How big a job is moving a ceiling rose or adding a second light

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Hi,

I'm thinking about having a ceiling light fitting moved or adding a second light to the same switches as the existing light.

Not planning on doing it myself, but before I start contacting local electricians I'm curious how big of a job this would be. Can anyone give a ballpark figure for what this might cost and how complicated it could be?
 
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Cost will vary depending on access to the ceiling void.

if it’s a light upstairs room with loft above then cheaper than a downstairs room with a bathroom above with a tiled floor. Taking up flooring more difficult for hardboard sheets versus floorboards, etc.

geography also a big factor. Knightsbridge is very expensive compared to a village in the sticks.

You’ll only get pricing by having a couple of electricians give you quotes having looked at the job.
 
Needed one moving before the hoist could be fitted for my mother, the electrician clearly did this on regular basis, and took under an hour. However to my mind it was not a good job, worked with light we had, but a ceiling rose should be able to take a 5 kg load, since fixed into plaster board clearly it would not have taken that load, to be frank it is rare for any light fitting to weigh even 1 kg so normally not a problem, but an electrician could be pedantic and say it needs a batten above the plaster board to take weight, so in some house we could be looking at a day.

In your case if the second lamp runs parallel to beams likely will take hour or two, but if beams need drilling then floor up or ceiling down job so jumps to a day, and maybe two men. So £20 to £200 does not really help you, only option is to get an electrician to visit and quote.
 
Ok, thanks for thoughts. It's a downstairs room, below carpeted floor in a bedroom, I think is hardboard sheets. I'll try and figure out which way beams run.

At the moment we are just at the stage of trialling furniture in different places and I wanted to see if it was viable or a complete non starter.
 
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Have you considered lighting track, many years ago I got some from Habitat and it allowed me to position lights away from ceiling rose with basic surface wiring which looked OK, it did not look as if added as an after thought.
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If joists run the right way, and don’t have cross members, someone with a set of rods could simply run a length of cable from existing light site to the additional site. If not then the cable has to be routed through each joist. There are tricks to doing this without the floor having to come up* or the ceiling coming down.
* This sort of trick
https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Tools_Index/Cavity_Access/index.html
 
A quick check with my stud finder suggests the beams run the 'wrong' way for my idea ☹️.
A rough measure above looks like the access is all in one room though.
Given us things to think about and I'll be much better informed when I speak to some local electricians.
 

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