House rewire

[curium]

Hi

We're currently getting quotes to have our house rewired. I know this work is notifiable to building control but that's about it.

First question:

What exactly should I confirm with my electrician to be supplied to confirm that the rewire conforms to applicable standards and is safe?

Second question:

My missus would like under cupboard lighting in her future kitchen. We don't have any cupboards currently where we hope to locate the future cupboards. Can the electrician prepare the wiring as part of the rewire ready to be connected when we can afford to have the kitchen done?

Third question:

Do my current spotlights (kitchen & bedroom) need to be replaced with fire-rated ones?

Fourth question:

At some point we would like to convert the loft by adding a dormer, etc. We have plans produced under permitted development for a bedroom and bathroom. This will be delayed due to the recent hike in prices. Can I ask the electrician to prepare wiring for the lights and sockets for the loft on their own circuit ready for whenever we can afford to have the work done?

Basically the rewire is going to cost a bit and I'd like to get as much done as possible to reduce future work.

Cheers

 

[Taylortwocities]

My responses

First question

As you say, the work is notifiable. Use a registered electrician. They are listed here: https://www.electricalcompetentperson.co.uk/
The electrician will provide an installation certificate to confirm that the work he/she has done conforms with BS7671 (wiring Regulations).

Second question

Yes. Easily done. You may want this to have its own switch, by the door with the room lights.

Third question:

Not necessarily fire-rated, if the ceiling is not a fire barrier. However, the lights will need to be low energy to meet current Building Regulations. They may need changing to LEDs, if you don’t already have these in place.

Fourth question

Sure. Ask the electrician to provide separate power and lighting circuits up to the loft from the consumer unit. They don’t need to be energised yet, but it may be handy to use them for a light and at least one socket up there in the meantime.

It’s nice to have someone who thinks about the future needs. So many customers have a rewire and don’t consider what may be needed a year or so down the line.

Good luck with the project!

 

[RandomGrinch]

Hi,

Just some notes from my rewire!

If at all possible, move out for the duration and remove as much as you can into storage.
Rewires are disruptive and messy, if you can give the electrician's space, they can leave floorboards up etc. and get straight back to work the next day.

At quote stage let them know what material your house is made from!
My house is obviously stone and I mentioned it at quote stage; however the work still took a week longer than they thought, cutting chases into the stone walls!

If you know where gas and water pipes are routed let them know. Similarly, if there are any potential asbestos issues.

Mark socket and switch locations on the walls. I.e. if you wanted sockets either side of a bed, this may not be obvious when the furniture gets moved.

Let them know if you have a particular brand of socket you want, i.e. MK logic plus.
You may also want a couple of sockets with USB outlets.

Ask for a ring circuit to go up to the loft rather than a lower rated radial. It can always be expanded later.

You may also wish to have mains linked smoke and heat alarms installed at the same time - including the loft.

TV/radio aerial sockets and a distribution amplifier could be considered.

To save some money, I opted to fill the chases myself, this also allowed me to install my own network and AV cables in the new chases (in separate containment).

If you would like any extra ventilation this is a good time to sort that. My electricians wouldn't core drill the stone walls for a bathroom extractor, but they did leave me an isolator, so I could fit one later.

Thermostat (smart or not) wiring and locations could be looked at.

It was also helpful to have a master isolator fitted by the DNO.

Sorry for the long list, but I hope it gives you some food for thought! Just do a bit of research and have a good idea of what you want and it should go smoothly!

Good luck

 

[RandomGrinch]

It’s nice to have someone who thinks about the future needs. So many customers have a rewire and don’t consider what may be needed a year or so down the line.

Now I really am thinking too much!
Talking of future needs, have you thought about your future heating requirements?
If you have a combi now, how easy will it be to install a heatpump or alternative heating. Having spare ways on the 'consumer unit' and easy cable routes/conduits to equipment locations could be useful!

I will definitely leave it there!

 

[Taylortwocities]

You may also wish to have mains linked smoke and heat alarms installed at the same time - including the loft.

Good point. In fact these are a building regulations mandatory requirement when you convert the loft, making the house 3-storey. Stand alone battery alarms do not comply. https://labcfrontdoor.co.uk/project...re-the-fire-regulations-for-a-loft-conversion

As your house is being chopped up for the rewire, consider if you need other services into the loft- heating pipes, etc maybe?

 

[curium]

Many thanks @RandomGrinch and @Taylortwocities you’ve been very helpful. I’ll definitely ask about a ring for the loft.

The loft is not currently used for anything other than storage but when funds are available we hope to convert it to a bedroom and bathroom. Hopefully the electricians can install the cables for a ring and future smoke alarm without connecting them up, allowing them to be connected in future.

I hadn’t considered the TV aerial. It’s currently installed in the loft and terminates in the living room. It would be nice to have connections in each of the bedrooms. Would an amplifier be required to maintain the signal? Where do people install the amplifier for this?

Cheers all

 

[Taylortwocities]

Well…the days of the traditional tv aerial are numbered. In the future most tv services are going to be via broadband, and/or satellite. So flood installing Ethernet to every room would be better than sticking to yesterday’s technology. but I’m not a TV expert. Better to ask someone (NOT SKY!)

 

[winston1]

I hadn’t considered the TV aerial. It’s currently installed in the loft and terminates in the living room. It would be nice to have connections in each of the bedrooms. Would an amplifier be required to maintain the signal? Where do people install the amplifier for this?

Cheers all

Whether an amplifier is required depends on the signal strength at your location. If you are having a loft conversion done in the future now may be the time to move the aerial to the roof. Doing so will increase your signal and will almost certainly be enough to feed your 3 points with a splitter without an amplifier.

Do NOT engage an electrician for TV aerial work. In general they lack the knowledge or test equipment for such specialist work. Use a CAI registered aerial installer.

 

[ericmark]

I needed to get mothers house rewired, but we were not sure what was going to happen to the house, we may have gone to live with mother to look after her, or we could rent the house to pay for her care home, or we could sell the house, much depended on mothers heath.

We needed to get it done fast, as care homes can cost £600 per week, so a weeks delay adds £600 to cost, and we needed to compare costs between firms.

So what I needed to do was write down what I wanted so I could compare prices, as first one I talked about all I wanted and the price was rather high, it is great considering telephone, lan, and doorbell, but the quote was not itemised so could not after the quote decide not to have things done and know the cost.

So I got a quote for basic rewire, with idea can add latter, but with that idea in mind, stipulated all sockets to be on the ring final, so could extend from any socket.

On a rewire, painted walls are easy to re-plaster, but wall paper is a pain, to get it smooth the paper must come off, so some walls it made sense to come down corner of room in trunking, this all needs considering, you can have fused connection units (FCU) fitted with idea of extending from them, but again needs to be part of the plan.

Socket heights also need considering, if at 100 mm from floor furniture in front of them means you can't reach them, at 350 mm likely you can reach behind some furniture, at 800 mm they are likely visible with furniture in place, in corners they are not wheel chair accessible, but likely not covered by furniture.

All bedroom light switches were wired with triple and earth so could be converted to two way switching using ceiling pull cord, actually used smart switches and remote controls, but the option was there.

My son with his house made a mistake, he decided to connect all TRV heads to the LAN so they could be remotely controlled, but can't buy hard wired smart TRV heads they are all wireless, so rather a waste, I did it with telephone, I had twin sockets at key locations so I could run the telephone through the fax machine, so when a fax came in it turned off the phones, again waste as now don't use fax, and all telephones are cordless. However did not get door bell hard wired at mothers, and had to do it latter to power the door bell connected to wireless phone.

So each person has different ideas, but you need to consider what you want, if there is a room with one papered wall, can you get away with no sockets on the wall so does not need re-papering? Or are you going to strip wall paper first, if made good with paper on the wall, once paper removed the made good section will be proud of the rest.

You may decide not to have the walls made good, and to have decorators in after the rewire, but you need to consider this before getting quotes.

Back in 2017 when had mothers house done I found there were only two electrical firms in the area that could do it in the time scale available, and the cost was double one to other, mainly as the high one had quoted from TV cables, LAN cables etc, other one basic rewire. Remember extras do cost, my son did a rewire in one house, and the lady of the house would say "Can you do XYZ" to which the answer was normally "yes" so a load of extras were done, at the end the bill was for £A plus £B for the extras which over doubled the bill. The guy of the house was not impressed when he found what his wife had done. Personally I think the guy in charge of re-wire should have made it plain there would be a charge, but the problem was they had not sat down first and worked out what they wanted, drilling a core hole for a cooker hood takes time, can't really expect it to be done for free.

Also consider if buried or surface, don't assume. My mother had central heating which was surface piped, and one guy giving a quote assumed since pipes surface the wires also surface.