Buying a House - serious electrical defects

[Seb101]

Hi all,

We're looking to buy a house at the moment. The property is generally sound but even to my partially knoweldgable eye there are some serious defects with the electrics, including:

- Undersized conductors for circuits
- Inappropriate MCB specification and circuits for applicances
- Lack of labelling, incorrect labelling, no evidence of any testing
- Standard T&E direct buried in the earth to feed the outbuilding
- One MCB on the main CU feeding the whole CU for the extension, in turn with one MCB feeding the CU for the outbuilding. All with 100A main breakers and all coming from a single 6mm conductor from the main CU.

We've requested evidence of electrical works/certificates but the vendor has come back to say none exist, which is possible as the work was done prior to 1998. However the CU in the extension is an absolute state, I can't believe this was ever done by a 'professional' (yes, the black tape covers the fact there are no blanking plates and the bus-bar is directly under this).

This is only the second house I've ever bought and my first non-new-build. Is it reasonable to request the seller gets an EICR and corrects any major defects? Or is this part and parcel of buying an older building and on my shoulders?

 

[davelx]

The latter. if you want an EICR then it's really up to you to get one at your expense. The seller will likely tell you that "the condition of the electrical installation has been taken into account when setting the asking price for the property" as is often advised on this site.

 

[Notch7]

This is only the second house I've ever bought and my first non-new-build. Is it reasonable to request the seller gets an EICR and corrects any major defects? Or is this part and parcel of buying an older building and on my shoulders

an EICR by a “landlord friendly” electrician might not be to your benefit.

You would be better to get a quote and get the price dropped - then you can get it done, to your satisfaction.

 

[Jackrae]

All an EICR is only going to tell you the obvious : a requirement for a complete rewire.
Better to tell the vendor's agent that a rewire is required and you're taking £10k off whatever you were going to offer, clearly stating that the reduced offer is to pay for the rewire.

 

[JohnW2]

This is only the second house I've ever bought and my first non-new-build. Is it reasonable to request the seller gets an EICR and corrects any major defects? Or is this part and parcel of buying an older building and on my shoulders?

As has been said, the latter - and, as has also been said, an EICR is hardly required.

You could, of course, try to negotiate a reduction in price because of the electrical work that (obviously) needs to be done, but many sellers would probably argue that the need for electrical work is obvious, and that the asking price has already taken that into account.

Kind Regards, John

 

[plugwash]

Hi all,

We're looking to buy a house at the moment. The property is generally sound but even to my partially knoweldgable eye there are some serious defects with the electrics, including:

- Undersized conductors for circuits

How undersized.

- Inappropriate MCB specification and circuits for applicances

Can you be more specific.

- Lack of labelling, incorrect labelling, no evidence of any testing

Honestly this would be the least of my worries.

- Standard T&E direct buried in the earth to feed the outbuilding

Needs replacing.

- One MCB on the main CU feeding the whole CU for the extension, in turn with one MCB feeding the CU for the outbuilding.

Feeding one board off another is not wrong if the breakers and cable ratings are appropriate.

All with 100A main breakers

We don't tend to use main breakers in the UK just main switches. It's not a problem if a main switch is oversized. Even when main breakers are used, it's not really a problem for them to be oversized if appropriate protection is provided at the source of the cable.

and all coming from a single 6mm conductor from the main CU.

What is in the extensions and outbuilding? if the run is not excessively long then 6mm² is likely good for at least 32A and maybe 40A. If it's just sockets and lights that is probably enough.

We've requested evidence of electrical works/certificates but the vendor has come back to say none exist, which is possible as the work was done prior to 1998. However the CU in the extension is an absolute state, I can't believe this was ever done by a 'professional' (yes, the black tape covers the fact there are no blanking plates and the bus-bar is directly under this).

Sadly there are some horrible cowboys out there in the electrical industry.

Is it reasonable to request the seller gets an EICR and corrects any major defects? Or is this part and parcel of buying an older building and on my shoulders?

I don't think it's worth pushing the seller to do the fixing, better to take it into account when you decide how much to offer for the property and get it sorted yourself by someone you are comfortable with.

 

[JohnW2]

Better to tell the vendor's agent that a rewire is required and you're taking £10k off whatever you were going to offer, clearly stating that the reduced offer is to pay for the rewire.

As I've just written, one could certainly try that - but, as I also wrote, the need for major electrical work is so obvious that the seller could well argue that the asking price has already taken that into account.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Seb101]

What is in the extensions and outbuilding? if the run is not excessively long then 6mm² is likely good for at least 32A and maybe 40A. If it's just sockets and lights that is probably enough.

The main CU has a 40A MCB supplying the extension CU via 6mm T+E which has:
1x 40A for electric shower
1x 32A for living accomodation sockets
1x 16A for garage sockets
4x 6A for garage lights, living accom lights, exterior lights and smoke detectors.
Then another 40A MCB supplying the outhouse CU via 6mm T+E which has:
16A for sockets
16A for electric heaters
6A for lights

I guess ultimately it's all protected by the 40A MCB in the main CU so maybe I'm being over sensitive. It would probably be ok if it wasn't for the shower, and its pretty obvious the shower was added at a later date than the original installation becuase the wiring is all over the place.

 

[plugwash]

As you say it's all protected by the 40A MCB in the house, but overload protection devices are not supposed to be used as load limiting devices. You shouldn't plan to overload a circuit.

I agree without the shower it would be fine load wise, with the shower you are seriously pushing it since the shower will likely take most of the 40A on it's own.

 

[winston1]

When buying a house the normal convention is that the buyer commissions and pays for any surveys he feels he requires. This includes an EICR.

Would you feel confident with a survey provided by the vendor?

 

[studentspark]

If you love the house buy it. A rewire in the scheme of things is not that big a deal.

 

[Notch7]

I would’ve thought a new board and other corrections wouldn’t cost a horrendous amount.

I seem to recall a board change only might be £800 (mind you that was before prices went stupid) so maybe £2k to get compliant.

I’m not an electrician though so if talking rolocks pls correct me

 

[chivers67]

That board looks like someone's used it before and it's put in to save someone some money. I had loads of MEM MCB to RCBO conversion kits a while back.

 

[ericmark]

I looked at this house in mid Wales and fell in love with it. The electrics were from a pair of distribution units, a Wylex fuse box in the ceiling, and a split consumer unit below it, most of the house not RCD protected, and within 6 months a new 14 way all RCBO with SPD consumer unit was fitted.

This was easy bit, the leaking roof, rotting outside steps, and decking was far more of an issue.

As to rot under the shower, and central heating completely up the creak, and the hot water tank likely to drop a floor unless repaired was going to put the electrics on a very low priority.

We have the money needed to fix it, the problem is getting the tradesmen. Two years on still need new railings on the veranda, and new steps outside, and some work on the floors, but mostly done. Hate to think how much spent, but worth it, we live in a small Welsh village with its own steam railway in beautiful countryside, with enough room for my wife's crafts.

You need to add onto the asking price what needs spending to live in it, the house buyers survey is a good start. One has to expect to spend money to get it as you want, and you have to consider if you can afford it.

The problem is when you need a mortgage, we didn't, you have a limited amount of money you can borrow, which does not include money for repairs. This is why we got this house so cheap, some one needing a mortgage would have had problems getting it with the repairs required.

Buying a new house is easy, any faults the builder repairs, but when it is not a new build, you need to allow money to upkeep the home.

With my mothers house it cost around £3000 for the basic rewire, in the grand scheme of things this was nothing, we were not sure at the time if we would sell it or rent it, so wanted it fit to rent, as it transpired we sold it. We did a lot of work to the house as we thought may rent, but it made very difference to asking price when we sold it.

We wanted out of industrial North Wales and wanted rural Mid Wales, and we found a house we liked and although we tried to get previous owners to do some of the work, we wanted the house so it didn't really matter.

 

[plugwash]

IMO the biggest question is does the installation have "good bones" with some bodges on top that can be remediated, or does the bodgery go so deep that the only real option is a rewire.

The taped up CU worries me not because the CU itself is difficult to replace, but because it may reflect the attitude of whoever did the wiring work that is fed from said CU.