Moved house into a disaster zone

[fourtytwo]

Whew makes me wonder if a part P inspection should be part of the house move process!
The house I have moved into is a nightmare, I thought isolating the lethal external wiring would do the trick but today I was stupid enough to start inspecting some suspicious power sockets around the house.........Ohh myyy
The first delight was a mystery spur fuse turned on but what did it power ? well it seemed nothing, on further investigation the spur it fed in 2.5mm disappeared into the wall behind the back box and upon pulling came free with a cut-off end!!

As I continued I kept finding loose screws resulting in wires pulling free from the sockets (not sure about TV antenna in same back box behind blank plate either)

As I progressed along the loose screw brigade things got more serious, here we have a Neutral ring break

And then the worst uncovered so far a high resistance arcing live ring break that has melted the insulation, made contact with the earth and blown it in half resulting in an earth ring break also

Needless to say the damaged socket was replaced. I have many more disasters found and undoubtedly given the quality of what I have found so far more to come. My most serious worry is loose terminals in junction boxes under the floors (there are many spurs with no apparent source) that are now unfortunately covered with wretched laminate flooring over the floorboards.
I will add further horrors for those who can stand it!

 

[fourtytwo]

First quote from internal pic of CU + address (Gainsborough) 10-12K

 

[Dustydazzler]

£10K basic Re-wire is pretty standard these days

 

[fourtytwo]

£10K basic Re-wire is pretty standard these days

Ohh, you opinioned in another thread in January this year concerning a 4 bed house
"You could probably do a Very basic rewire for about £5000, Very basic. A couple double sockets in every room , a pendant light in each room , a bit of 2 way switching and maybe a couple outside lights."

Personally I think £10K is completely over the top!

 

[SJD]

Costs depend very much on what a rewire comprises. For example, if there are currently only typically 2 sockets per bedroom, you'd likely want perhaps 3, 4 or 5 in the rewire. You need to supply a spec of how many sockets, lights (and what type), other things like smokes, fans, etc to know whether £10k is dear or cheap.

 

[Dustydazzler]

Ohh, you opinioned in another thread in January this year concerning a 4 bed house
"You could probably do a Very basic rewire for about £5000, Very basic. A couple double sockets in every room , a pendant light in each room , a bit of 2 way switching and maybe a couple outside lights."

Personally I think £10K is completely over the top!

2 socket per room and 1 pendant light is absolute bare bones these days 5 grand would be absolute bare bones re-wire literally , I never get any customers just wanting the absolute minimum on a full re-wire these days never

They all want USB sockets , loads of downlighters , dimmer s , CAT6 points etc etc

I am doing kitchens where the wiring is coming out to £5000 price range as they want so much installing these days

When you are pricing re-wires £10,000 is burned up without too much trouble

 

[UNG]

Ohh, you opinioned in another thread in January this year concerning a 4 bed house
"You could probably do a Very basic rewire for about £5000, Very basic. A couple double sockets in every room , a pendant light in each room , a bit of 2 way switching and maybe a couple outside lights."

Personally I think £10K is completely over the top!

A basic rewire in an unoccupied empty property would probably come in at £5k in January move forward 6 months and all the material price increases coming through and you are very likely pushing towards £6k

As Dusty points out once the "wouldn't it be nice if we had" kicks in and you start the price spiralling upwards the sky is the limit and once you add in the occupied and furniture / carpet / laminate flooring you bump the price again

While you may consider £10k completely over the top you may be searching for a long time to find an electrician who will do it significantly cheaper

 

[Dustydazzler]

A basic rewire in an unoccupied empty property would probably come in at £5k in January move forward 6 months and all the material price increases coming through and you are very likely pushing towards £6k

As Dusty points out once the "wouldn't it be nice if we had" kicks in and you start the price spiralling upwards the sky is the limit and once you add in the occupied and furniture / carpet / laminate flooring you bump the price again

While you may consider £10k completely over the top you may be searching for a long time to find an electrician who will do it significantly cheaper

EXACTLY

First thing I do when I am quoting for any medium to large domestic job these days is I tell the home owner that cable is the dearest it has even been. I explain you can easily spend over £1000 just on cable alone for a 3 bed re-wire

I think this sets the tone that any price they may have had in their brain will be way wrong

 

[Mike Johnson]

With the increase in costs since January, the extra downlighters that everyone wants these days, USB sockets and at least ten sockets in the kitchen min six above the worktop and four below for the white goods and the additional circuits for the induction hob and the ovens, min four sockets for each bedroom, min two in each hallway upstairs and downstairs I would be looking for closer to £15,000 these days, but then I am retired and would not even do it for my relatives for £10,000, the only way to reduce this cost would be for you to do all the preparatory work, lifting the floors and all the chasing needed, Good Luck finding anyone who is available let alone willing to do it.

 

[Dustydazzler]

I have tried going down the homeowner starts chasing and box bashing before I arrive but in reality it barely saves any time as the chases are always far too shallow and the boxes are to shallow

A full re-wire is probably the most labour intensive job a home owner can under-take , its even more labour intense than fitting a new bathroom or fitting new windows

They also forget we have to test everything and do loads of paper work afterward , this all takes time and time is cold hard money

 

[fourtytwo]

I seem to have stirred up some hornets! I don't want any extras at all. I am trying to get the underlying rubber replaced that is an obvious fire risk, the actual sockets, switch plates & ceiling roses are modern and only one needs renewing as it's missing. something like 30% of the underfloor and 60% of the in wall power cable is already PVC T&E, just red/black. I have already lifted the bulk of the flooring and boards to gain access and trace routes. The CU needs replacing as it's out of date and that's about it unless part P requires something else I am unaware of. As for chasing there really should not be any need and anyway I don't want the dust & decor damage.
Yes I expect you are right, bit like trying to find a builder for anything less than a big extension on a house.

 

[pc1966]

I seem to have stirred up some hornets! I don't want any extras at all. I am trying to get the underlying rubber replaced that is an obvious fire risk, the actual sockets, switch plates & ceiling roses are modern and only one needs renewing as it's missing. something like 30% of the underfloor and 60% of the in wall power cable is already PVC T&E, just red/black. I have already lifted the bulk of the flooring and boards to gain access and trace routes.

Old T&E that has not had known problems like the "green goo" of the early 70s, or been nibbled by rodents or nailed by DIY'ers is usually just fine. An IR test should verify that.

The CU needs replacing as it's out of date and that's about it unless part P requires something else I am unaware of.

Part P is just about notifying the local building control of certain types of work. Basically it was intended to make sure it was done by those competent to do it, test it, and submit certification to prove it. Sadly it has not delivered on the goals of greater safety in many cases, but that is life.

Replacing a CU is one of the notifiable items of work, but if you have replaced cables, etc, and made good any damaged accessories, then when it comes to the replacement it should all test out good & proper and whoever does it can certify without any major concern.

I would not normally suggest that, but so far you appear to be sensible and smart enough to know what needs to be done and what you can reasonably do.

As for chasing there really should not be any need and anyway I don't want the dust & decor damage.
Yes I expect you are right, bit like trying to find a builder for anything less than a big extension on a house.

Unless there is old cable plastered in then you probably can replace the old VIR without needing to go that far. If it is joined with other cable under floors, etc, then if replacing and joining again make sure you get maintenance free junction boxes and terminals (e.g. some of the Wago range). A also read the instructions as many MF boxes are only rated as such with specific choices of terminals, and with other step taken (such as cable ties on the box lid).

 

[Dustydazzler]

If you are re-using old cable then its not a full re-wire

 

[UNG]

Taking a pragmatic view retaining the old T&E while it saves some penny's now could be a false economy as the red / black T&E is at a minimum 15 - 16 years old but could easily be 30 - 40+ years old and while it may test ok now it could in 5 - 10 years time end up with a similar conversation to now and the same problems of rewiring and who knows what the regs will require then anyone for another CU with whatever new protection devices they have developed by then

 

[EricMark]

An I thought this house was bad, I had a home buyers report done, it pointed out a redundant fuse box was wedged between false ceiling and original ceiling, but it was not redundant. I had a fuse box and a consumer unit.

I has a new consumer unit fitted all RCBO's with idea any faults I can isolate that circuit, only fault found was a borrowed neutral on lights.

Getting the previous owner to have an EICR done, it seems does not help read this link the electrician was taken to court and fined for not doing a proper job, but that does not help the new owner, his contract was with old owner.

My mothers house had a part rewire before being sold, kitchen and wet room already done, seem to remember around £3000 in 2017 approx, I did all the plastering, minimum done, with idea may need to rent it to pay for her care home, but she died so house sold.

But 1966 was the date when lights had to have an earth, so any house wired before 1966 one expects it will need a rewire. Post 1966 there were some problems with Ian Smith so some aluminium cable used, and also some cable poorly made and the plasticizer leached out, but one would be unlucky to find either, there was still some VIR cable used in early 60's, but by the 1970's we had gone metric, and so easy to see in the fuse box/consumer unit if cables imperial or metric. We have been metric now for over 50 years.

I tried to add RCD protection to my parents old house before the rewire, it did not work, if I could have got a 100 mA type S may have got away with it, but one RCD up front is not really a good idea.

Son fitted a new CU and lived in a caravan supplied from it while re-wiring, and slowly got more and more wired in, took around a year before they could move back into the house, I think he went OTT with things like server in the loft, but the only problem was the 16 amp supply did caravan and washing machine, and it was not enough for both, only thing used in house was washing machine.

I could have lived in the garage here had the house electrics not been up to scratch, except in may case not the electrics which was a nightmare, but leaking garage roof. Not short of cash, one expects problems with an old house, which need correcting, but getting tradesmen was the problem. As least one who when he did the roof, it actually stopped leaking.