7 bed Edwardian villa - complete rewiring and new central heating costs?

[MrsFlittersnoop]

Does anyone have any experience of this type of project?

We need a rough estimate of how much it would cost to have a 3 storey, 15-room detached villa rewired (lighting and extra power points in each room) and and new central heating installed (or possibly upgraded.)

I know I know, how long is a piece of string? . Or rather, how deep is this bottomless moneypit!

It was last re-wired over 40 years ago. Horribly inadequate central heating on ground and 1st floors only. Needs a new boiler.

We eventually want to install a new bathroom in the roofspace leading off one of the attic bedrooms, and convert an existing ground floor cloakroom adjacent to utility area into a shower room with disabled access, so would need to incorporate the electrics and plumbing for these.

The first floor kitchen needs a refurb and a dishwasher installed.

We would have a budget of up to £75K. I am guessing at least £40-50K for the initial rewiring and plumbing alone.

Am I bonkers?

Oh dear frogs. You are right. I'm thinking we should get the work done before we move out of London. My mum can come and stay with us while DH and I keep and eye on the building work.

Honestly, don't. Even if you have to sleep on people's floors. I innocently thought they would do one room or one floor at a time and keep it manageable. But it isn't like that, they're in every room all the time, moving your stuff around, putting dirty tools and floorboards on top fo your belongings, three sets of badly-tuned builders radios warbling away, loads of blokes with filthy hands and dusty boots treating your house like their workplace. Which it is, in fairness, but still.

Don't do it. And move as much stuff out as you humanly can, even if you have to take a storage unit.

You paint a truly hideous picture. My mother is incredibly precious about her old tat cherished belongings. She also talks to "tradesmen" in a manner that makes me want to chew off my own foot with mortification. I will deffo banish her to London for the duration. What the eye doesn't see etc....

i have done it a few times
not great but not that bad

we had our victorian house partly rewired and didnt do any replastering. we kept the original switches and sockets where we coudl.

but we have good access under the floor and wires could just be pulled through

dont really know how you coudl live in it though as the power is off for days

have never done replumbing though so cant comment on that

have replaced boilers while we were living in house but not re piped or changed radiators

if i were you i woudl be looking at a more sustainable form of heating, esp for a 15 room house

you need much more information and soem written quotes from reliable contractors

and frogs is right about the workmen. thats the good ones

Kristina! Still not bought my aga!

...about to but not actually done it!

well you dont want to rush into it...

what about the new kitchen?

being made !!!!

The man has the measurements and is making it - should be another 8 months before i choose the colour!!

My mind is boggling at a 15 room house! In the UK we had a 2 up 2 down and the decorating never got finished until just before we sold it!

Actually I've just realised my (town) house has 13 rooms if you count the hallways/toilets etc There are only 3 of us!

Am I being a big thicko here ?

Quotes from builders etc are FREE and they actually get to see the job and have actual knowledge of real costs and how long it will take. Get a number of quotes from builders who you have good recommendations for and then you will actually know.

Asking a bunch of lovely but unskilled (in this area) internet sprites for their ball park, finger in the air figures is not really helpful. Especially given that they cannot actually see the level of work you need to have done and are probably not familiar with local prices.

Of course, and I'm sure the OP is doing that. But builders quotes have a nasty habit of ranging from the surprisingly cheap (which often means: 'we're desperate for the work and don't really have the skills, but we'll do it anyway' or sometimes 'we'll give you a cheap quote to get the instruction and then find all sorts of reasons to add in extra costs") to the eyewateringly expensive (which can = 'rip off builders' -- get a quote from Pimlico Plumbers if you really want a laugh, or can also = 'we don't really want to do this work so we've come up with a really stupid figure to make you go away').

So it's kind of helpful to have some ideas about ballpark figures before getting actual builders in.

KristinaM - really curious about how you managed to avoid replastering. How did they get the new wires into the walls for sockets and switches without channelling out? Did you have surface-mounted wiring?

Frogs is quite correct about the ballpark figures. I can't arrange builders quotes just now because I live 120 miles away, have no contacts for word-of mouth reccommendations and the house doesn't actually belong to me. I will arrange some inspections while I am visiting at the end of the month.

I'm just trying to get as much info together as possible before raising the subject with my mother.

She finds it far too complicated and stressful to deal with builders these days. It is also very frustrating trying to discuss money with her. She is comfortably off, but will be quite horrified at the sums of money involved, even though she "knows" intellectually that we can all afford it.

She retired 20 years ago, and I have a theory that retired people often get stuck mentally in an financial timewarp dating from when when they were still "economically active" (it can happen to SAHMs too ).

LLLL - no, not surface mounted. the walls are lathe and plaster or plaster on the hard. the wiring is in the original conduit, which looks like a metal pipe rather than the square plastic you get now. but its inside/behind the walls

the electrician just pulled the wires through for the lights. we had access from above and below.

where we added new ceiling lights or sockets we just patched as we were redecorating anyway

we didn't add any new wall lights so no need to channel out walls

we didnt need to add extra sockets in most roooms as the house was re wired in the 60s.

the only room where we had to add lots of new lights and switches was a building job anyway as we knocked two rooms into one to form a large kitchen. we put a small consumer unit on one cupboard to make rewiring this room easier

HTH

at the patience of your electrician.

sorry, made a mistake. sockets were rewired in the 1960, lights much older. the wires were a sort of red rubber , cant rememebr name, will ask Dh later

its much cheaper and easier just to pull wires through. if you want wall lights or socket up high on the wall you will need to channel out wall and replaster of course

we put in new consumer units with modern RCDs of course. and new switches with the same wall plates. they are mostly brass so we just replaced the toggle switch

sorry i am not very technical, hope i am explaining it correctly

Have done a renovation project on a big old house & the cost was on target there abouts. You need a very clear assessment first, a clear contract with the builders & the unexpected problems could be the biggest cost.