Surprised by higher than imagined rewire cost for empty 4 bed - £5k - £6k instead of £2.5k - £3.5k

I came to DIYnot doing lots of research on pricing and expected prices for a refurb I was doing. I was hoping to be able to find the average price for a complete rewire to be in the region of between £2,500 and £3,500 including materials especially as the property I was considering to get rewired was empty

The actual prices seem to be much higher than I initially thought and a full rewire seems to be from £5k to £6k

Does £5k - £6k full rewire on a house by a reputable busy electrician sound about right to you?

thats at least what I would expect , and was quoted higher for a 2up/2down nothing outside.
BUT
No idea the size of your property - 4 beds, Detached garage , utility . 3 recep rooms or its location - that would help
AND rewire , means they are doing what exactly ?
Ring in the kitchen, Ring upstairs/Downstairs
Lighting UP down
Cookers 2 , HOB
Showers
Garage - detached/Integral
Utility room
new CU
Loft
Heating Boiler/Emersion
outside point
Outside Lights
etc etc

What were you basing your £2.5-£3k hopes on though Jim? Had you spoken to others or had similar work done in the past? You have a 4 bed house don’t you? What do you estimate the cost of materials to be?

£5k - £6k would be a starting price for a very basic 4 bed rewire. A decent job with all the things that people want would be far more.

kettlejim said:

average price for a complete rewire to be in the region of between £2,500 and £3,500 including material

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20+ years ago perhaps.
Totally unrealistic today.

ETAF said:

thats at least what I would expect , and was quoted higher for a 2up/2down nothing outside. BUT
No idea the size of your property - 4 beds, Detached garage , utility . 3 recep rooms or its location - that would help

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So it's a completely empty 4 bed terraced property with the carpets all out so the boards are accessible - I thought that this would make a considerable difference - so my research was based on speaking to electricians in different parts of the UK and talking to people who had had jobs done - when I started meeting with builders and electricians in my own area which is in the Essex area the numbers which seem to come up most often were £6,000 which is virtually twice what I had been expecting. This is from non vat registered independent traders as well

To be fair all the rates of all the trades have been higher than I anticipated - I'm not complaining I'm just expressing how easy it is to be wrong and I think the explanation is that there's quite a difference in the specs and also in costs in different parts of the UK.

So the rewire would include everything that is more or less required for a good commercial standard of private home. No outside garage and only two reception rooms. One cooker and no heating boiler/emersion and no outside plugs

That's about the only spec I can give you

flameport said:

£5k - £6k would be a starting price for a very basic 4 bed rewire. A decent job with all the things that people want would be far more. 20+ years ago perhaps.
Totally unrealistic today.

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Yes so based on me "actually" asking the prices in my own local area it does seem that this is the sort of money I'm looking at. I'll not quibble about the price as I'm just feeling lucky I've got an electrician who can actually do the job who I know has a good reputation

Mottie said:

What were you basing your £2.5-£3k hopes on though Jim? Had you spoken to others or had similar work done in the past? You have a 4 bed house don’t you? What do you estimate the cost of materials to be?

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As a ball park figure I'm thinking that materials would be under £1,000 but that's just for the basics and not including things like showers etc etc or even fire alarms

kettlejim said:

I'm thinking that materials would be under £1,000

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Impossible.

kettlejim said:

As a ball park figure I'm thinking that materials would be under £1,000 but that's just for the basics and not including things like showers etc etc or even fire alarms

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Its worth remembering that cable prices are sky high at the moment, a drum of 2.5mm T/E is now the wrong side of £70!

My 2 bed bungalow cost £3.5 k which included new kitchen ring and detached garage. I found an electrician and explained what the overall plan was and we then agreed it was best to do the work in stages as the refurb progressed.

It worked well and we ended up becoming good friends.

Old Salt said:

My 2 bed bungalow cost £3.5 k which included new kitchen ring and detached garage. I found an electrician and explained what the overall plan was and we then agreed it was best to do the work in stages as the refurb progressed. It worked well and we ended up becoming good friends.

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So that's not too bad of a price - if that's worked out in proportion to a 4 bed then £5k plus is not far off the mark