahead of it. That is a meter operator job, not an electrician’s, and it needs booking before the board date rather than discovering on the morning.
- Three-phase left behind in converted light industrial. Granville Road was a laundry district — the Initial Laundry was the last of them and closed in 2006 — and the Cricklewood railway lands behind it were workshops and yards. Several of those buildings are flats or studios now with a three-phase supply still on the wall, sometimes with one phase doing all the work and two sitting idle. Worth knowing before you quote a rewire on one.
Granville Road, the towers and the Finchley Road blocks
The high-rise in Childs Hill is unusual for Barnet. The first block went up around 1956, built by Tersons for the Metropolitan Police as housing for police families; Orchard Mead House on Finchley Road did the same job for emergency services families before it went private. Two more followed on Granville Road around 1960, built by the borough, and a fourth later. There are mid-rise blocks alongside them and a long run of 1930s mansion flats on Finchley Road and Hendon Way.
Work in these buildings divides cleanly in two, and it helps to know which one you are asking about before you ring:
- Inside the flat. Your own consumer unit, your own circuits, your own EICR. In the 1950s and 60s blocks the flat is often still on a small board fed from a rising main with a landlord’s fuse at the bottom, and the original installation was four or five circuits with no provision for a shower, a washer-dryer and a double oven. Half the faults we find are an overloaded ring that has been extended twice.
- The landlord’s supply. Communal lighting, the riser, lift and pump supplies, the dry riser alarm, staircase emergency lighting and the bin-store circuits sit on a separate supply belonging to the freeholder or the managing agent. That needs its own EICR and its own emergency lighting certificate. A leaseholder cannot commission it and should not be paying for it out of pocket — it is a service-charge item.
Two practical notes. Anything built before 2000 may have asbestos-containing material in the service risers and old cupboard linings, so on communal work we want the building’s asbestos register before we start cutting, not after. And in an occupied block a full landlord’s shutdown has to be planned — notices up, lift arrangements agreed, and a start time that is not the school run. We will tell you what we need isolated and for how long, and we would rather do it in an early slot than an evening one, because out-of-hours time is chargeable and an early start is not.
Three boroughs on one street — parking, notification and licences
NW2 is where Barnet, Brent and Camden meet, and that has real consequences on a job.
Notification. Notifiable work under Part P goes to building control for the borough the property is actually in, not the borough the postcode feels like. A board change on the Barnet side of Cricklewood Lane and one on the Camden side are notified to different authorities. We are Part P registered and self-certify, so you get the certificate and the building control compliance notice either way — but if you are being quoted by someone who cannot self-certify, that is a separate application and a separate fee, and it is worth asking which borough they have allowed for.
Licensing. Barnet, Brent and Camden each run their own selective and additional licensing arrangements, and they change. If you let a flat or an HMO around Cricklewood Lane, Granville Road or the Finchley Road end, check the relevant council’s current scheme for your street rather than assuming it matches the neighbouring borough. What we can tell you is what the electrical side of a licence application needs: a satisfactory EICR, fire detection appropriate to the building, emergency lighting where the escape route needs it, and the paperwork dated and signed. Our HMO EICR page sets out what an inspector actually looks at.
Parking. Hendon Way and Finchley Road are red routes — we unload and move the van, which is fine for an EICR and a nuisance on a board change. The side streets off Granville Road and around Childs Hill Park are controlled, so for a full day’s work we will either sort a permit or ask you to, and on a rewire where we need the van outside for a week we will talk to you about a bay suspension before the first day rather than halfway through. It is not an extra we spring on you; it is a line on the quote.
Landlords, HMOs and the flats above the parade
Childs Hill ward is one of the more densely populated parts of Barnet, and a lot of NW2 is rented — student and young-professional sharers near the Finchley Road end, families in the terraces, and a steady supply of flats above the shops on Cricklewood Lane.
Under the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector regulations you need a satisfactory EICR at least every five years and at the start of a new tenancy, a copy to the tenant within 28 days, a copy to the council within seven days of a request, and any C1 or C2 remedied within 28 days or sooner if the report says so. We write reports to be used, not to pad: coded findings, a remedial quote with prices against each item, and a plain-English note of what is urgent and what can wait for the next void. If we remedy it, you get written confirmation of the work and the completion date to go with the original report.
Flats above a commercial unit are the ones that catch landlords out here. The shop below is on its own supply with its own obligations, the flat above is yours, and the staircase, the shared meter cupboard and the escape lighting belong to whoever holds the freehold. We will map the supplies on the first visit and tell you which certificates you are actually responsible for, which is usually fewer than the managing agent says and occasionally more.
Commercial work in NW2
The Cricklewood Lane parade and the Finchley Road frontage are small-unit commercial: cafés, barbers and salons, takeaways, a dentist or two, nail bars, convenience stores, small offices and a fair number of first-floor treatment rooms. The recurring issues are the same ones every London parade has — a board in a cupboard behind stock, extension leads doing permanent work, three-phase kitchen equipment on a single-phase supply, and extract fans wired off a lighting circuit.
We do commercial EICRs from £220, quoted per circuit after a survey because a 40-circuit three-phase board is not the same job as a lock-up with twelve ways. Where a shutdown would cost you a trading day we will quote the work split across early mornings instead, and the out-of-hours rate is £60 plus VAT per half hour so you can see what that choice costs before you make it. PAT testing runs at around £5 an appliance with the £108 minimum visit, and we will do it alongside the EICR rather than as a second trip.
North of Cricklewood the Brent Cross Cricklewood regeneration keeps changing the picture — new blocks, new retail, and a new station on the Thameslink line at Brent Cross West. New-build commercial has the opposite problem to the old parades: the installation is sound but the capacity was designed for a different tenant, so the question is usually whether there is enough headroom at the board for what you want to put in. That is a survey, not a guess, and it is an hour’s work to answer properly.
EV charging in Childs Hill and Cricklewood
If you have a driveway, a garage or an allocated bay with a route for the cable, a home charger is straightforward: from £450 for a standard install, plus the unit. We check the main supply capacity and the earthing arrangement first, because on an older terrace with a 60A or 80A cut-out and a 1970s main earth, the charger is the easy part.
If your car is on the street — and on the Crewys, Llanvanor and Nant Road group, and most of the terraced streets off Granville Road, it will be — the honest answer is that we cannot help you with a wall point. There is no compliant way to put a charger on a wall for a street-parked car, and we will not run a cable across a public footway for you; it is a trip hazard and it is not ours to obstruct. Cross-pavement charging channels exist, but they are a council scheme, so the route is an application to the relevant borough rather than a call to an electrician. In a block, a charger in a communal car park is a freeholder and managing-agent decision before it is an electrical one, and the sub-main capacity is the thing that decides it. Our guide to planning permission and Article 4 for EV chargers and the EV charger in a flat page cover both situations.
Nearby areas we cover
Next door in Barnet: Hendon and Golders Green NW4 and NW11 · Finchley N2, N3 and N12 · Mill Hill NW7 · Whetstone and Totteridge N20 · Friern Barnet and New Southgate N11 · High Barnet EN5 · East Barnet EN4 · Edgware and Burnt Oak HA8. Over the Camden and Brent borders: Hampstead · NW3 · NW6 Kilburn and West Hampstead · NW10 · NW1 · Camden · Tufnell Park.
Borough-wide pages: EICR Barnet, fuse board replacement in Barnet, consumer unit replacement in Barnet, EV charger installation in Barnet and emergency electrician in Barnet; on the Camden side, EICR Camden and fuse board replacement in Camden. The full list is on our London service areas page, and the written guides are indexed on electrical guides.
Childs Hill and Cricklewood electrician — common questions
How long does it take you to get to NW2?
About 35 minutes from Tottenham N15 — the North Circular west to Henlys Corner, then down the A41 Hendon Way. Henlys Corner is the morning pinch and can add twenty minutes, so we do not promise a response time we cannot keep. We hold same-day slots most weekdays; if one is free it is yours, and if it is not we will tell you the first real time we can be there rather than booking you in and ringing back to move it.
Which council do I notify for a board change — Barnet, Brent or Camden?
Whichever borough the property sits in, which in NW2 is not always the obvious one. We are Part P registered and self-certify, so we lodge the notification and you get the building control compliance certificate without applying for anything yourself. If you are not sure which side of a boundary you are on, give us the full postcode and we will tell you.
I’m a leaseholder in one of the Granville Road blocks. Can I get an EICR done on the communal areas?
Not on your own account, no — the landlord’s supply and the communal circuits belong to the freeholder or the managing agent, and they commission that inspection. What you can do is have your own flat inspected, which is a 1–2 bed EICR from £140, and use the report. If it shows a problem that starts outside your front door — a landlord’s fuse, the riser, an earthing arrangement that is not right for the building — that is written up in plain terms you can send to the agent.
My RCD trips at random, usually at night. What is that?
Nine times in ten it is accumulated earth leakage rather than one dead fault: several appliances each leaking a little, plus a damp outside circuit or an old shower, adding up past the trip threshold. It shows at night because that is when the immersion, the dishwasher and the outside lighting overlap. We measure leakage circuit by circuit with a clamp, find the contributors and tell you whether the answer is one repair or splitting the board onto RCBOs. The first hour of fault finding is £108 and comes off the job if you go ahead.
Do you charge extra to work in a converted house or a flat above a shop?
No — the rates above are the rates. What changes is the time, and we would rather be straight about why. Mapping which supply feeds what in a house split into two flats, or working out where the shop’s circuits end and yours begin above a parade, takes a chunk of the first visit. We tell you that is what the first hour is for, and it comes off the job.
Can you do an EICR and a fuse board on the same visit?
Yes, and it is cheaper that way — from £690 for both, against £140–£200 for the EICR and from £550 for the board separately. It also means the earthing and bonding get corrected while the board is off rather than appearing as a C2 you pay to fix later. It needs most of a day and the power off for a good part of it, so tell us if anyone in the flat works from home or depends on equipment.
Book an electrician in Childs Hill or Cricklewood
Call 07407 627542 or 07500 721453, or email info@faelectrical.co.uk. Tell us the full postcode, what the job is, and whether it is your own flat or a communal supply — that is usually enough for a price over the phone, and where it is not we will say what we need to see first. F & A Electrical, Ten 87 Studios, Markfield Road, London N15 4QA. NICEIC Approved Contractor, Part P registered, BS 7671 18th Edition, fully insured, 9.32/10 from 242 Checkatrade reviews.