Does anyone know anything about household wiring/electricals?

[ProfYaffle]

I want to put a tumble drier and chest freezer in our garage but the wiring looks a bit ramshackle. Had an electrician out to look at it, he recommends it's rewired as current wiring is not armour cased and runs in a precarious fashion over a neighbour's rickety fence, through their shrubbery. He pointed out that the neighbours take their life in their hands whenever they trim their plants.

Got his quote for the work today, £450. dh is horrified and doesn't want to get it done, just put the appliances out there and cross our fingers.

I strongly disagree, not just for the neighbour's sake but am worried about an electrical fault in the garage causing a fire or something. Am I being over cautious here?

get at least 2 more quotes. That does seem a lot!

It does sound a lot.I agree with getting more quotes.It shouldn't be that much,all it is is armour plated cable plus catinary wire.I wouldn't not bother though-what if your neighbour or one of your children damaged it?Someone could be killed.We had an electrical fire in a dairy,caused by rats chewing through a cable nearby-it caused no end of damage.It really isn't worth not doing properly.

id ask for more details - is he going to bury the wires in a pipe under the garden so they are safe from kids? or under a floor/in the wall?

i guess the power will need to come from your circuit board which for us is under the stairs so it would be along way to the garage so he might need to take up flooring etc

also you could ask how long it would take eg one day that is quite expensive, two days not very expensive

def get more quotes too and find out exactly how they plan to do it

also work out if youwill need to replaster anywhere

The cable does have to come a long way, the garage isn't right next to the house so the cable has come from the loft (which is converted btw, not just an empty space), along the outside of the house, along the garden wall then be buried under a couple of gates. Don't think we will need to replastered - hopefully.

When we've had various jobs done around the house before we've had real trouble getting quotes, I live in a small rural market town and the number of tradesmen is limited and quite often they've come round, measured up and not bothered to submit quotes. I only got this electrician because our old one didn't bother coming back to me when I rang with a job.

Why is it never simple, all I want is a sodding tumble drier!