Electrical Contracting

Any electrical work — commercial, industrial and domestic

This is the trade G Smith Electrical was built on. For over 30 years the team has designed, installed, inspected and maintained electrical systems for businesses and homes across County Durham and the North East — and it still takes on all of it, from a distribution-board upgrade to a full building's electrical design. The solar pages get the headlines. This page is why the solar works.

NICEIC · RECC · MCS · 30+ years' electrical contracting · Based in County Durham

Ask about a job Call 07720 802405

Quick answer

Electrical contractors in County Durham:

Any electrical work — design, installation, inspection, testing and maintenance — for commercial, industrial and domestic clients.
A County Durham electrical contracting company with 30+ years in the trade; the solar work grew out of it, over 15 years ago.
Experts in low-voltage distribution: power, lighting, data, fire alarm and security, generators and UPS, building management systems.
The full compliance stack: EICR, PAT, emergency-lighting and fire-alarm testing, RCD and earth testing, thermographic scanning.
Homes as well as businesses — lighting, consumer-unit upgrades, fault-finding, smart home, home EV and residential solar.
Everything designed, installed and certified to BS 7671 — and you get the certificates.

The trade behind the solar

Thirty years of contracting, still the foundation

On this site, commercial solar leads — it is where we can save a business the most money. But the honest structure of the firm is the other way round. G Smith Electrical Contractors Ltd is an established electrical contracting company based in County Durham, with over 30 years of experience across a wide range of electrical projects for both residential and commercial clients. The solar work grew out of that trade — the team has been installing solar PV for more than 15 years — not the other way around.

Why does that matter if all you need is a fixed-wire test or a lighting fit-out? Because electrical contracting rewards the things that only time builds: familiarity with buildings of every age and condition, a testing-and-certification habit that runs through everything, and clients who come back for decades because the work was done right the first time.

Commercial switchgear room with rows of distribution panels — Commercial switchgear installation, North East

The full list

What we take on

The genuinely honest answer to "what electrical work do you do?" is: any of it. Here is the full service list we publish, organised the way the work actually runs — design first, then installation, then the inspection, testing and maintenance that keeps it all safe and compliant.

Design

Electrical system design, calculation and layout
Power distribution design
Lighting design and layout
Audio and visual system design
Data and communication systems design
Fire alarm and security system design
CCTV system design
Smart home automation system design
Generator and UPS systems design
Surge protection design
Panel upgrades and replacements design
Energy-efficient retrofits and upgrades design
Lightning protection system design
Electric Vehicle Charging Point design and installation
Solar panel system design
Building Management Systems (BMS)

Installation

Lighting design and installation
Power and data cabling installation
Telephone, data and network cabling
Audio and visual system installation
Access control and security systems
Fire alarm systems
CCTV systems
Lighting control systems
Smart home automation systems
Generator and UPS systems
Surge protection
Panel upgrades and replacements
Troubleshooting and repair
Maintenance and inspection services
Energy-efficient retrofits and upgrades

Inspection & Maintenance

Electrical safety inspections
Compliance testing and certification
Electrical system load testing
Circuit breaker testing
Ground fault testing
Insulation resistance testing
Earth continuity testing
Polarity testing
RCD testing
PAT (Portable Appliance Testing)
Thermographic (infrared) scanning
Lightning protection system testing
Emergency lighting testing
Fire alarm system testing
Electrical installation condition report (EICR)
Electric Vehicle Charging Point testing and inspection

If the job you have in mind is not on the list, ask anyway. The list describes the work we publish, not the edge of a 30-year trade.

Commercial LV switchgear and distribution room — Low-voltage distribution — commercial plant room

Design and installation, done as one job

We are experts in low voltage electrical distribution, and most of the commercial work we take on starts there: how power gets from the incoming supply to every board, circuit and load in the building, safely and with headroom for what the building will need next.

Design and installation being the same firm is not a small point. The people doing the calculations and layout — cable sizing, discrimination, board schedules — are the people who will stand on the job installing it, so designs come out buildable and installations come out as designed. That covers the full commercial range: power distribution, lighting and lighting control, data and communications cabling, fire alarm and security systems, CCTV and access control, generator and UPS backup for sites that cannot lose supply, surge and lightning protection, and building management systems.

Testing, compliance and what the law actually requires

If you run a business, electrical compliance is not optional and it is not paperwork theatre. The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 place a legal duty on employers to maintain electrical systems, so far as is reasonably practicable, to prevent danger — and the standard way to evidence that duty is periodic inspection and testing of the fixed installation.

That is what an EICR — an Electrical Installation Condition Report — is for. An inspector tests the fixed wiring, boards and protective devices against BS 7671, the IET Wiring Regulations, and reports what is safe, what needs monitoring and what needs fixing. There is no single legal interval for commercial premises, but insurers, landlords and health-and-safety auditors increasingly expect to see a current report, not a promise of one — and every piece of work we do is certified to BS 7671, so you get the certificates.

One case where the interval is law: rented homes. Landlords in England must have the electrical installation in a privately rented property inspected and tested at least every five years by a qualified person, and give the report to tenants and, on request, the local authority.

Inspection intervals

How often the fixed wiring needs testing

No single legal interval covers commercial premises, but IET guidance and insurers point to these — and for rented homes the interval is written into law.

5 yr

Commercial premises

IET guidance — offices, shops (no single legal interval)

3 yr

Industrial premises

IET guidance for the harsher environment

5 yr

Rented homes

the law: privately rented homes in England

Both audiences

Same firm, whether it's a factory or a front room

The firm has always worked for private clients as well as businesses, and still does. A domestic job done properly ends the same way a commercial one does: tested, certified, documented.

For your business

The full commercial and industrial range — power distribution, lighting and controls, data and comms, life safety, backup power and building management, plus the compliance programme that keeps premises audit-ready.

Power distribution and lighting control
Data, comms and network cabling
Fire alarm, security, CCTV and access control
Generator, UPS, surge and lightning protection
Building management systems (BMS)
EICR, PAT and thermographic scanning

Domestic work, same standards

Mostly across County Durham, and covered by Part P of the Building Regulations, which makes electrical safety in dwellings a legal requirement and much of the work notifiable — so home jobs end tested and certified, exactly like commercial ones.

Lighting, consumer-unit and panel upgrades
Fault-finding and repair
Smart home automation systems
Home EV charge points
Residential solar

Home EV charge points Residential solar

Why solar buyers should care about any of this

Everything on our solar, battery and EV pages sits on top of this page. A solar array is a generation circuit that has to land in a board with capacity to take it. A bank of workplace chargers is a set of high-demand circuits that will find every weakness in a 40-year-old supply. Before either goes in, someone has to assess the installation — and if the survey turns up a board that needs upgrading or wiring that needs remedial work first, we are the same firm that prices and fixes it, rather than a solar outfit discovering mid-job that it needs to find an electrician.

Commercial solar PV Battery storage EV charging & car ports

Electrical questions, answered here

How often does a commercial property need an EICR?

There is no single statutory interval, but the widely used IET guidance recommends a maximum of five years for offices, shops and commercial premises and three years for industrial sites — sooner if the installation is old, heavily loaded or has a history of problems. What is legally fixed is the underlying duty: the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 require electrical systems to be maintained to prevent danger, and a current EICR is the accepted evidence that yours are. For rented homes in England, five years is a legal requirement, not guidance.

What is thermographic scanning, and is it worth it?

It is an infrared survey of live boards, terminations and switchgear that finds problems by their heat signature — loose connections, unbalanced loads and overloaded circuits run hot long before they fail or start fires. Its appeal for a working site is that nothing gets switched off: the survey happens under normal load, which is exactly when faults show. We offer it as part of planned maintenance on commercial and industrial installations; for a site with ageing distribution gear it is some of the cheapest insurance available.

Can our existing board take EV chargers or solar?

Sometimes yes, often not without work — and finding out is the first thing we check, not the last. Chargers and inverters both land on your distribution board, and older commercial boards frequently lack the spare ways, capacity or protective arrangements to take them safely. The survey establishes what the supply and board can actually carry; if an upgrade is needed, you get it priced in the same quote as the chargers or the array, from the same firm, rather than as a mid-project surprise.

Do you take on small jobs, or only contracts?

Both. The same firm that designs a factory’s power distribution will upgrade a shop’s consumer unit or fault-find a circuit that keeps tripping — the trade does not have a minimum size, and small jobs are where a lot of our longest-standing clients started. Tell us what you need and you will get a straight answer and an itemised price either way.

See all our FAQs

Tell us what needs doing

A rewire, a fit-out, an inspection that is overdue, a board that hums — or a solar project that needs an electrician's eye before anyone quotes you hardware. Describe the job and you will get a straight answer on what we would do, what it costs and when we can do it. Thirty years in, that is still the whole pitch. Call 07720 802405 or use the form.

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Commercial solar, battery, EV or any electrical work — no pressure.