If he has offered to pop in and sort out the problem next time he is in the area, and you say this is an emergency I have no heating, I need you to come now, then I can see why he would charge an emergency call out fee.
We clearly don't know whole story, and I have been involved in the past where some customer to my mind was being unreasonable, for example saying you must come now as no heating, and you drop all and find there is an earth leakage causing a trip, and the customer admits it has been tripping for last month, but only called you when it would not reset. And one thinks if she had said you could have corrected next time in area not as an emergency call out.
Time and fuel costs, and logistics is a large part of the tradesman's job, working out which job takes priority and how to arrange the day so least time wasted travelling.
I would normally expect a strip light replacement could take a week to fit it in, likely you can use a standard lamp or table lamp when waiting.
The breaker is different, no central heating is a big thing, you don't say what sort of breaker, we have
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some shown here, and in my house I have all RCBO which is a RCD and MCB combined, these in the main cost more than having a RCD feeding 4 or 5 MCB's and normally the pros and cons are talked about before a consumer unit is fitted.
To my mind if a customer selects the cheap option, and so the RCD tripping causes time constraints which would not have existed had all RCBO's been fitted, that was their choice, and expense incurred to repair as an emergency rather than next time passing is down to customer to pay.
The same could be said for lack of SPD with an LED strip light, we know there is a risk that spikes or surges can take out direct mains powered electronic equipment, we also know it is rare for it to happen, so in the main it is worth taking a chance, however if the customer takes a chance, then not really fair to expect the electrician to foot the bill.
The problem is showing the failure would not have happened if a SPD was fitted.
I have seen a MCB fail, but rare, I have seem a RCD fail, and also seen where can't really pin point problem, I have used a RCD tester on a RCD which showed the RCD as being A1, but on swapping it, the fault stopped. So I have swapped a RCD when no fault found. I have even found the strain on the terminals of a RCD has caused it not to be within the prescribed limits.
I had an old tester without a ramp function, so could be on RCD tripped at 16 mA and other at 29 mA both would have passed, and I did not have a clamp on meter to measure 0.001 amp so could not measure back ground leakage. So the circuit could be right on the edge.
In 1992 when I fitted my RCD's unlikely I could have bought a RCD tester with ramp, or a clamp on meter with a 0.001 amp scale, and single width RCBO's had not come out, but 30 years have passed since then, and it seems prudent that back ground leakage is measured and also a ramp test. However the instructions are still to test the RCD with no load, if tested with load then the leakage must be less than 15 mA or it would trip the RCD on the 15 mA test. But often not done that way.
But still if a customer selects a cheap option it is the customer who is taking the chance, not the electrician, and as it stands we have no idea if the new consumer unit was all RCBO's with a SPD or elcheapo twin RCD's with MCB's. And also no idea if it is a MCB, RCD, RCBO or other device when referring to a breaker.
I would say one call out non emergency to fix be it replace parts or anything else, the electrician should take the hit, repeated call outs when customer has selected cheap option, or emergency call outs, then can see why an electrician would charge.
