Rewire of house, advice needed please!

[htatt73]

Hi LL wants to rewire the house we live in, has asked if it can be done while we are on holiday next year (assuming that we will be going on holiday) as to cause minimum disruption to our household.

Not keen on the idea of workmen in while I at work let alone going away.

What mess should I expect? should I pack up the entire house and try and get it stored somewhere? am I going to need time off when I get back to clean and get the house straight again.

Thanks

Hi
We were rewired about 5 years ago and lived through it. Its awful - the dirt and dust everywhere..... BUT I would never go away and leave the sparks to it.

You'll end up with power points in the wrong place. I was asked daily about the locations of various switches or power points for various reasons. If I'd left them for a week, lord only knows what would have happened!

They used to switch off various bits of the house power wise, but I nearly always had somewhere I could plug stuff in.

You should try asking the LL to pay for storage for your stuff. The mess will be horrendous. You dont necessarily have to be there to approve socket positions if there are drawings prepared which are used to agree positions in advance.

Would it be a lot of hassle to move to another property?

I dont think you should have to live through this in a rental properly, your LL shoudl wait until you move out.

But if you are planning on being there long term and it cannot wait, then I would insist the LL covers storage costs and also a professional clean after the work is completed.

I have had two houses re-wired (actually we havent yet finished the electrics here) and both times it caused huge amounts of mess and disruption - they will need access to floorboards, furniture will be moved, and the channelling in is a really messy/dusty business.

You normally need plastering and redecorating after a rewire too.

Think I will ask for storage as don't want things breaking never mind getting dusty. luckily we have only decorated 2 rooms in the year that we have been there although one was hall stairs and landing, don't wanna be doing all that again. The LL doesnt really want to put it off to long, and at least we will know that there are no faults on anything and the kids will be safe once its done.

It will be liking moving in all over again and who knows might even get a rent reduction

get a canister vac, don't use your household one, and leave it at a friends house so the builders don't use it either, it will be ruined.

plaster and cement dust will get into drawers and wardrobes and impregnate your clothes, towels ans sheets, and will damage electronic items such as TV and computer.

After you think you've got the place clean, clouds of dust will fall off a lampshade or architrave.

I have a dyson Hoover think I shall remove it from the house. Don't think LL understands how much mess it will create that's for sure and who can go on holiday and relax knowing that workmen are messing in your home, not me for sure.

hi just thought I would update.

re wire has been done, took 5 days the sparky worked from 7am to 6pm every day, I went away left my partner at home. Packed everything away, put bin liners over just about everything I could think of even clothes in drawers, then used masking tape to tape up the drawer opening and wardrobe doors, the sparky was impressed with my preparation, had clothes, bedding, teddies etc all in storage bags, wrapped mattresses up in plastic sheeting and it seemed to all of worked, the LL got her son round every day just to hoover the dust up so when I got back on the friday afternoon it didnt seem to bad, spent 4 days cleaning, up packing and re painting the lounge and touching up in other places.

Definitely not as bad as I thought it would be, but then again there wasnt a lot of chopping out of walls as most of it was just re thread through the walls which helped a lot.

good luck to anyone else that is going to have it done, just pack up everything and cover in plastic.

Surely the landlord should have paid for the cleaning?