rewire quote advise please.

[housemite]

can anyone advise me.
I have recently purchased a 2 bedroom terraced house which needs a load of work.I have employed a builder and in the process of the work he uncovered what he describes as a nest of wiring in the kitchen.
He said to get a sparky to look at it and recommended the guy he uses.
The sparky called round when i wasnt in and faxed over to me via the builder 2 quotes.
One is to rewire the property to the new 17th regs inc smoke detectors for £1450.
The second quote was to upgrade the bonding ,replace the consumer unit with a split load unit.Remove/make safe the wiring to the kitchen.
install new ring circuit and cooker circuit to suit new kitchen plan.bond bathroom,replace bathroom light,test existing circuits,move a switch and rewire a fan position and some other bits for £850.
I have spoken to the sparky and he is rigid on his price .but says i can get other quotes if i want.
I asked him how he new all this needed doing and he said if i had had a check done before i bought it all this would have come up.he offered to do a full test for£120 but said i would be wasting my money .
I have agreed to let him rewire it as the builder as stopped work saying it would not make sense to do anymore work until the wiring is done.Sparky says
he is eca and niceic and says he will guarantee the job for 10 yrs.
Is all this work necessary ,or are the builder and his sparky pulling a fast one.
also he says when it is rewired the heights of the sockets and switches will need altering is this right as i have just paid builder to plaster 2 walls.
great site been recommend by a friend thanks in .advance

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Get another couple of quotes, this time from electricians who come when you are in and explain what's wrong, or less than ideal.

Without more detail we can't say if you need a rewire, or a new CU, or what "making safe" is required for the kitchen wiring.

But £1450 doesn't seem at all unreasonable for a complete rewire, and if you are having one of those then he's right about a check first being a waste of money.

As for the socket/switch heights - he's wrong on that, where they are now will be fine.

Nevertheless, don't have any more walls plastered until the electrical work is done. Firstly even if you don't have a full rewire, some of the existing cables might need replacing, and secondly you might as well do it right the first time, and get extra sockets/switches/circuits etc put in now, rather than just replicate what you already have.

Read this: //www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=121687

If you aren't living there yet then the rewire price probably reflects that, and will go up once the house is occupied, furnished and decorated.

 

[housemite]

thanks we arent living in it we intend to rent it out.
He turned up at short notice when i wasnt in but it was only time he could make it.
As i have said he seems ok but wouldnt budge an inch on price but insisted we would be happy with the job and it would give us piece of mind.
I am annoyed with the surveyors for not picking it up.
The kitchen wiring is a real mess.The builder has another job to start so i am worried about him leaving the job for a while if we dont get on with it.
£1450 sounds like a lot of money if we dont need it ,but so does £850 for half a job.He reckons he will have the first fix done in a day is this possible.He says the house is a easy to work in and rewiring it makes the most sense.
Ther house is empty and he wont do any plastering at that price.
so i will have to get the builder to do it.

 

[RF Lighting]

One is to rewire the property to the new 17th regs inc smoke detectors for £1450.

I thought you were not supposed to work to the 17th ed yet?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Oh yes - you are allowed to.

 

[equitum]

£1450 sounds like a lot of money if we dont need it ,but so does £850 for half a job.He reckons he will have the first fix done in a day is this possible.He says the house is a easy to work in and rewiring it makes the most sense.
Ther house is empty and he wont do any plastering at that price.
so i will have to get the builder to do it

£1450 for a complete rewire of a two bed (two up two down?) seems very cheap and I would be suspicious of that price, i.e. that its actually for a complete rewire rather than replacing outlets. Does that include additional sockets to create at least 4 per room, for example ? The materials alone would be in the £400 region for reasonable quality accessories.

Is he a one man band does he have a team.....

To say he can first fix a complete house in a day seems superhuman to me, empty house or not.. For example, 25 socket outlets would not be over the top, if he spent 30 minutes on each (chasing out, fitting back boxes, drilling joists, running cables) that would take over 12 hours !!

Then there are the lights, shower cct, cooker cct, ext fans, smoke dets, consumer unit, bonding, etc etc ....

My advice - get some more quotes/opinions !

 

[fleming'slefthandrule]

I agree with equitum. 1450 for a full rewire does seem suspiciously low. About 2000 would be reasonable for a quality job including materials, wiring, testing, certification, etc.

Two workers could probably do 1st fix in a day on a 2 bed house but that depends on amount of power, lighting ccts. One man - highly unlikely!