About Us
Family run, owner led, and working across the South East since 2008
Lake Electrical is a family run electrical contractor based in Battle in East Sussex, founded in 2008 and approaching two decades of trading. We are larger than the typical local electrician, with an office team and a settled group of engineers, and most of our work is commercial: inspection and testing, lighting and energy upgrades, main panels and power, electric heating and full installations for offices, schools, churches, universities and industrial sites.
NICEIC approved contractor. SafeContractor accredited. DBS-checked engineers. Trading since 2008.
An electrical contractor in East Sussex, working across the South East
We work across Kent, East Sussex, Surrey and the wider South East, and we will travel further for the right project. Coverage: Surrey, Kent, West Sussex and East Sussex. Brighton and Hove, Lewes, Eastbourne, Hastings, Tunbridge Wells, Crawley, Worthing, Maidstone. Being based in Battle puts a van within an hour of most of the buildings we look after. Our services are weighted towards EICRs, inspection and testing and LED lighting upgrades, and we are as comfortable on commercial electrical installations running for months as on a day of testing before a building reopens on Monday.
Trading since 2008, and what nearly two decades buys you
Any contractor can print a founding date. What it buys you is easier to see in the buildings.
There are churches, schools and office buildings in Sussex and Kent we have inspected more than once, several cycles apart, and the engineer who walks in already knows which distribution board was replaced eight years ago and which circuit was borrowed for a temporary supply during a refurbishment and never put back. That history shortens every visit after the first. It also means we are still here when an insurer queries a certificate three years on,. There is a business at the other end of the phone with the records, and often the same engineer who wrote them. The buildings we know best are set out across our sectors pages, including offices, schools, churches and industrial sites.
The people you will deal with
Family run and owner led is not a decorative fact here. The owners run the jobs themselves, so the person who walks your building, works out the scope and prices it is the person answerable for it. There is no account manager in between, which matters when you are handing a building over for three weeks of the summer holidays.
Our engineers have all been with us at least two years, and that low turnover is why a returning engineer already knows your building and its access arrangements. Call in working hours and you get a person in the office rather than a voicemail, even when the engineers are all on site, which for a facilities manager chasing three quotes on a Friday decides whether a job moves.
The standard of the work, and the reporting
Cheap testing is priced per circuit, and the engineer gets about five minutes on each one, so the report comes back stacked with limitations. Then you pay again to find out what you actually have. We have seen a £500 report turn into a £10,000 remedial bill. Our engineers are given the time to trace a circuit and write down what they found, including the finding you were hoping would not be there. As the business puts it, anyone can test a circuit, and what you are paying for is the knowledge of the engineer to understand what those results are telling them.
A report from us says what was found, what it means and what needs attention first, so you can take it to a board or a PCC and decide from it. A quote sets out the full scope before work starts, so no variation reaches you in week three that was foreseeable in week one. When a building needs something you have not asked for, we say so and explain why. We are not the cheapest, and we are straight about that. We compete on work carried out to BS 7671 and the building regulations, certified and documented.
The vans, the kit and the state we leave a building in
Our engineers arrive in marked vans, in branded workwear, with the protective equipment the site requires and calibrated test instruments. On a live office floor or a church during a service week, that visibility matters, because your staff can see who is in the building and why. We keep cable routes and containment tidy and leave every room in a state someone else can use. [[CONFIRM: how many vans and engineers you want stated, if any]]
Our sister company
The audio visual side is handled by our sister company, OBAV, which shares ownership with Lake Electrical and covers audio, visual, hearing loops and evacuation systems. That counts on larger contracts where the electrical and the audio visual sit on one job. Instead of two tenders and an argument on site about who owns the containment, the power and the data, there is one point of responsibility across both trades.
Accreditations, and what they mean on your site
We are a NICEIC approved contractor, so our work is assessed against BS 7671 by an external body rather than self declared, and our certification is recognised by insurers, landlords and building control. We are SafeContractor accredited, which covers our health and safety management and is what main contractors and estates teams want before they let a subcontractor on site. Our engineers are DBS-checked, so we can work in a school during term time. Those three mean we can be put on a school, church, university or industrial site without creating a problem for the person who appointed us. [[CONFIRM: the full list of accreditations to show, plus the logo files]]
Recent work
What clients say
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About Lake Electrical questions answered
Does the same team carry out the site visit and the work
Yes. One of the owners looks at the building, works out the scope and prices it, and our own engineers carry out the work. We survey before we quote, because the age of the installation, the boards and the access arrangements all change the cost, and looking first is how we give you a figure that holds.
What accreditations do you hold
NICEIC approved contractor and SafeContractor accredited, with DBS-checked engineers, which covers the standard of the installation, our health and safety management and safeguarding.
Do you work for main contractors and on tenders
Yes. We work for main contractors and high end builders, and we are used to a programme set by someone else and to the paperwork of public sector, education and church work. We price from drawings and a specification as readily as from a survey, and with our sister company in the group we tender for work covering both trades.
What sort of work do you take on
Mainly commercial: inspection and testing, lighting and energy upgrades, main panels and power distribution, electric heating and general installation. On the domestic side we take on quality rewires and high end builds, usually with an architect or a builder involved. Single small repairs, like replacing one socket, are not work we are set up for, and a local domestic electrician will look after you better and more cheaply.
Want to work with us
If you want a contractor who looks at the building first, tells you what it needs and puts the full scope in writing before anyone starts, the next step is a conversation. A few details is enough for us to come back with a price, usually the same day.
Want to work with us? Request a quote. Prefer a chat first? Get in touch, or call [[NAP: phone number]], Mon to Fri, 8am to 5pm.
We work across Kent, East Sussex, Surrey and the wider South East from our base in Battle.