Downlights wired with speaker wire
Someone added downlights after the house was built and used whatever was on the shelf.
Why it fails: it is the wrong cable type for the job. It works perfectly until it does not.
Electrical COC · Stellenbosch
Nine out of ten houses fail their electrical COC.
Almost always on the lighting — and almost never on anything you would notice. Here is what actually fails, what it costs, and why the worst thing you can do is leave it until two weeks before transfer.
R2,950 if nothing needs fixing
Registered Installation Electrician
Three-phase & solar
What does an electrical COC cost in Stellenbosch, and why do most houses fail?
heyhome charges R2,950 for the inspection and the issue of an electrical Certificate of Compliance, on a house where nothing needs repairing. In practice that is about one house in ten. Nine out of ten fail somewhere on the lighting — new builds excepted — usually downlights wired with speaker wire instead of the correct cable, metal fittings that were never earthed, or a second-hand chandelier that never had an earth wire to begin with. Phone 077 293 6863.
A certificate should not be older than two years. Because nine houses in ten need something put right first, and because that work is mostly labour, the advice we give everybody is the same: start six months before you list, not two weeks before transfer.
What actually fails
It is nearly always the lights.
Not the dramatic things people worry about. The lights work, the house looks fine, and none of this is visible until someone opens a fitting. Here is what we find most often.
Metal light fittings with no earth
Any metallic fitting has to be earthed. A great many simply are not.
Why it fails: an unearthed metal fitting is a shock risk the moment anything inside it goes wrong.
Vintage and second-hand chandeliers
Beautiful fittings from antique and second-hand shops, sold without an earth wire.
Why it fails: there is no earth to connect. Adding one without ruining the fitting is slow, careful work.
No earth leakage on the geyser
Common in older houses, along with no isolator within 1.5 m of the geyser.
Why it fails: both are required. Both are usually straightforward work at the board.
A single-pole main switch
Older boards often still have one. It needs to become a two-pole switch.
Why it fails: a two-pole switch cuts the neutral as well as the live. The stove also needs an isolator within 1.5 m.
Solar, done in a hurry
The one that opens a can of worms — and the one where the repairs get expensive.
Why it fails: see the solar section below. It is a longer list than the rest of this page put together.
Why a small fault is not a small bill
The fitting
The house
The unknown
You are paying for time, not parts.
This is the part nobody explains, and it is the reason two quotes for the same house can be so far apart. Almost none of the cost of a COC repair is materials.
Getting an earth onto an old chandelier
The part costs almost nothing. Fitting an earth connection to a vintage fitting without destroying it, or spoiling how it looks, is slow and careful work — and that is what you are paying for.
No access to the roof space
Fixing wiring after a house is finished is a different job to doing it during the build. Where there is no roof access, and cables run underground and under slabs, straightforward work stops being straightforward.
Tracing cables to find out what is going on
On an installation that has been altered over the years by several different people, a large part of the job is working out what is connected to what before anything can be corrected.
Which is also why we will not quote you a repair figure over the phone. Anyone who does is guessing, and the guess is never in your favour.
Old farm houses and the Winelands
Older properties fail in their own way.
If your house is an older one, or a farm property, or something that has been added to over the years, the inspection is a different exercise entirely.
Most of them are three-phase
Which is a different qualification to certify. A lot of the work we find on these properties was done by someone who did not have it.
The system is not balanced
Circuits mixed together, load spread unevenly across the phases, and very little of it recorded anywhere.
Guest cottages added one at a time
With no plan for expansion from day one. One guest room ends up fed off another, because nobody designed the installation for what the property eventually became.
And then you get volt drop
The symptom of an installation asked to do more than it was built for. In the worst cases the honest answer is a full rewire, and we will tell you that rather than patch it.
Solar
Solar can open a can of worms.
The regulations changed again in 2026 — SANS 10142-1:2026 Edition 3.03, released in June 2026, superseding the 2024 Edition 3.2 — with a good deal of attention on exactly these installations. A great many of them were not built to it.
This is also where the repair work gets expensive, so if you have solar and you are thinking of selling, it is the single strongest argument for starting early rather than finding out under deadline.
Have your solar checkedWhat we find, again and again
- Surge protection devices fitted incorrectly
- No pilot lights and no main switch for the alternative supply
- Circuits mixed into the board with no proper labelling or indication
- Batteries and inverters not bonded
- No neutral-earth bond relay where one is needed
The dangerous one
AC switchgear and fuses used in a DC installation. DC needs switchgear rated for it. Using AC equipment instead is genuinely dangerous and a serious fire hazard — and we find it more often than we should.
When you need a neutral-earth bond relay
When the inverter does not automatically bond the earth and neutral as it switches to backup mode, or disconnects from the grid. If it will not do that itself, something has to.
What it costs
R2,950 if nothing needs fixing. The most we have charged is R60,000.
Both of those are real numbers off real houses, and the gap between them is the whole story.
R2,950
The inspection and the issue of the certificate, on a house where no repair work is needed. Honestly, that is about one house in ten.
Close to R60,000
Our worst. An extended property: the wrong cable size feeding a guest house, missing earthing, and unsafe wiring in and around the pool area that had to be completely redone. Almost all of it labour.
What pushes a job towards the second number is scale and history — a bigger property, work added over the years by several different people, and wiring that has to be traced before it can be corrected. What we will not do is pretend we can tell you which one yours is before we have looked at it:
- You hear the inspection fee before we leave, and it does not change afterwards.
- Anything that fails is quoted in writing and itemised before any work starts.
- We do not begin work you have not approved. If you would rather think about it, that is fine.
- If the repair turns out cheaper than quoted, you pay the cheaper number.
The part worth acting on
Start six months before you list.
We have never seen a COC stop a transfer. What we have seen, many times, is somebody selling under real financial pressure, with a date to meet, discovering a repair bill they had not budgeted for — at the exact moment they could least afford it. The deadline is what makes people frantic, and the deadline is the part you can control.
Start six months out and none of that happens. You can spread the repairs over months. You can get a second opinion. You can decide what to do rather than take whichever electrician is free that week at whatever they quote. And because a certificate stays valid for two years, being early costs you nothing at all.
If you might sell within the next two years, now is a perfectly sensible time to do this.
The awkward question
You fail me, then you sell me the repair. How do I know it is honest?
It is the right question and nobody likes asking it out loud, so here is the answer without being asked. Anything that fails is quoted in writing and itemised before a single thing is done — every item priced separately, so you can see exactly what is being charged for and why. Nothing starts until you approve it.
And you are welcome to take that quote to another electrician and have them price the same work. A company that needed to inflate the fault list would not hand you an itemised quote and invite you to compare it.
All our electrical work
Questions
Questions people actually ask
Short, straight answers. No sales pitch hiding inside them.
What does an electrical COC cost in Stellenbosch?
R2,950 for the inspection and the issue of the certificate, on a house where nothing needs repairing. In practice that is about one house in ten. What the rest pay depends entirely on what has to be put right first, and heyhome quotes that in writing before any work starts.
Why do most houses fail an electrical COC?
Nine out of ten houses fail somewhere on the lighting — new builds excepted. The usual causes are downlights wired with speaker wire instead of the correct cable, metal light fittings that have not been earthed, and second-hand or vintage fittings that were never supplied with an earth wire. None of it looks wrong, and all of it fails.
How long is an electrical Certificate of Compliance valid?
A Certificate of Compliance should not be older than two years. If anything electrical has been added or altered since it was issued, that work needs certifying regardless of how recent the certificate is.
When should I get my COC done before selling?
Six months before you list. Nine out of ten houses need something repaired first, the repair is mostly labour and takes time, and the certificate stays valid for two years — so there is no penalty for being early. Leaving it to the last weeks means taking whichever electrician is available, at whatever they quote, with a deadline on top of you.
Why can you not quote me for the repairs over the phone?
Because the cost is mostly labour, not parts. The expensive jobs are expensive because of the time spent tracing cables and working out what is going on — often with no access to roof spaces, and cables running underground and under slabs. Anyone quoting a repair figure before seeing the installation is guessing at your expense.
What is the most an electrical COC repair has cost?
Close to R60,000, on an extended property. The cost was rewiring driven by incorrect cable size feeding a guest house, missing earthing, and unsafe wiring in and around the pool area that had to be completely redone. Almost all of that figure was labour rather than materials.
Do old farm houses fail differently?
Yes. Older farm properties are usually three-phase, which is a different qualification to certify, and a lot of the work found on them was done by someone who did not have it. The installations are frequently unbalanced with circuits mixed together. Where guest cottages were added one at a time, with no plan for expansion from the start, you also get volt drop, because the installation was never designed for what it became. In the worst cases that means a full rewire.
I have solar. Does that change the COC?
Considerably. Solar installations are assessed against SANS 10142-1:2026 Edition 3.03, released in June 2026 and superseding the 2024 Edition 3.2. Common faults are surge protection fitted incorrectly, no pilot lights or main switch for the alternative supply, circuits mixed into the board without proper labelling or indication, batteries and inverters not bonded, and no neutral-earth bond relay where one is required. The most dangerous is AC switchgear and fuses used in a DC installation, which is a serious fire hazard.
When is a neutral-earth bond relay required?
When the inverter does not automatically bond the earth and neutral as it switches to backup mode or disconnects from the grid. If it does not do that by itself, a relay has to do it.
Who signs the certificate?
A registered Installation Electrician. That registration covers three-phase and solar installations as well as ordinary single-phase houses, which matters on older farm properties and anywhere solar has been added — not every electrical qualification extends to them.
You inspect and you do the repairs. How do I know you are not failing me to sell work?
It is the fair question to ask. Anything that fails is quoted in writing and itemised before any work starts, with every item priced separately, and nothing begins until you approve it. If the repair turns out cheaper than quoted, you pay the cheaper number. You are also welcome to take that quote to another electrician and have them price the same work.
Praat julle Afrikaans?
Ja, natuurlik. Ons span praat Afrikaans en Engels, en jy kan ons in albei tale bel of WhatsApp. Stuur gerus 'n foto van die DB-bord — dikwels kan ons al iets sien voordat ons daar aankom.
Where we work
Stellenbosch and the Winelands
We are local. That is not a marketing line — it means the vehicle is already in town when you phone, not setting off from Cape Town.
Stellenbosch Central
Die Boord
Mostertsdrift
Brandwacht
Paradyskloof
Dalsig
Uniepark
Welgevonden
Simonswyk
Idas Valley
Jamestown
Kleine Zalze
De Zalze
Devonvale
Somerset West
Strand
Just say hey
Book the inspection.
Tell us roughly when you are selling and we will work back from it. If you are not selling yet but think you might within two years, this is the right time — and you will never have a better one.
077 293 6863- R2,950 inspection and certificate where nothing needs fixing
- Anything that fails is quoted in writing, itemised, first
- Signed by a registered Installation Electrician
- Three-phase and solar installations included