A house rewire is a once in a lifetime installation for a home owner these days upgrading the house main wiring, switches, sockets and fuse box all at the same time from the outdated 1960, 1970 & 1980 installation.
What is important in the selection process of electricians is that you understand that this is a time consuming messy job and the cheapest quote isn’t always the best, for example we allow up to 10 days for two staff to conduct a full electrical rewire on a 3 bed semi with a decent modern day electrical specification with multiple sockets per rooms etc and not just one or two.
The amount of time a house rewire takes to do is based on the electrical specification involved, how many lights, how many sockets etc, but generally a decent house electrical rewire with all cables clipped under floors and above ceilings takes around 8 to 10 days.
If the job is done in a lesser time you know that it’s either a lesser specification or things are not being done to the standard and 18th Edition wiring regulations and corners are being cut, we can all throw cables over loft joists where the customer does not tend to look and not be bothered to drill the joists passing cables through them neatly but this isn’t the best or neatest way to run cables and not right. It is however a way some Electricians can do a rewire in 2 days which I very much thrown upon and ultimately dismiss these days as i have seen first hand the state of these jobs afterwards.
Fuse boxes have changed since the introduction of the 18th edition wiring regulations, they are all metal now. We install RCBO fuse boxes, basically each circuit breaker is a RCD too which i have found to be better as it affords 30ma of earth leakage tripping current per circuit, in simple terms, if you have ever had a nuisance tripping master RCD on an older fuse box and it takes out half or if not all your house circuits and wont reset because one circuit has an issue and you don’t know which circuit or where to start looking, my RCBO fuse boxes eliminate that as it only trips the affected circuit and not wipe out the entire house! Below is are examples of my fuse boxes
Wall Chases will occur during an Electrical Rewire
If you want recessed electrical sockets & switches, its a fact electricians cannot magic cables inside solid walls and they have to be what we call “chased out”. Let me tell you from experience, this will go one of two ways depending on the state of your walls, how old the plaster is on the walls, if its even plaster too, if its 60 year old lime which was used prior to plaster get ready for some real plastering because the walls will fall apart and you may even end up re doing the whole house by chipping off all the lime, taking it back to bare brick then new dot and dab plasterboard and then plastering, its a fact of life that if its 60 year old lime, its had it so don’t even bother trying to plaster patch it up just replace the lot.
Marc’s top tip – Knock on the walls with your fist like your knocking on a door, if it sounds hollow in places and solid in other places, the hollow bits are what is called “blown” not good if it sounds hollow 🙂
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