Finding a good electrician in Cyprus

What you should know before hiring an electrician in Cyprus.

1. Anyone offering to carry out electrical work in your home needs to be qualified electrician and have a electrical contractors license issued by the EMS department of the Cyprus government.  Always ask to their electrical contractors license before employing anyone to do electrical work in your home. The photo on the license should be that of the person you are hiring. Confirm that the license is for "electrical contractor" and not a electrical maintenance license or wireman license, that latter two do not permit someone to carry out changes to your electrical circuits whilst working on their own.  We see lots of builders, plumbers and handymen carrying out electrical installations in Cyprus without the necessary training, qualifications and test equipment (see number 3 below) to do such jobs safely and legally.  i.e, plumbers who replace water heater elements without a loop impedance tester to confirm the electrical circuit to the water heater is actually safe to reconnect, builders who instal 13 amp socket outlets, kitchen and bathroom lights with no means of testing that the circuit wiring is safe to reconnect. ​- Because a circuit was live before, it DOES NOT mean you can simply reconnect the wires and assume its safe, it must be retested with a multifunction electricians test meter and the results recorded on a 'Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate' in accordance with BS 7671 wiring regulations. (See example of our test sheets below).
2. Is your electrician a professional or cash in hand part timer? Anyone offering to work for you directly in your home needs to be legally employed by a registered Limited company, or registered as self employed. They should provide you with a invoice for all all payments with their TIC number and VAT number if applicable. Why does this matter? A registered professional electrician is more likely to come back if there's a problem than a cheap cash in hand part timer, don't you agree?
3. Check the electricians experience. Electricians who only work on building sites carrying out new installations may have little to no experience in short circuit fault finding, circuit overload and earth leakage fault currents in large houses with old wiring systems. One of the biggest clues to this is the amount of "electricians" we come across in Cyprus that DO NOT own a electricians multifunction test meter that covers RCD testing, loop impedance, PSC, Insulation resistance and continuity testing. Why don't they own one? Because these type of multifunction test meters can cost nearly €1,000 by the time imported to Cyprus. As stated under the wiring regulations, every professional electrician working in your home must have such a test meter and know how to use it. You should ask to see their multifunction test meter along with their electrical contractors license.  This is the one I have, I'll be happy to demonstrate it to you at anytime. 
4. Everybody knows a cheap electrician in Cyprus, usually a family friend or relative.  We get this comparison all the time with our emergency service night time rates, tenants in rented accommodation will call us at night on weekends with main switch tripping problems (loss of all power to the property),  the've tried calling their landlord but he's in bed and tells the tenant to find their own electrician as his electrician is not answering the phone (why would he at midnight), they then Google 24 hour electrician Limassol and of course we are always number one in the search results, we go out to the property with our 32 years of experience, professional test equipment and thousands of Euros worth of tools, we find the cause of the earth leakage fault and get their power on, we retest everything and report on any further work needed, the tenant pays the bill and everyone is happy.  THEN, usually about 2 days later we get a call from the landlord, complaining that we charged too much as his own electrician (friend of the family, relative) would have done the job a lot cheaper, the only problem is his electrician does not answer the phone at night, especially during weekends as he prefers to sleep...sounds reasonable, also he's not an emergency electrician and has a nice Monday to Friday electrician job working for someone else.  Sure there are lots of "cheap electricians" in Cyprus that love getting cash jobs when it suits them (no VAT and no self employed social insurance to pay), just don't compare it to what professional legally operating emergency electricians offer.

As qualified and licensed electricians, we can provide certificates as required for electrical installations - BS 7671 (IET wiring regulations).  Something your unqualified handyman, plumber, gardner or builder cannot.

Next important article you may be interested in, "Main switch electricity problems" in older Cyprus homes.