- Coming up on this week's news, the fixed price contract is dead and the culprit is inflation with the copper cable in the conservatory. Electricians increasingly offer payment plans to struggling homeowners and forget the van. Electrical contractors are increasingly turning to E-bikes to get around. Welcome to "Electrical News Weekly" in association with Scame. Whether you're listening in the van, on site, or down at the wholesale counter, I'm Joe Robinson and I've been through the best of the electrical industry news to save you the trouble. And as always, if you think you've spotted the two words that I've been challenged to slip into this week's show, comment with them below for the chance to win a prize. So, you price a big job. You win the contract, you're on site a year later and then you discover that the cost of materials that you originally quoted has gone through the roof and your carefully crafted estimate has been blown to smithereens. For instance, look at copper. A couple of years ago, it doubled in price and since last July, it has gone up 25%. One of the recent victims of the soaring value of the metal was M&E specialist Lauren Stewart. It was slapped with a huge bill for the three and a half miles of heavy duty, high voltage cabling it used on the new Sky Studios in Elstree Hartfordshire. Fortunately for them, the developer, legal in general stepped in to help and everyone on site shared the pain. But increasingly, industry experts and subcontractors trade bodies are forecasting that the fixed price contract is dead and electrical contractors are asking their lawyers to put inflation clauses in their contracts. This means that the main contractor and the client will also share the risk of price hikes, the ECA's legal. Legal, Rob Driscoll tells us that the risk sharing isn't done by choice. He says certain trades like electrical contractors simply can't hold their prices when inflation is rampant. Just like in the 1970s or so, I'm told electricians working on domestic jobs are also getting financially creative to weather the tough times. It's been revealed that a fifth of them now allow customers to pay for work in installments. Younger sparks are leading the trend and are performing a bit of a nutmeg on their competitors as they are more than twice as likely to accept staggered payments. As the older generation, a third of millennials allow installments compared to just 14% of over 55s. But Iron Munari direct Boss Dominic Sanford says tradespeople should take extreme care about going down this route. He says there's always the danger that you could miss out on the full amount due to awkward customers or administration errors. But perhaps the most financially savvy idea we've come across recently is the electrical contractor who swapped his van for an e-bike. It's proving a whole lot cheaper and quicker and his customers love it. Aaron Fleming Saheed set up Cycling Sparks in 2017 and he now has a whole squadron of e-bikes whizzing across the capitol. The electrician came up with the idea while working on the American Embassy in Vauxhall London. He was late to site every day because of delays. So he bought a cargo bike which could handle 15 kilos of tools and materials, and he's never looked back. It was so easy. His first thought was, "why is nobody else doing this?" He even traveled over a hundred miles away to Bristol to do a job for a friend. Now he has multiple electricians working for him after getting a grant for more bikes from the energy saving trust he says his decision was vindicated with the expansion of the ultra low emission zone that the congestion charge parking fines and red routes are making Central London increasingly difficult for the trades. But Fleming Saheed says that what really encourages him is the smile on his customer's faces when he turns up Also, hoping to put a smile on people's faces is a sister firm to Virgin Media which is offering EV charge points to business customers for free, Liberty Charge installs its charges alongside Virgin's new and existing infrastructure. The company plans to make its money back in a profit sharing deal with the site owner charging a fee to use the charges. This payment is split between the business and the ChargePoint operator. Virgin isn't the only one making money from charges. A rising number of homeowners are using apps to rent out their parking space and their charges. Some are even making a thousand pounds a month. The reason, there simply aren't enough public charge points available, and many drivers think they're expensive. The average cost of a public charging station is 60p per kilowatt hour, whereas a private homeowner will typically charge around 40p. So in congested cities such as London and Brighton EV drivers are prepared to pay up to 40 pounds a day to park and top up their batteries. In product news this month Atkore has unveiled a range of PVC coated steel conduit and accessories in bright colors. The firm says it's the only color conduit on the market that's certified by the ETL test house. It can have practical uses for circuit identification. The firm suggests red can be used for emergency circuits and yellow can be used for high voltage, for instance. But Atkore also has creative and fun applications. Instead of trying to hide conduit, make a feature of it by choosing a bold color like orange. And finally, contractors are being warned about an unusual electrical hazard prowling the UK, cat wee. Bridgeport electrician Ricky Stubbs raised the alarm after a callout to a house last week over a power cut. The homeowner wasn't kitten around. These are getting worse, right? Stubbs arrived to find a blackened and burned out electrical socket but some moisture surrounding the scene. Gave him pause for thought. He used his apparently formidable power of smell to identify that the nasty ammonia style stench was an exact match for feline urine. Stubbs says it could have been a cat-astrophy as the wee could easily have caused a fire. The plug up was completely destroyed and melted, exposing live parts. Luckily, the Fuse board did its work and the power was turned off which prevented further damage. Stubb says he has come across a few strange things in 20 years on the tools, but this was a fur-st really I'm gonna have to have words with the script writer. Now, just before we get to your favorite bit of the show where I reveal last week's challenge words and winners, we want to thank our premium partners. We couldn't make the news without you. First up, for all your circuit protection needs they're like having an Italian star striker and your Premiership team. It's Lewden Palazzoli, and the best thing to come out of Yorkshire since stainless steel, it's Doncaster Cables the home of EV Ultra and other groundbreaking and quality cables and one of the biggest lighting companies in the world because their capital is always Dublin. It's Irish lighting manufacturer, Robus, home of great quality and innovative lighting products. Big thanks to you all. We'd really appreciate your ongoing support for the news. If you think you know the words that I've smuggled into this week's show, pop your guess into the comments and we'll dig out a goodie bag prize to the first to get the right answers. Last week's words were kosher and quasimoto and the first person to get it right was Oriel Zob who I believe is not a first time winner. So Joe 2.0 will no doubt be on his toes in the post room to get your prize sent out. Make sure you click the link in the show notes to claim your prize, coming up across all our social media platforms. This week we'll be dropping a review of some really innovative linear light fittings from BG Lucico to help you switch up your commercial lighting installations. And it's a live stream week, and we've got special guests from MK Honeywell joining us in the studio. So make sure you're tuned in

00 PM GMT to catch all the fun with Gary, Gordon and the gang. Thanks for listening to this episode of Electrical News Weekly in association with Scame. Make sure you subscribe to receive the next update. Thanks for listening, and until next time have a great week. Stay safe out there. And remember, there's no such thing as a top calibrated arm.