Re-wire cost

[Slipslops]

Has anyone had a full electrical rewire done recently? I’ve been quoted £18k for a 5 bed house in the SW. Includes downlights, smoke alarms etc. It seems high according to Check-a-Trade but I don’t know 🤷‍♀️

Do you definitely need one?

Yes absolutely. Hasn’t been touched for over 30 years

Nobody on here knows the difficulty of the job.

You need to get other quotes to find out whether it is reasonable.

Someone on here could say they had theirs done for 2K. But if you can't get anyone in to do it for that price it's pointless.

Obviously I’m waiting on other quotes. In the meantime was asking for experience of anyone having had similar recently, but thank you

Ours was £13k for a re wire of a three bed house, they did the loft and the garage at the end of the garden, outside lights, smoke alarms and everything. House was about 80 years old and we still had a Bakelite switch. So definitely needed.
this was last summer, two men took nearly two weeks and we moved out. It was worth doing but a massive job.

Just paid ~£12,000 for a rewire of a 3 bed semi. Two-three guys for two weeks, we had to completely vacate the house.

Hmm really depends on sqft of house really - a 5 bedroom description doesn’t mean much if the bedrooms are the size of mini suites and you have twice as much living space as another 5 bed

A new distribution board would be in the region of £2.5k alone but depending on what else you are running you might have one or more of these

difficult to say if it’s high or not - as a comparison - I’d expect in the region of £7.5 require with new distribution for for say a 3 bed semi so £18k for a 5 bed detached may not be as outrageous as you think

The expensive bit of rewiring is taking out all the cables hidden in the walls and putting in new cables. Especially if there is fancy decor and you need to replace wallpaper or repaint the whole room to make it look neat after the work.

But even 30 year old cables don’t actually deteriorate. It is much cheaper to replace the fuse box and upgrade the plug sockets and any junction boxes.

do check with your electrician about what they actually mean by full rewiring and if you could leave some cables in place (just test them for quality and replace the plug sockets as needed).

DP (electrician in London) suggested £15k but impossible to be accurate given lack of info.

I've had three rewires during my life, the first was £3k for a four bed terrace in Leeds, the second a 2600sqft house in Harrogate £5500 inc spotlights etc and the third was £3k for an apartment including spotlights and hallway sensor activated lights; to me £18k seems very high, I know people say the south is pricier but not everywhere in the North is cheap but you can still find good deals by shopping around for tradesmen.

I had a total rewire but paid a plasterer to chase out and back in, so the electrician was quicker. It halved a bill of 8k at the time.

3 bed semi about 6 months ago was 7.5k (before tax)

I’m in the middle of a £10k one, 4 bed house. However we prepped by taking up carpets etc and will be decorating so the electricians have filled channels but not made good.

I paid 8k for a full rewire 3 bed 1930s house west mids 3 years ago.