Accessories: Quantity and quality

Interest rates may have crept up slightly at the end of last year, but there are few signs that the housing market has suffered. Developers continue to build more homes to satisfy demand, and the Government forecasts that the value of the public and private housing markets will remain steady for the next few years.

Wiring accessory makers and electrical contractors benefit from a healthy property market. Novar, which includes the MK Electric brand, acknowledged this by starting its housing initiative last year. At the launch, Novar revealed the results of a survey in which NOP asked 1000 home buyers what they looked for in a new home. Nearly 70% of respondents were influenced by the number of electrical socket outlets.

The results confirm earlier research indicating that developers ignore wiring accessories at their peril. In 2001, the Copper Development Association (CDA) published the results of a survey of people who had moved into new two, three or four-bedroom homes two years earlier. Although less than a third of the home buyers surveyed had considered the number of sockets available when they bought their homes; two years later, all the respondents wanted more sockets for all the rooms.

The CDA blamed the shortage of sockets on the advice given to builders by the National House-Building Council, which sets standards for new and newly converted homes in the UK. Around 18 000 builders are registered with the organisation, and they agree to comply with its technical standards.

The CDA says the NHBC's technical standards can only reflect "practice at the time of publication" and the standards for electrical services were last updated in 1994. Ten years ago, it was unusual to find electrical appliances such as mobile phones or laptop computers in the home. The NHBC states: "To comply with NHBC's standards, an average three-bedroom home will need at least 21 sockets, distributed throughout the rooms in line with our specific requirements. This minimum number increases in homes which have more bedrooms."

Later this year, the NHBC will review its technical standards for electrical services in new homes, and may recommend more generous provision of socket outlets. The current provision is shown in table 1, over.

Many people suspect that developers are simply trying to save money by skimping on sockets, and the CDA has published its own recommendations, suggesting around three times the number of sockets. The Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) considered those recommendations when it prepared its Guidance Note 1 (GN1) on the Wiring Regulations, Selection and erection of equipment, which includes for the first time recommendations about the number of sockets that should be installed.

Has GN1 had much of an impact? David Chapman, electrical project manager at the CDA, says: "I recently looked around a very plush development of £3/4 million homes, and the socket provision was not quite up to GN1."

Nigel Stokes, head of demand generation at Novar, studies current trends and routes to market for wiring accessories makers. He says that developers of cheaper homes are the most parsimonious with sockets, and are often trying to keep costs down. But, he says: "More discerning developers are looking at giving the customer a choice – Mr and Mrs Smith can override what the specification says."

The CDA has some advice for home buyers. "We still try to encourage people, when we can, to ask builders for more sockets," says Chapman. "Contractors could do it, there's a good market there for them." He warns, however: "The thing that puts people off is not the cost, it's the mess." Inevitably, homeowners will rarely upgrade their accessories until they are planning some home improvements.

Novar's survey revealed that electrical accessories play an increasingly important part in home improvement projects. In April 2002, under 30% of respondents said that it was essential or important to upgrade sockets and light switches when decorating. By September last year, that figure had risen to 44%.

Designer wiring accessories are big business for UK manufacturers beset by cheap imports from the Far East. But Stokes argues that it makes little sense to spend £10 000 on a new kitchen, only to save a few pounds by fitting it with cheap plastics electrical accessories. Sean Jordan, product marketing manager for the Ashley brand at Hager, agrees that designer accessories are increasingly popular, and says that Ashley is taking a lifestyle approach to the market: "Most builders are looking to increase the spec with decorative products, particularly on their high value properties.

"People are concentrating to the extent of matching the accessories with the appliances in the kitchen," adds Jordan, "it's rare for a contractor to go to that level of detail, but there are opportunities there for those who do. Smart contractors recognise that choice and start to upsell."

Designer changes
Although it is an influx of new technology that has sparked complaints about the shortage of sockets, that same invasion has forced accessories makers, developers and contractors to re-evaluate the flexibility of conventional accessories.

In many homes, a room that is a spare bedroom could quite easily become a home office. For this reason, some manufacturers are applying the lessons they have learned in the commercial world to the residential market. "At one time you had a twin socket and an aerial behind the television," says Stokes, "now you can install a multimedia plate and configure it how you like."

Jordan believes it is time to extend the principle of the commercial grid system to include power, data and other control modules. Hager's System3.Ashley is a first step in this direction, and more than 100 switching and data modules are available for the product. As long as the cables carrying power and data are there, says Jordan, "the contractor can decide up to the eleventh hour what's available".

Whether those cables will be installed is uncertain. Although buyers expect their new homes to be equipped with electricity and telephone wiring, only the most exclusive dwellings come with Ethernet cabling as standard.

"Builders give this a lot of thought, but falter at the eleventh hour," says Jordan of developers' reluctance to install data cable. "There's a huge degree of inertia." This mystifies Chapman at the CDA: "The cost of houses is getting on for ten times what it was 30 years ago, although the cost of cables is less than it was."

Stokes, however, says that the bigger regional developers, keen to differentiate themselves from the national builders, are pioneering the high-tech home: "A lot of builders are now looking at broadband communications for whole developments."

Jordan thinks it is inevitable that data cabling will be standard in new homes within a few years: "People are starting to flood the home with data cabling," he says. "Developers will probably start to offer it as an extra initially, then it will become standard." In the meantime – as long as builders supply too few socket outlets of standard quality, and little in the way of data services – new housing will remain a significant source of work for electrical contractors.