Is this too much for a rewire? North East England

[Tom079555]

I had my last house rewired. It was a 3 bed semi.

My new house is a 1 bed cottage. It's 25% smaller than my last one in square meters.

The quote to rewire this time is 53% more money than in my last. There are about 3 years difference from having the last one done to receiving this quote.

My last house cost £1500. All basic plastic finishes.
My new house is being quoted £2300, all basic fittings. Both houses are in North East England.

Have things really gone up that much?

Here is all that's needed. What would a quote typically cost for this in North East England?

Living room: 4 double sockets, 1 light
Kitchen: 4 double sockets, 3 appliance points, 1 light
Hall/landing: 1 double socket, 2 lights, smoke alarms
Bedroom: 3 double sockets, 1 light
Bathroom: 1 light
External: 3 lights front, 1 light rear
Replace consumer unit, upgrade earth bonding

 

[CBW]

Was the last rewire in the north east too, or different location? Is this your only quote, or the best/cheapest out of several? Was this for specific higher costing items, such as chrome finish, or standard white plastic?

 

[blup]

I can’t see the quote, for this or the previous property. How can we comment on a price and property we have not seen

Blup

 

[HERTS P&D]

I can't see any price!

Andy

 

[Tom079555]

My last house cost £1500. All basic plastic finishes.
My new house is being quoted £2300, all basic fittings. Both houses are North East England.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

The price is what the market will bear. Material costs have increased, there's loads of work available, there will be a chunk of the workforce missing (retired early, doing something else or dead thanks to recent pandemic), there'll be another chunk with large loans to repay for similar reasons.
If that's the same person/company as you used 3 years ago and you're happy with their work you can either pay their price or go shopping for someone cheaper (with all the risks involved).

 

[Tigercubrider]

Is the accessibility for the work the same?
If it is a solid wall or floors that would add to costs

 

[oldbutnotdead]

To add to above, it wouldn't surprise me at all (given current state of the market) if more small traders were doing essentially drive-by quotes for 'standard' jobs like this. Price it so even on the worst possible scenario (rubbish access, bulletproof walls, furniture everywhere, feral children/pets in residence) you still make enough to live on, coin it in on the more straightforward jobs.
Quoting is expensive- will take at least 2 or 3 hours to do a detailed individual quote after a site visit, that's another overhead that has to be paid for somewhere down the line.

 

[flameport]

My last house cost £1500. All basic plastic finishes.

Was that in 1985?

Both prices quoted are ridiculously low, presumably by someone who obtains most of the parts from a skip, is willing to work for minimum wage and doesn't bother with inconveniences such as paying tax.

 

[Notch7]

Was that in 1985?

Both prices quoted are ridiculously low, presumably by someone who obtains most of the parts from a skip, is willing to work for minimum wage and doesn't bother with inconveniences such as paying tax.

My sister had a house rewire in about 1995 and that was about £1800

The prices the OP has mentioned don’t make sense, in fact when I was doing orangeries about 4 years back, I used to get charged about £1500+vat for say 10 downlighters, 4 double sockets and an automatic roof vent all including board testing etc etc.

my guess for a rewire would be more like £5k plus

 

[blup]

£12,000 for rewire in London according to Nagy's channel.

Blup

 

[thias]

Best part of £5k for a rewiring our 4 bed house in Yorkshire last year. To be fair, most of that was time spent chasing out the brick walls which were pretty tough going.

 

[AMCLS1]

Just been quoted 10k and 15k for my rewiring. It’s an 1860 Victorian semi. It’s a large house but I’m happy to pay 10 for the privilege.

 

[imroberts]

I must admit those prices sound exceptionally cheap.

I had my last house rewired around 7 years ago in Yorkshire - that was a 2-bed semi, vacant at the time so no furniture or contents, no floor coverings, and no making good whatsoever, not even patching over the cable chases as the whole house needed replastering anyway - and that cost me more than £2,300 back then.

As a very rough ballpark, if I've remembered right, labour costs on my last rewire were a few hundred for the consumer unit and bonding, and, IIRC, £60 per "electrical point" where that includes a socket, switch or light fitting, so in your case 34 points from what you've said. That alone comes to more than £2,000 plus the cost of materials, plus 7 years of rising costs so maybe £3-4k today? And if the house was occupied, floor coverings need taking up, you expect any making good / plastering whatsoever, I'd expect to add another £1,000 quite easily

In terms of comparing your two quotes with each other, given rising costs over the last few years, I'd probably expect another 20-30% personally. The remaining difference could easily be accounted for based on the house being more difficult to work on, how busy your electrician is, what area you live, etc.

 

[JohnW2]

I can't see any price!

My last house cost £1500. All basic plastic finishes. .... My new house is being quoted £2300, all basic fittings. Both houses are in North East England.

Kind Regards, John