Need an electrician in Friern Barnet or New Southgate? F & A Electrical covers the whole of N11 — Friern Barnet Road and Friern Barnet Lane, Colney Hatch Lane and Woodhouse Road, Station Road and Betstyle Circus, Brunswick Park Road and Oakleigh Road North, Bowes Road and the Bounds Green Road end — from our base in Tottenham N15, about twenty-five minutes across on the North Circular. Same-week appointments are standard and emergencies are usually same day. NICEIC registered, Part P, 9.32/10 from 242 reviews on Checkatrade, minimum charge £108 (£90 + VAT), every price labour-only. Call 07407 627542 or 07500 721453.
What we do in N11
N11 is one of the more mixed postcodes we work in, and the job changes a lot depending on which end of it you are standing in. Around the Friern Barnet crossroads where Colney Hatch Lane, Woodhouse Road and Friern Barnet Road meet, and up towards Friary Park and Friern Barnet Lane, the stock is late Victorian and Edwardian houses with a good run of larger properties of later periods. Most were rewired once between the 1970s and the 1990s, and a lot of them still sit behind the consumer unit that went in at the time. That makes board replacements and landlord EICRs the everyday call-out here, not full rewires.
New Southgate, east of the railway along Station Road and around Betstyle Circus, is different again: interwar and post-war semis and terraces, pockets of ex-council leasehold, a working industrial estate, and flats above the shops on the main roads. Towards Bowes Road and Arnos Grove you get the 1930s parades and the big interwar semis that went up with the Piccadilly line extension — Charles Holden’s Grade II* listed station on Bowes Road opened in 1932 and most of the housing around it dates from within a few years either side.
Then there is the former Friern Hospital site off Friern Barnet Road, now Princess Park Manor and Friern Village, which is a job of its own and gets its own section below.
Day to day in N11 that means EICRs for landlords, sellers and buyers, consumer unit replacements, fault-finding on shared supplies in converted flats, extra sockets and lighting, electric showers, EV chargers on driveways, smoke and heat alarm systems, and commercial reports for the shops and units. We are a small outfit — the person who quotes the job is the person who turns up and does it.
Friern Barnet and New Southgate prices — fixed, labour-only
These are our standard N11 prices. They are labour and certification only: boards, cable, accessories and fittings are charged separately at trade cost and listed on the quote before anything starts. Nothing is priced below our £108 minimum.
| Job | Price |
|---|---|
| Minimum call-out / small jobs (sockets, switches, minor faults) | £108 (£90 + VAT) |
| Standard labour after the first hour | £90 + VAT per hour |
| EICR — flat or 2-bed (up to 8 circuits) | from £140 — see EICRs in Barnet |
| EICR — 3-bed semi or Edwardian terrace, 9–12 circuits | from £180 |
| EICR — large house, 13+ circuits or a sub-main | quoted after a circuit count |
| EICR — licensed HMO, 5+ bedrooms | from £300 — HMO EICRs |
| EICR remedial work (C1/C2 fixes) | from £108 — remedial cost guide |
| Consumer unit (fuse board) replacement, RCBO | from £550 — fuse boards in Barnet |
| Emergency call-out, same day | from £108 — emergency electrician Barnet |
| EV charger installation, 7 kW (driveway) | from £450 labour — EV chargers in Barnet |
| Commercial EICR — shop, unit or office | priced per circuit — commercial EICR cost |
| Smoke and heat alarms, mains-interlinked | from £108 first alarm — smoke alarm installation |
| PAT testing of supplied appliances | £5 per appliance, £108 minimum — PAT testing |
| Full rewire, 3-bed semi or terrace | fixed quote after survey — rewire cost guide |
The full breakdown is on our London electrician prices page.
N11 wiring: what usually comes up
After enough jobs in one postcode you stop being surprised. These are the findings that come up again and again in N11, and they are worth knowing before you book anything.
Main earthing that goes nowhere. On the older Friern Barnet and Bounds Green streets the main earthing clamp is still sitting on what used to be a lead incoming water main. The water service has since been renewed in plastic at the boundary, so the clamp is attached to a dead stub and the earth path is gone. It looks completely normal until someone tests it. Same house, usually: 6mm main bonding where 10mm is wanted, and nothing at all on the gas after the meter was moved to an external box.
Boards that have aged out rather than failed. A lot of N11 houses had a sound rewire twenty-five or thirty years ago and the cable is genuinely fine. What has aged out is the consumer unit — plastic enclosure, one or two RCDs covering everything, no spare ways, and a main switch that nobody has operated in a decade. That is an RCBO board change from £550, not a rewire, and we will say so. If a quote jumps straight to a rewire on a house like that, get a second opinion.
Loft conversions with no paperwork. Very common across the 1930s semis on Woodhouse Road, Colney Hatch Lane, Brunswick Park Road and Oakleigh Road North. The loft room lighting and sockets were spurred off a first-floor circuit, there is no RCD protection, no certificate and no Building Control record. It usually tests as a C2 and it is almost always the thing that holds up a sale.
Flat conversions sharing one intake. The larger Edwardian and interwar houses around Friern Barnet Road and Station Road were cut into two or three flats decades ago. The intake was never upgraded, the sub-mains run up in twin-and-earth clipped to the common stairwell with no fire-rated fixings, and there is no proper means of isolation for each flat. It gets found the moment somebody fits an electric shower.
Weathered external meter boxes on the main roads. On the A406 frontage, Bowes Road, Colney Hatch Lane and the Bounds Green Road end, external meter boxes take years of weather and road grit. We find split box doors, corroded tails and main earthing clamps that have rusted to the point of no real contact. It is cheap to put right and it is the single most important connection in the house.
Outbuildings on undocumented sub-mains. Garages, workshops and garden offices off the Friern Barnet Lane and Friary Park streets fed by buried twin-and-earth with no SWA, no mechanical protection and no RCD at the supply end. We trace it, test it, and either certify it or price a proper sub-main. There is more on that in our guide to what an EICR covers in the garage, shed or garden office.
Princess Park Manor, Friern Village and working in a listed building
The old Colney Hatch asylum on Friern Barnet Road — later Friern Hospital, designed by S W Daukes and opened in July 1851 — closed in 1993 and was converted into the flats at Princess Park Manor from the mid-1990s. The building has been Grade II listed since 1982, and that listing covers the inside as well as the outside. It changes how electrical work has to be done there, and it is the part most quotes ignore.
In practice: internal alterations that affect the character of a listed building can need listed building consent, which is a separate thing from planning permission and separate again from Part P notification. Chasing new cable routes into original brickwork, cutting through original joinery or lifting original fabric is exactly the kind of work that needs checking first. So the method we use in there is to plan around the building rather than through it — reuse the existing containment and trunking routes, lift floors rather than chase walls, keep the board in the cupboard it is already in, and surface-mount in matching finishes where there is no hidden route. It takes longer to plan and no longer to do.
The second thing about Princess Park Manor is the structure of the place. Supplies come up through communal risers on an estate run by a management company, so a board change or an EICR on the communal side needs access and isolation agreed in advance, and there is a genuine freeholder-versus-leaseholder question about who pays for what. Our guide to EICRs on leasehold flats and communal areas sets out where that line usually falls. If you are a leaseholder there, tell us at the quote stage and we will deal with the managing agent rather than leave you to it.
Friern Village, the newer housing built on the hospital grounds, is the opposite job. The wiring is modern and generally sound, so the work there is capacity rather than condition: no spare way on the board, EV charge points on allocated parking that the management company controls, and extra circuits for garden rooms and home offices. Worth knowing before you order a charger: on allocated or communal parking the permission question comes before the electrical one.
One postcode, three councils
This is the N11 thing nobody tells you. N11 is split across three London boroughs — Barnet covers Friern Barnet and most of New Southgate, Enfield picks up the Brunswick Park and Arnos Grove side, and Haringey takes the Bounds Green end. On some N11 streets the boundary runs mid-road.
For the electrical certificate itself this makes no difference at all. Part P notifiable work is notified through our registration scheme, not through your council, and the certificate you get is the same document whichever side of a boundary you live on. What the borough does decide is everything around the job: which council you ask about conservation area and listed building consent, which licensing scheme applies if you let the property, which Building Control team gets involved on a conversion or a loft, and which planning department answers the phone about a frontage meter box or an external charge point.
It costs people real time. We have had enquiries where someone spent a fortnight with the wrong council because the postcode said N11 and they assumed Barnet. So when you ring, give us the full postcode and the house number — not just N11 — and we will tell you which borough you are actually in before anything else happens. If you are letting the property, check the relevant council’s current licensing scheme for your street, because the three run differently and they change.
Landlords and HMOs in N11
N11 has a lot of let property: converted flats near New Southgate and Arnos Grove stations, shared houses off Bounds Green Road, and ex-council leasehold around Coppetts and Brunswick Park. If you let any of it, you need a satisfactory EICR at least every five years and at the start of a new tenancy, a copy to the tenant inside 28 days, and a copy to the council within seven days if they ask. Our landlord electrical safety certificate page covers the duties in full.
A standard N11 flat with its own board is from £140. A three-bed house is normally nine to twelve circuits, so from £180. A licensed HMO of five bedrooms or more is from £300 because there is simply more to inspect — more circuits, communal areas, fire-alarm interfaces and emergency lighting in the escape route. Bear in mind that an EICR does not cover your fire alarm, your emergency lighting or your appliance testing. Those are separate regimes with their own certificates, and we can do them on the same visit: see HMO EICRs and PAT testing.
We report in plain English, code every observation, and give you a priced remedial list separated into what is actually required and what is optional. You are free to get the work done by anyone — but the quote comes with the report, not a week later.
Shops, units and the Betstyle estate
New Southgate has a working industrial estate around Betstyle Circus and Station Road — light industrial units, trade counters, workshops and garages — plus the shop parades on Bowes Road, Friern Barnet Road, Colney Hatch Lane and Bounds Green Road. Commercial EICRs there are priced per circuit after a quick look at the board, because a unit with a three-phase supply and a dozen machine circuits is nothing like a hairdresser’s with eight. If you have three-phase, that is our everyday work: see three-phase electrician London.
The one that catches people out on the parades is the flat above the shop. We regularly find the stair lighting, and sometimes the landing sockets, fed from the shop’s own circuits — so when the shop switches off at the mains at closing time the common stair goes dark and any emergency lighting never gets the chance to charge. The landlord’s supply has to be separate and permanently live. There is a full write-up on our EICR for a shop with flats above page, and the pricing detail on commercial EICR cost.
We can work evenings or early mornings for commercial jobs so the unit does not lose a trading day, and we will say up front if something needs a shutdown.
Nearby areas we cover
N11 borders most of the patches we already work in. To the west, Finchley N3, N12 and N2. North, Whetstone and Totteridge N20 and East Barnet and New Barnet EN4. East and north-east, Southgate N14, Palmers Green N13 and Winchmore Hill N21. South-east, Wood Green N22 and the N22 postcode. South, Muswell Hill N10. Borough-wide pages: Barnet, Enfield and Haringey. The full list is on our London service areas page.
Friern Barnet and New Southgate electrician — common questions
How quickly can you get to N11?
Emergencies in Friern Barnet and New Southgate are usually same day — we are around twenty-five minutes away on the North Circular outside rush hour, and we know to avoid the A406 through Bounds Green at the wrong time of day. Booked work such as an EICR, a board change or a set of downlights is normally within the same week, and you get a two-hour arrival window rather than a vague morning.
What does an EICR cost for a house in N11?
An Edwardian or 1930s three-bed in Friern Barnet or New Southgate usually comes in at nine to twelve circuits, so from £180 labour-only. A converted flat with its own board is from £140. A larger house with extensions, an outbuilding or a sub-main gets a quick circuit count over the phone first, because pricing an inspection on bedroom count is how people end up with a surprise on the invoice. The report comes by email the same day with every observation coded and explained. The EICR cost guide has the full London table.
Am I in Barnet, Enfield or Haringey?
Depends on your street, and on a few N11 roads it depends on your house number. Barnet covers Friern Barnet and most of New Southgate, Enfield the Brunswick Park and Arnos Grove side, Haringey the Bounds Green end. It makes no difference to your electrical certificate, but it decides which council handles licensing, planning and Building Control — so give us the full postcode and we will tell you which one you are dealing with.
Can you do electrical work in a flat at Princess Park Manor?
Yes, and we work to the fact that it is a Grade II listed building. That means planning cable routes around the original fabric instead of chasing into it, using the containment that is already there, and checking whether anything you want needs listed building consent before we start rather than after. Communal supplies come up through the risers, so we arrange access and isolation with the managing agent. Tell us at the quote stage that it is Princess Park Manor and we will build all of that into the price.
Do I need a full rewire or just a new fuse board?
In N11, far more often the board. Plenty of houses here were properly rewired in the 1980s or 1990s and the cable is sound — what has expired is the consumer unit. We test first and tell you which it is, in writing. A new RCBO board is from £550; a rewire is a fixed quote after a survey and we only recommend one when the cable genuinely warrants it. The fuse board replacement guide explains how to tell the difference.
Can you fit an EV charger in Friern Barnet or New Southgate?
Yes. On a house with a driveway it is straightforward — from £450 labour for a 7 kW unit plus the charger itself, and we handle the notification to UK Power Networks and to Building Control. On the flats, including Friern Village and Princess Park Manor, the permission comes first: allocated and communal parking is controlled by the freeholder or management company, and on a listed building the mounting position and cable route need checking too. What we will not do is fit a wall point for a car parked on the street, or run a cable across a public footway.
Are your prices really labour-only?
Yes, and we say so up front because plenty of quotes do not. The figures above cover our time, our testing and the certification. Boards, cable, accessories and fittings are charged separately at trade cost and listed on the quote before work starts, so the final number holds.
Book an electrician in Friern Barnet or New Southgate
NICEIC registered, Part P, fully insured, 9.32/10 from 242 reviews on Checkatrade. Call 07407 627542, message us on WhatsApp or email info@faelectrical.co.uk and tell us the full postcode and what is going on — we will give you a price over the phone where we can. More answers to the questions we get asked most are on the electrical guides page.