moving plug sockets

[safeplanet]

Hello,

I'm having an electrician in to add sockets but i'm unsure where to place them. We recently moved into the house & it has the higher level sockets (just a severe lack of them!) Personally I prefer sockets closer to the skirting so side tables etc can sit flusher to the wall (all my furniture has legs). I would get the old ones moved down so they all match. Would it put off a future buyer?

I don't think that the electrician will agree to move them down as it is part of current building regulations to have them high enough to be accessible to wheelchair users.

I think building regs say that you only have to have a certain number of higher sockets. Additional ones can go anywhere. For example, people who have wall mounted TV's will need a socket higher up.

Electrician will be able to put the sockets where you want - they will have to be part of the ring main and not overload the ring though.

I think you can have one spur per ring main

A wheelchair user would struggle to get into & around my house, which I find a bit odd with the new regulations.

The regs I think are quite complex and might apply only to new builds.

Still, for me I think it is a good idea to mount higher up because of potential flood risk. Plus there is an issue of how well cabling will fit (when appliances are plugged in) if the sockets are too low.

There is going to be surely quite a cost associated with moving all sockets down. Because not only are you going to have to move the socket, you are going to have to make good the holes where they came from.

If you get an electrician over to quote they will let you know what you can and cannot have. If you are prepared to lay out the cost of moving them, then surely the concern of any new buyers must be irrelevant (you would just pay to move them back if concerns were raised).

Technically a new build must be at least 450mm from the floor (and not more than 1200mm) for generally purpose sockets, and in any older house you're not allowed to make the situation worse than it was before.
Obviously the socket police won't be round to check, but that's the rules, ultimately compliance would be down to the home owner.
It's not actually for wheelchair users specifically (that is a very difficult standard to meet, and is not required for normal houses) but it's just for general use by people with lower mobility eg when you're getting older.

Sorry and to answer your question I can't possibly imagine a buyer even noticing, the survey would be unlikely to point it out unless it was extreme eg actually touching the skirting or other unusual orientation.
If the buyer gets an electrical report done I can't see much chance of it being flagged either.

the survey would be unlikely to point it out unless it was extreme eg actually touching the skirting
I don't think that would be unusual at all, still less "extreme". All the sockets in this house are positioned immediately above the skirting.
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thanks all, we need to replaster anyway so moving them not such an issue

there's hardly any sockets (one of my pet hates) some rooms only have one. I want more

Literally speaking it's extreme in terms of the surface area of the wall, you can't get much lower than the skirting!
Anyway my point still stands that the survey any buyer did would be unlikely to point out that the sockets are not close to the skirting.
I can't guarantee that any survey wouldn't mention the height of your sockets.

There are very few buyers that would even look, maybe a pensioner might be pleasantly surprised if they are more reachable. If you ask a couple of electricians you'll find one that will shift them down, and any that say it's against regs probably don't want the job so it's an easy out.

I wouldn't worry about it. We've done loads of electrical work. Not once has an electrician told us we couldn't have a socket exactly at the level we wanted it.

I'm now not sure whether to move the existing ones down or not but think it will look better if they match position wise.

Ah, but I've seen many an old socket mounted on (or through) the skirting, so going lower is possible at least....