Poor Neutrals, Cable Failures, and Substandard Repairs in the Electrical Trade
This article looks at some of the problems we keep seeing in electrical work today — and how poor cables, lazy installs, and ignored safety checks are putting people at risk.
There’s growing concern in the electrical trade about the standard of some of the work being carried out. From poor-quality wiring and substandard appliance cables to unqualified contractors bodging repairs, it’s clear that corners are being cut in ways that could be dangerous.
One issue that’s coming up more often is poor workmanship around neutral connections. It’s easy to treat the neutral as an afterthought, but that’s a mistake. The neutral conductor is live, current-carrying, and in modern installations, can even carry more current than the phase conductors due to load imbalances and harmonics. If the connection is loose or undersized, it can result in overheating, insulation failure, and, in extreme cases, fires.
It’s also increasingly common to see installations where no account has been taken of harmonic loads. LED drivers, power supplies, variable-speed drives and even everyday appliances can distort current flow. When that happens, a neutral that looked fine on paper can suddenly be under real strain. Larger neutral conductors and better jointing methods are becoming a necessity, not a luxury.
The same applies to appliance cabling. We see it all the time in vacuum cleaners, hairdryers and Dyson Airwraps. Power cables on many appliances are failing prematurely, often within just a few years of light use. Sometimes it’s due to poor handling, but quite often it’s because the original cable was cheap, poorly specified, or simply not designed to cope with regular winding and flexing.
What makes it worse is the quality of replacement parts. A large number of the appliance cables sold online are barely fit for purpose. We’ve tested cables that arrived with copper cores as thin as fuse wire, brittle outer sheathing, and no real strain relief at either end. It’s the kind of thing that might work for a month or two, then fail catastrophically — possibly damaging the appliance or causing a safety issue.
That’s why some repair shops have gone a step further and started producing their own upgraded cables for appliance repairs. In South Manchester, for example, there’s a specialist who not only fits better vacuum cables, but also repairs Dyson hairdryers and Airwraps with proper, heavy-duty wiring that won’t crack or fray after a few uses.
If you’re in South Manchester, there’s a proper local outfit handling this kind of repair properly — upgraded vacuum cables, appliance fixes, and the sort of work that’s done once and done right. You can find out about them here.
These are the kinds of places that fix the fault properly rather than just replacing the part with whatever was cheapest on Amazon. They stock or make what the manufacturer often should have done in the first place — improved designs that last.
Unfortunately, the other end of the scale still exists, too. There are cases where unregistered contractors have carried out work for councils or landlords, sometimes through backdoor contacts. We’ve seen examples of basic boarding jobs charged at five-figure prices, shoddy security installations, and even steel panels fitted inside windows rather than outside, causing unnecessary damage. In one recent case, a contractor admitted lying about the nature of the work and was only spared jail due to the judge believing he had a realistic chance of rehabilitation.
It’s not just rogue traders that are causing problems. A third of landlords could now face fines of up to £30,000 for failing to keep up with their legal obligations around Electrical Installation Condition Reports. Some don’t even realise EICRs are mandatory. Others assume one check lasts forever, when in fact reports should be renewed at least every five years for rented properties. The rule has been law since 2020, but many landlords are only just waking up to it now.
And all of this is happening at the same time as new technology is flooding the market. Smart lighting, EV charge points, solar panels with battery storage, battery-powered appliances, and increasingly complex domestic installs are fast becoming the norm. The products are good. The problem is the inconsistency in how they’re being installed.
It’s one thing to bolt a solar panel on a roof or plug in an EV charger. It’s another to configure the system properly, allow for thermal expansion, check voltage drop, and make sure the protective devices are actually up to the job. Some of the installs we’ve seen recently are neat-looking on the outside but let down by the detail — undersized tails, wrong terminals, or protective devices specified by guesswork.
The good news is that proper electricians still care about getting it right, and customers are starting to notice the difference between a cheap job and one that’s going to last. But until there’s a cultural shift away from shortcuts, poor cables and badly terminated neutrals will keep catching people out.
If you’re working in the trade or just trying to keep your own gear running properly, it’s worth looking beyond the cheapest options. Whether it’s appliance cables or consumer unit installs, getting the basics right still matters — maybe more now than ever.