Full house re-wiring

[Panda368]

Our new house hasn’t been rewired since it was built in the early 60s so we need to do the full house.
How many sockets / lights would you have per room?

This is for a 4 bed semi. 1 downstairs loo. Upstairs bathroom with electric shower
Kitchen
Dining room
Front living room
Back living room - attached to dining room.

What should we keep in mind? Obviously we need more than 1 socket per room but how many is ideal? Should it be 1 per internal wall? Plus a tall one for tv?
How many in a kitchen?

If you’ve done a full rewire - what do wish you had/hadn’t done?

Following this as I’ll be in the same situation soon!

It is impossible to say as depends on the size of the rooms. What I can say it that I made sure I had loads and definitely anywhere I might have some furniture which might need lights etc. My kitchen also had loads. The bedroom each side of the bed and any position that dressing tables may go. You also need in hall and landing for vacuuming etc and also for wifi boosters if you need them

If you have LED spots make sure you have dimmers and zone the lights if the room is big enough...ie kitchen diners make sure are zoned.

Don't forget outside sockets for the garden as well as wall and patio lighting

The list is endless

Oh and have a wired house alarm and smoke detector...avoid wireless

More than you think!

Let's see. I'm in my living room and I have double light sockets either end of sofa for lamps and to plug in a vacuum cleaner, behind the TV are four sockets: TV, DVD player (yes still use it), sky box, WiFi booster. Double sockets in bay window for Christmas tree. Double socket by chair for floor lamp. That's six double sockets in one room.
Dining room: two doubles for stereo, floor lamp, vacuum cleaner.
Hallway: again for vacuum cleaner, one double socket either end
Typical bedroom: double sockets either side of bed for lamps, radio, phone charger (have your sockets with built in USB socket). Desk: sockets for computer and printer and lamp (so two doubles). Random other double socket for whatever. That's five per bedroom.
Kitchen: you need sockets for fridge, oven, other white goods (dishwasher, washing machine), counter sockets for kettle, radio, microwave, toaster, then a double for occasional use like blender.
Just go to each room and imagine your furniture placement and what you might use where. Add them up. Then add an extra one!

We had ours done last year in a small two bed terrace. These are the things I did/wish I had done.

1. USB ports in the sockets nearest sofas and beds.
2. I wish we had added another socket in our bedroom, since that is now my home office (not that I knew that at the time)
3. Cat 6 cabling to every bedroom. We had to get this installed after the fact when it would have been so much easier to do along with the rest.
4. An outdoor socket out the back for power tools.
5. I would have liked to have known that the shower unit needs to be checked a few weeks after the switch is changed out because it loosens. Our brand new shower switch burnt out the first week of lockdown (6 weeks after the rewire) and we couldn't get it fixed until June (Yes, 3 months with no shower). If you have an electric shower get your spark to check this.
6. We've still got the plastered wraggles in the wall since we haven't been able to get a decorator in because of COVID. If you can, arrange for it all to be done in one go. Rewire-Plaster-Decorate. I wish we had done that.
7. Wish we had put in sockets in cupboard under stairs and our built-in wardrobe in the master for charging our hoover and other things.
8. We got 7 double sockets put in our living room, 3 of those all in a row behind the telly, but could have done with 4 in a row, so 8 in total.
9. We put in two way switches at the top and bottom of the stairs. Really useful.

10. Spark ran a few extra circuits to our kitchen so that when we get a new kitchen we have plenty of options. 11. We agreed to 4 sockets per bedroom but didn't have one on each wall because that would mean a lot more wraggling. We put two each on two walls. I wish I had asked for 5 sockets in the Master.

Good luck!

Think about where everything is now and if you need more or want to change the location of anything. Make sure you have loads of sockets in the kitchen and behind the tv. Do you want to move any light switches or add any extra ones.

We rewired our old house and the only thing we got wrong was the second light switch was missed out on the landing (electrician missed it and we didn't realise until it was too late) and we had too many spot lights in the kitchen. We were young and naive and the electrician convinced us we needed 50% more than was necessary so he could charge more. It still irks me 13 years later!

As a PP - Cat 6 network cabling would be an essential for us
At least 4 double sockets where you have the TV

More than you think... especially in the kitchen, USB ports everywhere, especially if you have teens. Lock down has meant kids working on computers and gaming on XBox etc in many different rooms.

However many you put in, it's never enough! I'd have at least 1 double socket on each wall in each room, more in the main living room and kitchen.

I did a partial re-wire just upstairs.

In the ‘master bed’ I put in 2x doubles with 2 USB in each side of the bed. Then 2 more doubles on 2 more walls near dressing mirror area. The last wall was all wardrobes so no need there and is v close to the bed sockets anyway.

Spare bedroom - 1x double with USB each side of the bed, 2x doubles by the desk. Should have made those USB too. 1x double on the other wall.

Small single bedroom 4x doubles, no USB. Should have put USB on the one by the bed.

1x double on the small landing.

Basically go for more than you think, and get way more USB ones than you think you need. When you have kindle, watch, iPhone and battery pack all needing a charge it’s so good not to have to change wires snd have everything ready.

So I've attached our current plan.

-Red squares will be double plugs.
-Yellow circles / strips are lights or lamps - (I like the idea of strip lighting in the kitchen/dining/utility areas)
-Blue square is router - this is where the phone sits in the current house so where the ethernet should be the house has never had wifi so this is another factor to consider - is it a nightmare getting an old house connected to fibre?

I don't think we will be using USB plugs as my feeling is these are already outdated - half of the things I have bought in the last year have come with USB-C cables. Plus it's a fairly easy job to change a plug facing if we should need to.

The house is a monument to wallpaper currently - should this all be stripped off before we have the wiring done? We are hoping not to to have to skim if we can avoid it.... but i guess it depends what state the Spark leaves the walls where everything gets chased in?

please criticise comment at will!

I don’t think you’ve got enough in your master bed

We didn't strip the walls of lining paper before we did the rewire and I think it's going to be a lot harder to decorate because of it. The plasterer just whacked the plaster over the edges of the paper. I have a feeling it will be quite a faff to get the rest of the paper off and the walls looking smooth. If you can strip the walls before hand, I would recommend it.
I also think you don't have enough sockets in the walls. I've put pink stars where I would put them. You won't notice if you have one too many in a room, but you will definitely notice if you have too few!

@FoofOfTheWalkingDead that is super helpful thankyou!

Looks like the first thing we will be doing when we get the keys is breaking out the wallpaper steamer 😭 - nothing I hate more than stripping wallpaper! Also nothing I hate more than textured wallpaper hopefully it comes off easy! 😂

Do strip the walls otherwise the replastering will be rubbish. What you might find as well is the plaster falls off so is a total replaster anyway

I had a rewire in 2019.

Outside - double socket on the front of the house (handy for vacuuming car and mowing front lawn) and back of the house. Motion activated light by the front door (which is at the side) but motion activated light on driveway which comes on when we pull up. Light on the back of the house controlled by switch). Ring doorbell wired in.

Inside - smoke alarms upstarts and downstairs plus heat detector in the kitchen.

Spotlights in hallway, landing, kitchen part of kitchen diner and bathroom. Normal lights else where.

5 doubles in living room (Two behind tv and aerial socket) some are usb sockets. Bedrooms 4 double sockets with at least one usb socket.

Bathroom. Spotlights. Bathroom cabinet with lights and in build