Case Studies
Completed electrical work in buildings across the South East, written up in full
Each study here is an account of one building. What it was, what was not working, what our engineers found once somebody had time to look, what we designed in response and what it is like to use now. Offices, schools, churches, university buildings and industrial sites.
NICEIC approved contractor. SafeContractor accredited. DBS-checked engineers. Trading since 2008.
Electrical installation projects across the South East
We are commercial electrical contractors based in East Sussex, working across Kent, East Sussex, Surrey and the wider South East, with commercial projects reaching sites such as Chichester. The studies cover the four services we focus on, inspection and testing, energy saving, main panels and power, and electric heating, with fit-outs, cabling and the higher end domestic work alongside them. They sit on our services overview and against the buildings on our sectors pages.
Three projects written up
Recent work
Next to be written up
Three more groups fill out as studies arrive. Inspections that found something, where an engineer with time to understand each circuit reports what is actually there, a board fed by an undersized cable or circuits extended twice and never recorded, and the study follows that through the remedial work. See EICRs, inspection and testing. Rewires and high end builds, where the coordination and the finish matter as much as the circuits. See high end domestic and rewires. Cabling and networks that came with the job, recorded so whoever inherits the building can find a cable a year later, with the audio visual handled by our sister company, OBAV. See data and networking.
A cat B office fit-out
A floor two or three tenants have added to, where the board schedule no longer describes the building, with the small power, lighting and containment designed around how the floor will actually be occupied and a programme that kept the rest of the building trading. See commercial electrical installations.
Radiant heating in a school sports hall
Radiant heaters warm a sports hall from the ceiling, in a building where the heat used to sit in the roof and never reach the floor.
Read them by building instead
If the building matters more than the work, the studies are grouped by sector, so an office or commercial property reader, a school, a church, a university estates team or an industrial site manager sees only buildings like theirs. Each of those pages sets out how we work in one.
What is in a Lake Electrical case study
A case study on a contractor’s website is usually a photograph of a new distribution board, the name of a town and three sentences that would fit any job in the county. Ours are written for somebody deciding whether to spend money. We say what the building was and who has to run it, what was not working and how long it had been that way, what the inspection or the survey found, and what we designed in response. We give the reasoning, including why we ruled out the cheaper option and what that option would have cost the building two years later. Where a saving can be measured we publish the measurement rather than a figure out of a manufacturer’s brochure, and where the client is content for us to say so we give the cost in broad terms. All of it is written for the bursar, the churchwarden, the office manager and the estates team rather than for another electrician.
What we can publish, and what stays unnamed
Not every job can be written up. Some clients would rather their building was not named, some buildings should not be identified at all, and on some contracts we work for a main contractor whose client makes that decision instead of ours. We ask, and where the answer is no, the answer is no. So some of the strongest work we have done appears here with the building described and the name left out. Your own project would be treated the same way.
Our own photography, on our own jobs
Every photograph here is ours, taken on a job we did. We do not use stock images of somebody else’s installation and we never take pictures from other websites, which is a copyright problem as well as a way of showing you work that was never ours. What appears is finished work, jobs in progress, our engineers in branded workwear and the correct protective equipment, and the vans outside a building we have just completed. There is more of the team on our about us page.
Accredited, and in these buildings since 2008
We have been working in commercial buildings since 2008, as a NICEIC approved contractor, SafeContractor accredited, with DBS-checked engineers, which matters in a school or on a campus.
What clients say
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Why clients choose the Lake Electrical team
Read a few of these and the same things keep appearing. We are family run and owner led, and we have been at this since 2008. The owners run the jobs themselves, so the person who walks the building with you is the one who prices it and the one answerable for it. Our engineers have all been with us at least two years, so a study written a while ago still describes the team who would turn up. We are not the cheapest, and these studies are the clearest way of showing what the difference buys.
Case study questions answered
Can we speak to a past client, or see one of your systems working
Sometimes, and it depends entirely on that client. We will always ask, and somebody pleased with a lighting upgrade or a heating installation often does not mind ten minutes on the phone. What we will not do is promise you a visit before we have asked the person who owns the building, because that is their decision rather than ours.
Have you worked in a building like ours
Very likely. Most of our work is in offices and commercial property, schools, churches, university buildings and industrial sites, and the problems repeat more than you would expect. If no published study covers your building type yet, ask us anyway, because we can talk you through a comparable job that has not been written up.
How a project runs, the first visit through to handover
We visit the building, survey it, and price the work from what we find rather than from a drawing. Then we agree a programme around your calendar, a school holiday, a faculty date, or a floor that has to stay in use, and we install, test and certify the work and hand over the certificates and the records. Anything unexpected comes to you as a decision with a price attached, never as an addition to the invoice.
How is work priced
After the survey, against your building rather than from a rate card, because the supply, the state of the existing wiring and the access decide what the job actually involves. Lighting work is priced off a free lighting survey with the saving calculated, and larger projects against tender and specification documents. You get the scope and the cost before anything is agreed, with anything still unknown named as unknown.
Planning something similar
If one of these studies describes a building like yours, the next step is a visit, so we can see what your building has and what it needs before anybody talks price.
Planning something similar? Request a quote. Prefer a chat first? Get in touch, or call the team on [[NAP: phone number]], Mon to Fri, 8am to 5pm.
We work across Kent, East Sussex, Surrey and the wider South East, with commercial projects reaching sites such as Chichester.