Price of moving a consumer unit

[Newhousecrying]

Has anyone done this recently? We’ve had three electricians come to quote and each time it been met with ‘ooooo that’s expensive and probably not worth it’. We pushed back and are waiting for a number. I’m sure we saw guide prices online of a few hundred (up to £500). The CU was replaced last year so quite new. Thanks

Moving it is probably a lot more of a pain than replacing it.

Basically every electrical circuit in your house terminates at the CU. So normally a couple of lighting circuits, plugs rings, boiler, maybe kitchen appliances/cooker, immersion heater/electric showers. You can count the circuits by counting the circuit breakers.

In order to move it you will probably have to extend all of these separate circuits to the new place in some visually acceptable/safe way and then rewire them into the new unit. Plus you will have to extend the main input feed to the CU as well which is probably not a common job.

So unlikely to be a cheap job to me.

I'd be surprised if you got any change out of a grand, but prices can vary a lot over the country and between people. All you can do is get several people to quote on it.

No doubt you'll get someone on here claiming it's easy and they got their entire house rewired for £10 and a four pack of Stella.

Depends on how far you are moving it really. As GasPanic said, the cost is all in chasing the cabling to the new place. This could be a simple, easy job (other side of the same wall, for example) or akin to a whole house rewire.

Just the consumer unit? What about the main fuse and meter?

As others have said it very much depends on where you’re moving it to. Mine was in a complete eyesore of a position and my electrician came up with the genius idea of flipping it so it’s virtually in the same position but in the room next door, tucked out of the way. In fact we did move it a tiny bit along the wall, just to so it’s shoved as into the corner and out of the way as possible, I reckon the electrician moved it along the wall by about 20cm. It’s on a stud wall, and the repositioning was very quick, we just had to patch the hole where it had been positioned with a bit of plasterboard cut to size. I couldn’t give you an exact price, as it was included with some other electrical work we were getting done but it wasn’t particularly expensive.

We paid £900.00, it was in a dreadful position and was tricky/time consuming to move so feel it was money well spent.

We had ours done as part of a complete rewire, so I can't give you the cost. But it did need a very thick, hefty 'armoured' cable - one that didn't easily bend round corners- between the electricity company's fuse and meter, and the new consumer unit. Very disruptive to flooring and plaster, as it had to go between the floors. Even the cable itself must have cost a bomb per metre, the way copper is these days, and we had to have a hefty additional main fuse put in too as part of it. In our case, it was a pretty long distance, so it wouldn't have been practical unless part of a complete rewire. How far are you wanting to move it?

Thanks everyone. We just want to move it about 1m up so we can put a freestanding appliance in its current place to we can clear some space in the kitchen and for the full streamline cabinet look. Sounds like it would be cheaper just to get rid of the freestanding and get an integrated

Not enough information to comment really. As others have said, it depends on where you are moving it to, whether it will be possible to break into the circuits in the new location or whether a whole load of wiring will be required. Will you be moving the main supply and the meter, etc etc.

What actually are you trying to achieve? Is it the actual consumer unit that you don't like the position of, or are you after something else, but believe moving the consumer unit is the way to achieve it? It might well be, but I thought I'd ask for clarity.

The main fuse and meter belong to the DNO/supplier I think. I doubt you allowed to move them without contacting them and getting their people to do it.

But a move of the CU does not necessarily mean you have to move the meter and main fuse, just extend the line from the meter to the new CU location, I believe this line is owned by the homeowner.

We’re trying to keep our freestanding washing machine. It sticks out too much for the kitchen run. So we’re trying to move it into the corner cupboard where the CU is. So we just want to move it above machine height. had hoped it would only be a few hundred and we could move the machine away from the kitchen prep area, add drawers and keep a freestanding washing machine. But sounds like it might be cheaper to swap to an integrated

Still doesn't say enough I'm afraid. If you think about the likelihood of the existing circuits coming directly down, or directly up, would you be moving the consumer unit to a point where the cables already exist? If so relatively inexpensive. If you are moving left or right, then the circuits will need to be extended, and so this will be more work, and more materials, thus more expensive.

Copper is relatively expensive at the moment, so anything involving cable will add cost.

It sounds like there is an option to just move the consumer unit vertically, in which case, it shouldn't be an arm and a leg. Maybe just an arm. Or a hand? 😉