House Rewiring: 5 things to think about before getting your house rewired

Anybody who has had anything to do with home ownership will know the dread that comes with undertaking a household rewire and one of the very first tasks we knew we would need to undertake was to rewire the house from top to bottom. Having taken some pictures of the fuse and sent them over to a "sparky" friend he was somewhat horrified by just how ancient it was. With an electric car to charge and us both working from home we couldn't afford the chances of power outages (in reality who can?) but also there were many slightly concerning DIY type jobs around the property that brought to question just how safe the wiring actually was. I felt pretty confident that there was no chance the house would stand up to modern buildings regulations, but more importantly, with a small human in the house, we did't want to put ourselves at any risk of electrical fires - especially with the amount of tech we have in use as a household. 

 

Within 6 weeks of being handed the keys the rewire started. As it was a family friend undertaking the job it was completed very quickly thankfully (him and his coworker lived in the house whilst doing the work and put in genuinely unspeakable hours). 

One thing that was an absolutely certainty for us was that we didn't want to be living at home whilst the rewire took place. There were multiple thick stone walls that needed wires chasing (drilling) out and we knew the amount of dust would be insane (and in these older properties can you ever be sure that there won't be some sort of additional nasties in that dust? I fear not!) Anyway, not something that our 3 year old, my 4month pregnant self or even my husband needed to risk. However that lead us to the slight predicament of how we would manage with our little one in preschool, dogs/cats/chickens/horses at home and still needing to be able to work. Thankfully we were able to find a pet friendly (albeit very small) AirBnB in the village. The cats all stayed on the farm. We were then able to pop up twice daily to feed everyone and check horses and chickens were behaving. Our little one stayed in preschool which was a blessing as it meant we both could work from our little AirBnb without too much disruption - although we were grateful to get home after our 10day stint was done!

So what do you need to think about before getting the house rewired? I am absolutely not an electrician but I did find this helpful blog from someone who is! Having just been through the pain of a rewire, here are my top 5 things to consider before getting your house rewired!

1. Is your electrician certified?

• This one is the biggy! We are based in the UK and you may not be aware but it is the responsibility of the homeowner to ensure any and all electrical work undertaken is in compliance with Building Regulations. 
• The best bet is to use an electrician who is registered with a competent scheme. If not then have the work checked by someone who is registered. 
• This allows for the work to be signed off and your local building control office (the people responsible for buildings regs) to be happy. 
• Ensuring work is in compliance with buildings regs is mandatory. Failing to do this may result in costly issues which in the worst case needing to redo the job if it isn't up to scratch. 
• Plus these rules exists to keep you and your family safe by reducing the risk of electrical fires from faulty or poor quality work. 
• Find a list of competent persons for electrical work in your area here. 
• Make sure you double check that you will be provided with all the certifying paperwork you need at the end of the job. If you ever sell your house you'll need it, and equally it may be something your insurers will request to see if god forbid you need to make a claim. 

2. Where are you going to stay?

• Make sure you check with your electrician before deciding to stay at home during the process as it may be that is truly is an impossibility for safety reasons (especially if you have kids!). Trust me when I say it is so SO dusty - literally everything was covered in a film of building dust after the job was completed. Even with the guys cleaning as they went. 

• Whilst it is an each to their own, I absolutely would not recommend staying in the house whilst the work is carried out.
• Don't forget your 4 legged friends. If you can't take them to your family/friend/airbnb I would strongly recommend using a kennels/cattery - see the end of this article for why!

2. How are you going to pay for it?

• Even with mates rates we still forked out over £10k for the job, and this was without our kitchen being done.

• Average costs will vary based on the size of the home. One of the main reasons ours costed out over average for a 4 bed home is because we chose to have LED down-lights fitted in every room, alongside dimmer switches (this was a huge chunk of the bill just for the lightbulbs themselves!) So make sure you think long and hard about fixtures and fittings and factor this into your budgeting!

• Whilst some companies will have payment plans or credit options, other firms may need 50% of the costs up front to cover materials so make sure you have a plan in place for where the money is coming from and read the payments terms carefully for when it is expected to be with your contractor.

• Dont forget to factor in the additional costs.

• If you've had wiring "chased" (essentially dug into) the walls you'll need to factor in plastering/painting/decorating. Saying I was not prepared for the damage that chasing the wiring did to our walling is an understatement. Whilst all filled in, I for one struggle to live with the contrasting filler on my white walls. We knew we would have to decorate but I naively thought, oh it won't be that bad, and we will get to redecorating later. Therefore this was not in our budget - it is something I hugely regret. 
• Carpets may not be the same again, especially if theyve needed pulling up to accessing wiring underneath them. 
• Are you contractors disposing of the rubbish or are you? 
• What happens if they find asbestos?
• Are you going to put your furniture into storage? (I wish we had done this - although everything was covered with protectors that building dust really does permeate!)
• Where are you, your family and any pets going to stay whilst the work is carried out?

4 . How long will it take?

• Once again this depends on the size and nature of the job.  Some averages can be found here.
• The work on our property was extensive and with a team or 2/3 working exceptionally long days the job was still not complete within the 9 days they were on site. 
• Part of the reason for this was the sheer challenge of chasing the wiring into the solid stone walls on the property. We elected in the end to leave around 15% of the old wiring in (after thorough safety checking) as each wire chasing would have taken half to a full days work just to gain access. 
• In newer properties without such solid walls, this process will be faster, although comparativiely slower to running wiring on the surface of the walls (although this arguably is no where near as pleasant from an aesthetic point of view). 
• I would recommend working with an electrician who has experience with the type of property in which you live. Older properties can present complex challenges which may be problematic for those without experience. 

5 . Are you going to changing the kitchen anytime soon?

• Finally, let's talk kitchens. The kitchen rewire often presents one of the most complex parts of the rewiring process with the need for multiple appliances and power points throughout the room. 
• If you are thinking about having your kitchen reworked in the near future it does not make sense to rewire it completely prior to designing the layout of the space. 
• We knew we would be redoing our kitchen to make it more workable for us which is why we elected not to have a full rewire performed. Instead we changed out the lighting to downlights and switched out the sockets to USB compatible ones in the interim. Once we've worked with a local designer to create our perfect kitchen we will have the whole space rewired to ensure that we aren't spending money twice chasing wires to places they don't need to be! 
• Chat to your electrician about your plans for the space and get their advice before making decisions! 

Anyway, hopefully this little brain dump is of some use to you! My final piece of advice:

Make sure your cat doesn't sneak in when your electrician is replacing floor boards. Hearing panicked meowing from the walls at 10pm the first night you are back in the house is not the one (she was dutifully saved after lifting up the carpet and many, many floor boards to find where she had squirrelled herself away to!)