What’s Involved In A Rewiring Project?

Rewiring your home is one of the most difficult and disruptive maintenance works that a homeowner can undertake. It is a major project with works carried out in pretty much every corner of every room.

A typical domestic electrical system is powered by cables usually plastered in the brick walls, run in between stud walls and laid under floor boards. A typical lifespan of a domestic electrical installation is 25 years and its recommended that they are tested and inspected every 5 years for a rental property and 10 years for a privately owned property. The cables provide the power to your socket outlets, lighting circuit, Heating systems, Cooking appliances and all other electrical items in your home.

There are many deciding factors involved in the process of the rewire, factors such as, Is the property occupied? Is the property undergoing a full renovation? Is the work getting completed in one or multiple phases? Is the property empty or full of furniture? Will other tradesmen working in the property at the same time? Who will be the end user of the property?

This step by step guide should help you understand the process of rewiring a property and what’s involved in a rewiring project.

(Please note the duration of each task will depend on the size of your property and the quantity of points)

Day 1: Preparation

We typically spend 4 Hours preparing your property for the rewire works on day one. It's often useful for the property owner to be present for the first hour to finalise any final positions of lighting and socket outlets. This is also a great time to discuss any key or access arrangements or even let us know when the cat or fish needs feeding if you’re not at the property during the works. We usually centralise any furniture in each room to give clear access around the perimeter of the rooms as this is typically where sockets and switches are located. We would then cover any furniture or belongings with dust sheets and these dust sheets would not be removed until the messy works have been completed.As part of the preparation works we plan our cable routes and start to remove any flooring to gain access to the floor voids. Once the floor boards have been removed we would then start drilling the joist and the cable runs would branch out from the consumer unit location out to each electrical point in the property. It's not unusual for no cables to be installed during the day 1 of the rewire but in our industry we learn in the early stages of our training that preparation is every.

Day 2: Wiring

With all the preparation work complete and all cable routes planned and drilled it's now time to install the first fix wiring. We follow a company operation manual and checklist to ensure that the cables are installed in the correct order and sequence to ensure efficiency and structure to our rewire projects. Cables are pulled to the relevant switch, lighting and socket positions and are labeled ready for the 2nd fix stage.

Day 3: Chopping out

This is the dreaded stage of rewire for our engineers and is often referred to as the messy stage of the rewire. Chopping out the back boxes into the brickwork is not always easy, especially with old properties with old red engineering bricks, we tackle one room at a time to contain as much mess and dust as possible and once all the back boxes have been installed we then tidy the bulk of the mess before moving on to the next room. Once all of the rooms have been chopped out we then go around all the rooms with the vacuum cleaner and damp cloth to keep on top of the cleaning.

Day 4: 2nd fix

Now that all of the back boxes have been installed and all of the cables are dressed clipped or capped to the wall it’s now time to 2nd fix the electrical points. Light fittings, light switches, socket fronts, isolations switches and the consumer unit are all connected up and installed and all loose ends are tidied up ready for commissioning and power up.

Day 5: Commissioning, power up, test & certification

Day 5 would see our team finishing up the electrical works and beginning the power up process, we as electricians have to follow strict test and inspection procedures to ensure the installation meets the requirements of BS7671. The installation can not be powered up until the relevant ‘dead tests’ have been undertaken. Once we are happy with the ‘dead test’ results the power can then be reinstated and all the essential ‘live tests’ can be carried out. All the test results and circuit information is then documented on an Electrical Installation Certificate.

Day 6: Clean down and handover

The new electrical installation is now complete and up and running now that all that remains is for the team to complete the final deep clean and and any furniture replaced back to their original positions. We would organise a meeting with the property owner and our lead engineer can walk through the property explaining all of the works and any maintenance and upkeep of the installation. The final task for Smart Electricians once the customer is 100% satisfied is to register the works with the local authority, this is known as the part P certificate. The customer is then issued with pdf versions of the Electrical installation certificate, part P certificate and the final invoice is sent over.

Need More Help With A Rewire?

Smart Electricians are a Sheffield based electrical contractor that specialise in domestic and commercial electrical installations.

We have been servicing Sheffield with fully qualified electricians for over 10 years. Our electricians primarily work within Sheffield but we also cover the neighbouring towns Chesterfield, Worksop, Rotherham and Barnsley

Choosing your electrician for your electrical project requires some research and thought and you should always seek advice and referrals from previous customers and always check out there google and facebook review pages.

Smart Electricians specialise in domestic electrical installations, in particular full rewires. All of our team are trained to the highest standard and follow our company procedures and operations manuals. We also believe in an open and honest pricing policy and that’s why we designed our online rewire calculator where every item has a fixed fee and our prices don’t fluctuate depending on your post code or what car you have sat on your driveway.

Rewiring your home can be a difficult task to undertake, but we come highly recommended and have vast knowledge and experience in this industry.