I think the bottom line, for me at least is, if you employ a ‘professional’ to do a job, you expect a professional job. I can well understand perhaps misunderstandings which may lead to a different specification being delivered to what was expected, but what I’m talking about is plain and simple workmanship. Whether the spec is right or wrong, a professional should be trusted to be able to get the workmanship right, otherwise what chance do any of us have. When you get into a plane to fly somewhere, do you expect to check the plane over to make sure it’s safe, no, so why can’t some professional artisans get it right without having to check their workmanship. Unfortunately we can’t all be experts in everything and that’s precisely why we employ ‘expert professionals’. Maybe I’ve just been unlucky, but finding very rudimentary faults with work done by both a ‘professional electrician’ and ‘professional builder’ does leave a bit of a bad taste when you have to pay for remediation when the faults are discovered. Conversely I have employed another local professional to do work previously, and his work was absolutely impeccable. 33% strike rate so far 
The Insurance should cover workmanship and goods/work done and the Artisan’s Insurance company should be notified asap…
As a licensed pilot, absolutely - every time!
A survey with n=1 is, of course, not reliable but I think the only time we’ve really been let down was when we hired a guy we vaguely know to do some work on the house & in the garden - he was very expensive and did an awful job repairing a fence (though the other work he did was OK, just overpriced).
That was in the UK.
I employ professionals all the time and there is a massive variation in those that understand what they are doing and keep up their knowledge on products and those I refer to as fitters.
and as premiums can go up significantly n the even of successful claims, that tends (or even just the threat of it) to focus minds…
There is also the question of payment… giving up your rights by paying up front is not always the best option.
The farmhouse we bought 15 years ago had been wired up probably another 15+ years before that - all UK wiring and square UK light switches etc. To be fair, 30+ years ago there weren’t too many brico stores around for UK DIYers who had fallen for a French ruin, so they brought everything with them.
So we had the place rewired by a French electrician who was wretchedly unhappy - I think he was anyway, but the state of our wiring didn’t help.
He normally came and went without a word, but on this particular day he came to find me to tell me the lighting and socket in a guest bathroom had “never worked”. I knew for a fact it had, as friends had used the bathroom shortly after we moved in. So I said it had. No it hadn’t, he said. Recognising that I wasn’t going to convince him, I said I would speak to my husband - and he turned on his heel mightily relieved I would be talking to the one person in the house who was to be believed. (Little realising OH knows less about DIY than I do!)
Why did he think it had “never worked”? Because the wiring was a spur off the lights in an adjacent room (typical UK approach at the time) and did not go back to the fuse box. He, of course had just ripped out the flat UK wiring and so lost all track of where it had come from. He was not happy, but did the job in the end with much muttering
unfortunately, that is also a feature of French wired old houses… quite worrying when a 3 pin plug (French style) is fitted but there is no earth 
False sense of security or what?
And in a bathroom with wet hands as well! 
Can I just butt in to say that I love my bathroom!! OH put in waterproof plugs and switches so my cack-handedness doesn’t put me in peril. If I can’t quite dry my hands, I can still nudge the lightswitch and NOT get electrocuted… hurrah.
Yes funny they havent insisted on pull cord light switches as we do in the UK.
in our new build (now 7 years + ago) the norm then was for the light switches to be outside the bathroom. Just a matter of getting used to it. The other consideration of course is that, with a very efficient earth/ground system, the trigger to the pole is measured in nanoseconds - effectively instantaneously - so if the house system doesn’t trigger it, the pole will - the downside being that it will also take out a number of other properties.
Every reason to ensure that earth/ground is absolutely the best it can be. Accidental electrocutions in France have reduced significantly as a result of the testing regime with all credit the Consuel.
But sockets in the bathroom!
And the occasional washing machine
but not in reach of a water source - like lights close to shower heads for example.
Some of us use a hairdryer… and that needs a socket… 
and before anyone suggests it… no I don’t dry my hair in the shower…
others don’t have much hair to dry so of no consequence 
Vanessa uses her drier in the dressing area of the bedroom well away from water sources.
Perfectly permissible in the UK if in Zone 3 and > 3m from bath or shower.
It’s just that most bathrooms aren’t that big.
Don’t worry billy nothing lost. Even when the UK was still in the EU we heard of a number of cases where certification of electrics with anything English (even the odd 3-point plug) was simply refused. Even when we also read there was no reason for it to be refused. There was also a feeling that if a non-French tradesman had been involved this also meant it wouldn’t be certified.
not so in our case. We used an English French certified electrician on our new build and the installation passed with flying colours at the Consuel inspection. The inspector was most impressed with the standard of work and commented specifically about the result of the earth/ground test which was the best result she had ever seen.
There were no retest requirements - a splendid job all round.
A friend of ours did his own electrical installation about the same time on a barn conversion (effectively a new build) which similarly passed the Consuel (different inspector) equally with flying colours and no restests required so it can be done, if you bone up before hand and follow the rules.