Why do electrician quotes vary so much?
Because they rarely price the same job. Quotes diverge on what is included (testing, certification, making good, materials quality), what was assumed (that your wiring can take the addition), and whether the person quoting has actually seen the job. Compare quotes against one written scope, and ask each what happens if the assumption fails.
Take three quotes for 'a fuse box replacement' and you may be reading three different jobs: one swaps the board like-for-like with shared RCDs, one fits RCBOs per circuit with surge protection, and one includes fixing whatever the full-circuit testing turns up. All three are 'a fuse box replacement'. The spread is the specification, not the greed.
Assumptions are the second divider. A quote given from a doorstep or a photo assumes your circuits will test clean; the honest version says what happens if they do not. The cheapest quote is often the one carrying the biggest unstated assumption, which converts to an extra on the day you can least refuse it.
Certification is the third. Notifiable work legally ends in a certificate, and producing one takes tested results, not goodwill. A quote that is silent on certification is not cheaper; it is incomplete, and retrofitting paperwork after uncertified work costs more than doing it right did.
How to compare honestly: get each quote against the same written scope, ask what is excluded, ask what the on-the-day discoveries cost, and weight the answers as heavily as the number. Our quotes itemise scope, exclusions and the discovery process explicitly for exactly this reason.
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