Consumer Unit + extras rough price please

[BurningFeetMan]

Hi there.

I just joined up (although i hope to stick around also) to ask about the cost of replacing my VERY old fusebox with a nice shiny (or white ) consumer unit. My current fusebox only has about 4-5 fuses yet the consumer units i have seen normally have 10+. Would an electrician split up the loops so that I can have more control over which circuits i interrupt at any point? Would this add considerably to the cost?

Im interested what sort of cost a consumer unit install would be. I suspect i would need the majority of the pipework bonded also as I don't see any visible signs of this, gas or central heating

I just don't have the cash for this right now, but i would like to know what sort of ballpark im looking at. Early research shows perhaps £400 but im not sure if that includes bonding and any other work that im unaware needs doing at the same time.

Can anyone help me out? If it makes a difference to price im in Hampshire.

Thanks in advance!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

You might get away with a bare-bones swap for £400, but it'd be tight to get a good job for that, and with so few circuits you should look at splitting them.

£400 BTW assumes that there's nothing major wrong with your existing installation - any electrician who proposes to go ahead without testing first is one to be politely shown the door.

You're supposed to have enough circuits to avoid danger and minimise inconvenience if one fails, so a single lighting circuit, for example, won't really do. And anyway - a CU replacement is a good time to update everything.

Think hard about where to have sockets - it's difficult to have too many, and also about what circuits to have. The items on the list below won't all apply to you, but they are worth thinking about:

• Upstairs sockets
• Downstairs sockets
• Kitchen sockets
• Circuit for appliances
• Cooker circuit
• Non-RCD circuit for F/F
• Non-RCD circuit for CH boiler
• Dedicated circuit for hifi
• Dedicated circuit for IT equipment
• Upstairs lights
• Downstairs lights
• Lighting circuits with switches in the usual places but with 3A/5A round pin sockets at low level.
• Immersion heater
• Loft lights
• Shower
• Bathroom circuit
• Alarms
• Supply for outside lights
• Supply for garden electrics
• Supply for shed/garage

Plus any peculiarities brought about by your house layout & construction - e.g. in mine because of solid floors and where the socket circuits run, I have a radial just for a socket in the hall, the doorbell and the porch lights.

Unless you want to go to the expense of RCBOs throughout, the CU should have at least 3 sections, 2 on RCDs and one not into which you can install a mix of RCBOs and MCBs.

It can be a good idea to put all wiring in conduit for ease of future changes. And if you specify metal conduit for switch drops, or BS 8436 cable it removes the need to have RCDs where you'd rather not.

If you live somewhere where supplies are dodgy in the winter, have the lights, the boiler supply, and a socket in each room wired to a separate CU, or a separate section in a large one, that can be supplied by an emergency generator - lights, heating, TV and a kettle/microwave make life a lot more bearable.

Flood-wiring with Cat6 or Cat6a cable is worth thinking about.

As ever, personal recommendations are always the best way to find a reputable tradesman, but if you're having to go ahead without much in the way of those, or references, don't put any store by registration itself - sadly it is possible to become registered with woefully inadequate qualifications and zero practical experience. You don't have to spend long here to see people cropping up who are registered and "qualified", but who are clearly seriously incompetent in reality and who should not be charging for their services.

You are looking for someone to replace a CU and it may surprise and dismay you to learn that it is quite possible to become a "certified electrician" without ever having done that before, and without having acquired any of the practical skills needed to do it without half-destroying your house in the process.

It's your money, £'00s of it, and you have every right to ask prospective tradesmen what their qualifications and experience are. Just being listed here is not a good enough guide. No genuinely experienced electrician, with the "full set" of C&G qualifications will mind you asking - in fact he will wish that everyone was like you.

I feel sorry for people who have been misled by training organisations and (shamefully) the Competent Person scheme organisers into thinking that a 5-day training course, a couple of trivial examples of their work and some basic understanding of how to use test equipment will make them an electrician, but not sorry enough to agree with them trying to sell their services to Joe Public.

 

[Chri5]

Youre asking an impossible question.

Without sight of the existing system, without IR tests on the existing cable there are far too many unknowns to vary any prices given.

A straight CU swap of 6 circuits on a dual rcd board, with easy runs for water and gas bonding would amount to a days work with testing.

Say £100 ish for materials, £200 ish for labour and maybe £50 ish to write up the cert (post work admin).

The best way forward might be to get the existing system inspected and tested via a PIR (perodic insp report) and then get x 3 sparks to quote against it's findings.

Circuits can be split, a ring main in 2.5mm could be broken and reconnected as 2 x 20 amp radials. Radial circuits such as lights can't be split because there's only 1 x cable at the board.

The realistic life of a wiring system is circa 30-40 years, but again this depends on how much abuse the system had had to handle. A downstairs ring in the kitchen will wear quicker than a bedroom ring with nothing more than a few alarm clocks on it.

 

[Chri5]

See BAS post (I'm sure he keeps a template and cuts / paste)

 

[BurningFeetMan]

Thank you both for your quick reply! Both very helpful indeed!

I appreciate what im asking is for a quote out of thin air, that was not my intention (though if you can do that it would be great thanks )

I can see now that it is possible to split a ring main which is something I would like when it eventually happens.

I will certainly take your advice about being careful which electrician does the job and if they test before they quote.

I suspect that the house will need a moderate amount of work to be carried out to comply with 17th edition so you mention £400 for a barebones install I shall probably factor in twice that to add a few extra sockets and any nasty surprises. I think £800 should be pretty close to the top end...at least i would like to think so :O

Chri5 mentioned a PIR and I think that may be the first place to start, at least I will have an idea of the problems to expect then? A quick Google suggest a PIR will cost ~£200 does that sound about right? If so it almost sounds like I should just put that towards the job in hand. Of course I appreciate it's probably a days work to carry out, but once the electrician has installed the CU and carried out his tests he issues a certificate that the house wiring has been fully checked?

Thanks for your patience, electrics is not my thing

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Radial circuits such as lights can't be split because there's only 1 x cable at the board.

Depending on how the 2-way landing light switching has been done it can be pretty trivial to split the lights at the point where it heads up to the loft.

 

[Wontdothatagain]

Chri5 mentioned a PIR and I think that may be the first place to start,

With the company i work for, they insist on testing before we carry out a board change and if all is well and the customer goes ahead, they deduct 50% of the cost of the PIR from the board change bill. They charge £25.00 +VAT per devise for a PIR in domestics.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

See BAS post (I'm sure he keeps a template and cuts / paste)

Of course I do - where's the merit in typing it from scratch each time?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I will certainly take your advice about being careful which electrician does the job and if they test before they quote.

They won't do that, because testing costs money. And has a value to you.

Their quote for the CU replacement work should include testing first, and probably something about a break-point after that, because until they test they'll have no idea what remedial works would be needed before they could replace the CU.

They won't want to give a fixed price to fix anything they might find, and you won't want an open ended T&M commitment for the fixing.