We are NICEIC-approved, Part P registered electricians working across NW9 — Colindale, Grahame Park, West Hendon and the stretch of Edgware Road that runs up past the retail park. We are based in Tottenham N15, so Colindale is a run across the North Circular and then up the A5 or Colindeep Lane: realistically 30 to 40 minutes outside rush hour, longer if the A406 is backed up at Brent Cross. We say that plainly because it matters for emergency work. If you need someone on site inside the hour, ring and ask — some mornings we can, some afternoons we cannot, and we would rather tell you than leave you waiting.
Day to day in NW9 we do EICRs for landlords and sellers, consumer unit replacements, earthing and bonding upgrades, fault-finding, rewires, extra sockets and lighting, EV charger installs where there is off-street parking, and certificates for letting agents and managing agents. Call 07407 627542 (or 07500 721453) and you will get Aziz, not a call centre.
Checkatrade rating 9.32 out of 10 from 242 reviews. NICEIC approved contractor, Part P registered, work certified to BS 7671, fully insured.
What we do in NW9 — Colindale, Grahame Park and West Hendon
NW9 is an unusual patch to work in because the housing is three completely different things sitting side by side. There are 1930s semis and terraces on and around Colindale Avenue, Colindeep Lane and Annesley Avenue. There is the ex-council stock — Grahame Park off Grahame Park Way and Lanacre Avenue, and the Rushgrove blocks towards West Hendon. And then there are the big newer developments: Beaufort Park on the old aerodrome land off Aerodrome Road and Heritage Avenue, Colindale Gardens on Colindale Avenue, and Hendon Waterside down by the Welsh Harp. Each one fails an EICR for a different reason, and each one needs a different conversation about what is actually yours to fix.
The jobs we are called out for most often in NW9:
- EICRs — landlords, sellers, managing agents, and leaseholders who have been asked for one by the freeholder.
- Consumer unit replacements — usually an old board with no RCD protection on the socket circuits, or a board with a cracked casing in a hallway cupboard.
- Main earthing and protective bonding — the single most common reason a flat or house in NW9 comes back unsatisfactory. See our guide to main protective bonding costs in London.
- Fault-finding — a tripping RCD, a dead ring final, a shower that keeps cutting out.
- Rewires and partial rewires — mostly the interwar houses, occasionally an ex-council flat where the 1970s wiring has never been touched.
- Sockets, lighting, outside lights and garden supplies.
- EV chargers where there is a drive, a garage or an allocated bay the freeholder will sign off.
- Commercial — the Edgware Road parades, the retail park units, small offices and the salons and takeaways along the A5.
Barnet or Brent? In NW9 the A5 decides
This catches people out constantly, and it matters the moment any of your work is notifiable. Colindale, Grahame Park, Colindale Gardens, Beaufort Park and West Hendon are all in the London Borough of Barnet. But the NW9 postcode district does not stop at the borough boundary — it carries on west over the Edgware Road into Kingsbury, and that side is Brent. For a long stretch the A5 itself is the boundary: east side Barnet, west side Brent.
So two houses facing each other across the Edgware Road have the same postcode district, the same housing stock, and two different councils holding their building control records. If you are replacing a consumer unit, a rewire, or anything else notifiable, that determines which authority the certificate gets notified to and which one a conveyancer will later write to. We handle the notification through our Part P scheme either way, but it is worth knowing which side of the road you are on before someone tells you your paperwork is missing. There is a fuller explanation on our page about Part P and building control notification in London.
The same split affects licensing. Barnet and Brent run their own landlord licensing schemes and the boundaries and conditions change — always check the council’s current scheme for your street rather than relying on what a neighbour or a previous agent told you.
Our prices in NW9 — labour and certification only
These are our standard prices. They cover labour and certification only — consumer units, cable, accessories, light fittings and any parts are itemised separately so you can see exactly what you are paying for. Our minimum charge is £90 + VAT (£108 including VAT), which is one hour at the standard rate, and nothing is priced below it.
| Work | Price (labour and certification) |
|---|---|
| Minimum charge / first hour | £90 + VAT (£108 inc VAT) |
| Standard labour, per hour after that | £90 + VAT |
| EICR, flat or 1–2 bed | from £140 |
| EICR, 3-bed house | from £170 |
| EICR, 4-bed house | from £200 |
| EICR, 5-bed or larger | from £250 |
| EICR, large or multi-board property | £300–£400 |
| HMO EICR | £250–£500 depending on units and boards |
| Commercial EICR | from £220 |
| Consumer unit, 6-way | from £550 |
| Consumer unit, 10-way | from £650 |
| Consumer unit, 12-way or larger | from £750 |
| Consumer unit + EICR, same visit | from £690 |
| Main earthing and bonding, done alongside a board | from £108 |
| Flat rewire | £2,200–£3,200 (1 bed), £3,000–£4,500 (2 bed), £4,200–£6,000 (3 bed) |
| House rewire | £2,800–£4,000 (2 bed) up to £9,500–£14,000 (large or period) |
| Partial rewire | £1,600–£3,000 |
| EV charger install | from £450 |
| Out of hours | £60 + VAT per half hour |
| PAT testing | around £5 per appliance, minimum charge £108 inc VAT applies |
More detail on the EICR side is on our EICR cost in London guide, and on boards on the fuse board replacement page. Barnet-specific pages: EICR in Barnet, fuse board replacement in Barnet, consumer unit replacement in Barnet, EV charger installation in Barnet and emergency electrician in Barnet.
What we actually find in Colindale wiring
Five things come up again and again in NW9, and four of them are cheap to put right if you catch them at the EICR rather than after a sale falls through.
1. No main protective bonding, or bonding that is too small. The interwar houses around Colindale Avenue and Colindeep Lane were built long before bonding was a requirement, and plenty were rewired in the 1970s and 80s by someone who ran new circuits and never went back to the incoming water and gas. We also find 6mm conductors where 10mm is needed for the supply, which is still a code 2. It is a short job with the board already open — and it is the difference between a satisfactory report and an unsatisfactory one.
2. A TN-S supply where the earth is the lead sheath of an old cable. Common in the older NW9 streets. Sometimes it is fine and sometimes the connection has corroded to the point where there is effectively no main earth at all, which is a code 1. That becomes a conversation with UK Power Networks about an earth terminal rather than something we can fix at the board. We have written up what that means on no main earth — what does it actually mean.
3. Lighting circuits with no circuit protective conductor. Two-core twin-and-earth with the earth not run, or old two-core without one at all, usually upstairs. The moment anyone fits a metal light fitting or a metal switch plate it becomes a real problem. On a 1930s semi this is often the thing that tips a partial rewire into a full one.
4. Boards with no RCD on the socket circuits. A 1990s board with rewireable or even MCB ways and no RCD at all is still extremely common in the ex-council stock and in houses that have not changed hands in twenty years. Replacing the board fixes it; so does adding RCBOs if the existing enclosure is sound and the circuits test clean.
5. Additions nobody notified. A loft conversion, a rear extension, a kitchen refit, a garden office at the back of a Colindeep Lane garden — all with new circuits and no certificate anywhere. That is the one we cannot paper over, because a buyer’s solicitor will ask for it. If the work is sound we can test, record and certify what is there; if it is not, you need to know before a sale, not during one.
Grahame Park, Rushgrove and the ex-council blocks
Grahame Park was built on part of the old Hendon Aerodrome in the 1970s and it is being regenerated in phases, which means at any given moment some blocks are new, some are original, and some are halfway through being emptied. The electrical consequences are practical ones. The original low-rise and deck-access flats tend to have a single consumer unit in a hallway cupboard, a landlord’s supply feeding the communal landing lighting that is nothing to do with your flat, and circuits that have been extended by whoever lived there in the meantime.
If you are a leaseholder in one of these — or in the Rushgrove blocks towards West Hendon — the question we get asked most is what an EICR on your flat actually covers. The answer is: your installation, from your consumer unit outwards, plus the supply arrangement up to it. The riser, the landlord’s sub-main, the communal lighting and the fire alarm in the common parts are the freeholder’s responsibility and are inspected and certified separately. That matters when a managing agent sends you a report with a code 2 against something you do not own. We go into it in detail on EICRs on leasehold flats and communal areas.
On the ex-council houses and maisonettes we also still find aluminium-cored cable and 1970s rubber-insulated tails in a handful of properties where the original installation survived a cosmetic refurbishment. That is not a repair, that is a rewire, and we will say so rather than patch it.
Beaufort Park, Colindale Gardens and Hendon Waterside — the new blocks
The newer NW9 developments almost never fail an EICR on condition. They fail, or rather they frustrate people, on three other things.
Scope. In a 2010s or 2020s block the flat’s own installation is usually clean and well documented. What is not documented, from the leaseholder’s side, is the landlord’s supply, the riser and the heat network plant. If a mortgage lender or an insurer has asked for “an EICR on the property”, we test and certify your flat; if they have asked for the building, that is a freeholder instruction and a much bigger piece of work.
All-electric flats. Many of these blocks have no gas. Heating and hot water come off a communal heat network through a heat interface unit, so the flat’s own electrical load is lighting, sockets, oven and shower only — which usually means the board has spare ways and plenty of headroom. The flip side is that there is no gas bonding to check, and the HIU and its controls belong to the heat network operator, not to you and not to us.
EV charging. This is the honest bit. If your car is parked on the street there is no wall point we can legally install for it — we cannot run a cable across a public footway, and a cross-pavement channel is a council scheme you apply for, not something an electrician can decide. If you have an allocated bay in an underground car park, the install is possible but it is a freeholder and managing agent decision first: it needs their permission, a route from a supply they control, and usually a load assessment on the landlord’s sub-main before anyone agrees. We are happy to do the survey and give the managing agent the figures they will ask for. Houses with a drive or garage — the interwar stock — are straightforward by comparison.
Communal emergency lighting and fire alarms in these blocks are tested on their own schedule and need their own certificates: see emergency lighting certificate costs.
Landlords, HMOs and flats in NW9
Colindale has a lot of rented stock — the new blocks are heavily buy-to-let, and the interwar houses off Colindale Avenue and towards West Hendon are often split into flats or let as shared houses. If you let a property you need a satisfactory EICR at least every five years and at the change of tenancy if anything has been done in between, plus the remedial work done and recorded.
For shared houses, the fire alarm grade and the emergency lighting are usually what an inspecting officer picks up on rather than the wiring itself. A house let room by room is a different specification from a house let to one family, and if yours falls under a licensing scheme the conditions attached to the licence will set out what is expected. Again — check the council’s current scheme for your street, because Barnet and Brent differ and both have changed their schemes before. Our HMO EICR page covers what we test and what the report has to say.
We work with letting agents and managing agents across Barnet and will send the certificate and a priced remedial list on the same day where we can, so you are not chasing paperwork before a tenancy starts.
Shops, offices and the Edgware Road parades
The commercial work in NW9 is mostly along the Edgware Road and around the retail park — takeaways, salons, barbers, convenience shops, small units and the offices above them. Two patterns repeat. First, three-phase supplies in the older parade units where only one phase is really being used, often with a sub-board added by a previous tenant and no record of what feeds what. Second, kitchen extract and refrigeration loads added over the years onto circuits that were never sized for them.
We do commercial EICRs from £220, periodic testing, emergency lighting and fire alarm certification, distribution board work and fault-finding, and PAT testing for shops and offices that need it for insurance. For a unit changing hands we would always rather test before the lease is signed than after, because an unrecorded sub-board is a negotiating point for the incoming tenant and a bill for the outgoing one.
Nearby areas we cover
NW9 sits right in the corner of three of our regular patches, so if your street is on the edge of Colindale one of these may be a better fit:
- Electrician in Edgware and Burnt Oak (HA8) — directly north, over the Burnt Oak boundary, including the Watling Estate.
- Electrician in Hendon and Golders Green (NW4 and NW11) — south and east, including Brent Cross and The Burroughs.
- Electrician in Mill Hill (NW7) — north-east, up past Bunns Lane.
- Electrician in Finchley — east, across the borough.
- Electrician in North London — the rest of our northern coverage.
The full list of boroughs and postcodes we work in is on our London service areas page.
Colindale electrician — questions we get asked
Am I in Barnet or Brent?
If you are east of the Edgware Road — Colindale, Grahame Park, Colindale Gardens, Beaufort Park, West Hendon — you are in Barnet. West of the A5, towards Kingsbury, you are in Brent, even though the postcode still starts NW9. It only really matters for building control notification and for landlord licensing, but it matters a lot for both.
How much is an EICR on a Colindale flat?
From £140 for a one or two bedroom flat, covering the test, the report and the certificate. If it comes back unsatisfactory we give you a priced list of the remedial work with the report, not a vague “needs attention”. A flat in one of the newer blocks usually tests clean; an ex-council flat that has never had the board changed usually does not.
My managing agent says I need an EICR but my flat is only six years old. Why?
Usually because the freeholder’s insurer or a block-wide policy has asked for current certificates across the building, or because a tenancy is starting. A six-year-old flat will almost certainly pass, and it is a short visit. Worth checking first whether they want your flat or the landlord’s supply and common parts — they are different jobs and different invoices.
Can you fit an EV charger at Beaufort Park or Colindale Gardens?
Sometimes, and it starts with the managing agent rather than with us. We need their written permission, an allocated bay, a usable route from a supply they control, and in most blocks a look at whether the landlord’s sub-main has the spare capacity. We will survey it and give you and them the numbers. If you park on the street, there is no compliant wall-point option — a cross-pavement channel is something you apply to the council for.
Do you do emergency callouts in NW9?
Yes, but be realistic about the drive from N15 — 30 to 40 minutes on a good run. Ring 07407 627542 and we will tell you honestly when we can be there rather than promising a time we cannot keep. Out of hours is £60 + VAT per half hour.
How long does a consumer unit replacement take?
Most are a single day. In a flat with an accessible board and clean circuits it can be half a day; in a 1930s house where the bonding also needs doing and two circuits turn out to have no CPC, it is a full day and sometimes two. We test everything before we quote so the price does not move halfway through.
Do you certify work for a house sale?
Yes. If work was done without a certificate, we can inspect, test and issue the right paperwork for what is actually there, which is usually what a buyer’s solicitor needs. If the work is not up to standard we will tell you what it would take to put right, and you can decide whether to do it before you market the house.
Book an electrician in Colindale or Grahame Park
Call or text 07407 627542, or 07500 721453 if the first does not pick up. Tell us the street, the postcode and what you need — EICR, board, fault, certificate for a sale — and we will give you a straight price and a realistic time.
NICEIC approved contractor. Part P registered. Work certified to BS 7671. Fully insured. Checkatrade 9.32 out of 10 from 242 reviews. Prices are labour and certification only; parts and fittings are itemised separately. Minimum charge £90 + VAT (£108 inc VAT).
More guides and cost breakdowns are in our electrical guides library, including the house rewire cost guide.