Wiring work - your thoughts?

[matt80]

Hi everyone,

I'd really appreciate a bit of advice on the following, thanks in advance! :-

I currently have an old style fuse box with the 4 cartridge type things. I have one lighting cicruit for the whole house (its quite a small house, 2 bedrooms), 1 upstairs sockets, 1 downstairs sockets and one power shower.

I have been quoted by an electrician for the following work:
- replace the old fuse box with an MCB.
- convert the downstairs radial circuit to ring main, and add some more sockets. the dining room has a concrete floor, so he proposes to run the ring main in the ceiling space above and down to the new sockets. one of the additional sockets is in the shed, which is attached to my house. he proposes running some wiring on the outside of the house an into the shed (can't drill straight through).
- fit an exterior light onto the lighting circuit.

He has quoted me £500.

I have three questions:
(1) Does this sound like a reasonable price?
(2) Don't MCB's come with more switches? Would it make more sense to add the exterior light onto its own switch? (the MCB is on the external wall where the light will go).
(3) The bathroom is above the dining room, so when he proposes to run cable in the ceiling space directly below the bathroom. Is it dangerous to do this? I'm thinking in terms of if the bath isn't sealed properly or if a pipe breaks or something....

Cheers,
Matt

 

[il78]

1) Sounds cheap.....
2) If he replaces the consumer unit all circuits will be protected by MCBs (if I read you right)
3) These are the wiring methods...

 

[andy]

1: fairly cheap
2: i dont understand. MCBs only protevt 1 circuit each? to get another 'switch' you add another MCB. the outside light can easily go on the lighting with no restriction (unless its a 500W floodlight)
3: nothing wrong with doing it that way

 

[andemz]

Sounds cheap. You could come of the ring main into a switch fused connection unit to supply power to the outside light.

Obviously if the wiring is to be run outside then this needs to be adequate wiring for outdoor use and needs to be protected in some way.

Will the wires be mounted on the walls and protected or sunk into the plaster work. If sunk will you plaster up yourself.

Consider labouring chasing out the walls if the wires will be sunk. Get the electrician to direct you to the areas which they feel needs to be chased.

otherwise for £500 let them do it, you sit back and have a a brew.