Options for rewiring

[salawiner]

Hi all, just a question about the 'legality' of a suggestion someone put to me in an attempt to save me money:

I have a 3 bedroom HMO above a shop, which needs to be rewired, as there is currently only one socket in each room, and it has not been rewired in many years.

A friend suggested that I could cut the cost and disruption of a full rewire by running the new cabling in conduit along the walls above the skirting boards to surface mounted sockets, leaving the existing cable in the wall, but disconnected from the consumer unit (I would fill in the sockets). The suggestion is that I could lay the conduit, fit the back boxes and run the cable, leaving the fitting of the sockets and connection to the consumer unit to an electrician, and the existing wiring would remain in place until the new one was live.

I appreciate this would not be a pretty solution, but if it is allowed under the regulations it would cut the hassle and cost dramatically.

 

[flameport]

Yes, such an installation is allowed.

However as surface trunking and other surface items are so quick to install, you won't save any money by fixing some of it yourself - might as well get someone to do the whole lot.
They will also have other ways to reduce cost by careful positioning of the sockets relative to others etc.

 

[salawiner]

However as surface trunking and other surface items are so quick to install, you won't save any money by fixing some of it yourself - might as well get someone to do the whole lot.

Very good point - and they will probably get the parts cheaper too, so despite the labour charges it may even work out cheaper!

Thanks for the confirmation and the perspective.

 

[sparkwright]

If there's floorboards that can be lifted, and/or an accesible loft space, you may as well hide the majority of the cable here.

It's probably just as quick to do it properly like that than messing about fixing up trunking all over the place.

It seems many electricians nowadays don't even have the skill to fit plastic mini trunking neatly anyway. Also they often insist on using the self adhesive stuff, which fails and starts to fall off within a year.

Get it done properly, and keep the trunking to a minimum. It will look a lot better.