Unfortunately, rewiring a house is no mean feat. As well as the cost, it will require a lot of preparation. However, within that, there’s also an opportunity to make some much-needed improvements to your home.
In this post, we’ll discuss how to plan your house rewire to ensure everything goes smoothly – and get the most out of it.
Completely rewiring a house is a big job. It requires your existing wiring to be pulled out and replaced. But that also means you can make any changes to switches, sockets or even electrical appliances in the process.
With that in mind, it’s important to consider how many light switches and plug sockets you want for each room and the best position for them. Don’t forget the actual lights themselves. Maybe a long room needs two light fittings instead of one? Or perhaps you would like a dimmer installed, which needs a deeper back box.
If you’re considering any new electrical appliances, now is the time to decide. The cables for an electric shower, hob or outdoor lighting can all be put in place to make things easier when you do have them installed.
Once you’ve decided what work you would like done as part of the rewire, it’s time to think about preparing your home. Ideally, your home should be as empty as possible – including people.
Electricians will need access to all the walls, floors, ceilings and even the loft space. Anything that’s left in your home will probably get in the way. As well as the risk of those things being damaged, they will make the job longer to complete and more expensive as a result. Try to move as much as possible out of your home, into relatives’ or friends’ houses or even into storage units.
It’s a similar scenario for people. Given the size of the job, it’s best if you can be out of your home for the duration of the job. Not least because an empty house is much quicker to rewire, so you can restore normality far sooner that way.
On top of that, your home won’t be a particularly pleasant place to be while work is being done. As well as having no electricity, you’ll have noisy, messy work taking place throughout your home.
In simple terms, the emptier the house, the easier the job and the faster you can get back to normal.
Redecoration is another key part of your rewiring plan, to get your home back in order as soon as possible. All wiring and cables will need to be chased away within walls and coving, which will leave them needing plastering and redecoration after the rewire.
Costs are an inevitable part of any house rewire. It’s best to get a clear idea of the costs as part of your plans. That’s where Smart Electricians can help. We provide an easy to use house rewire cost calculator, that takes into account the size of your home, how empty it will be and what kind of rewiring you need.
If you have any more questions about the rewire process, get in touch with our team of expert electricians in Sheffield.
There are many ways in which we approach how properties are rewired and how we undertake the rewiring works. It usually depends on the current living situation of a property. Our end goal is to rewire all or as much of the property as possible whilst causing minimum disruption to our customers and their homes, but some times we realise that it is not convenient or feasible to rewire the whole of the property in one hit. We’ve put together this short blog post to help you understand what is possible and how we approach the common stumbling blocks of having your property rewired.
Empty properties are often seen as the dream situation for undertaking a rewire of your home or rental property. When houses are empty or unoccupied less time has to be spent moving furniture, reinstating power for continued use and tidying up at the end of each working day. For this reason, when using our online quoting tool we offer a 15% discount for the rewire of empty houses as there are less labouring tasks to be completed that inevitably draws out the duration of works.
When unoccupied rewires are undertaken we typically undertake the works in 2 separate phases;
Phase 1: The First fix is undertaken and typically takes 2-5 days depending on the size of your property. During this visit, all of the cables are run to the correct locations for switches, sockets and lighting. All back boxes and cable channels are chopped into the plaster & brickwork and the property is left ready for the plastering work to be undertaken.
Phase 2: The Second fix stage typically takes slightly less time than the first fix. Once the whole property is plastered we book in the second fix works. During this visit, we install all of the sockets and switch faceplates as well as all of the lighting fixtures, we also install the consumer unit (fuse board), power up all of the circuits and certify the installation ready to hand over to our customers.
Lived in properties are often seen as a more difficult situation to work in as there can be many added factors that can cause delays or disruption, However, a well managed and strategic approach to the works can lead to better customer experience. When it’s convenient it has been known of our customers to stay with family and friends whilst the work is undertaken, some may see this as a cheeky suggestion but as with the unoccupied properties our goal remains the same, rewire all of or as much of the property with minimum disruption to our customers and their homes, This way more of our time is spent doing the jobs were qualified to do instead of the labour-intensive tasks such as a tidy down at the end of each day, replacing all floorboards and reinstating the power so that our customers can use the property during the evenings.
When rewiring occupied properties there is not usually time for plasterers to come in between the first and second fix so the work is undertaken in 1 hit typically taking 5-10 Working days.
When wiring properties that are occupied we realise that you want the work undertaking efficiently with minimum disruption to your self and your family, within the same week we would install both the first and second fix electrical installation, consumer unit, power up and certification. All of your personal belongings are stored away under dust sheets in areas that will be least affected by the rewiring works and then all furniture is replaced back to its original position even if it means this has to be done on a daily basis
This is a common pain point and concern for our customers and clients, we realise the cost implications of having to replace tiling and kitchen units should the kitchen need to be fully rewired so we use our vast experience to avoid this happening. There are many tricks of the trade to avoid having to rewire the kitchen if we can get away with it. More often than not kitchens are rewired more regular than the rest of the rooms in a typical property so chances are that the kitchen wiring is not as old as other wiring in the house so we try to designate the kitchen to its own socket circuit and document that the kitchen has not been fully rewired on the final electrical certificate. Unfortunately in some cases when the wiring is so dated or in such bad condition, we have no choice but to rewire all of the kitchen circuits, There are a number of tests and checks that we undertake to determine the condition of existing wiring and our engineers will always consult our customers before any additional disruptive work is undertaken.
We hope you have found this blog post helpful if you have a property that you know or believe may need rewiring please do not hesitate to contact our team. We also have a very useful online rewire calculator tool that can give instant quotations based on a room by room requirement.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Here at Smart Electricians, we have been working hard behind the scenes developing our 4 step process in producing a quotation for a rewiring project. In the age of smartphones, smart tech, Amazon and AI we believe that the process for receiving quotations for electrical rewires needs to be simplified. We are committed to a fair and honest pricing policy and our quoting system can be tailored to suit any budget or specification. We have compiled our extensive knowledge and years of experience working in the domestic market and covered the vast amount of electrical items found within a modern property, however if there is something you would like installing that is not on our list please feel free to mention this to our survey engineer when he comes to visit your property or project.
From day one of the developments of this software, our primary goal has been to make this tool user-friendly for anybody. Homeowners, first-time buyers and the general public, Property developers and landlords, Architects and Building contractor. We believe our detailed system and explainer videos can help anybody create a detailed quotation in the same amount of time it takes to drink your brew.
This tool can be used in many effective ways, our advice to you would be to watch our explainer video to get you started, once you have watched the animation video we suggest that you Sketch out or print off a layout plan of your property to assist you with the quantities and locations of sockets, switches and lighting, layout plans can often be found on property websites such as Zoopla or Right Move.
As with any online line tool we're going to need a few personal details from you but don't worry we're not going to share them with any other parties and will only contact you if you want us too.
We need to know a little bit of information regarding the current living situation in the property, if the property is empty or partially furnished you may be eligible for a 10% discount as it means we will not have to be moving furniture and replacing all of the floor boards at the end each day.
Simply populate the number of rooms within your property and then start to populate the number of items required in each individual room.
Start in the Hallway of your property and walk around each individual room in the order that they are listed within the calculator. Our wide range of products has helpful images, hint and recommendations to help you select the right product for your installation.
Simply populate the number of rooms within your property and then start to populate the number of items required in each individual room.
If you are a Building Contractor your Architect or Customer may have already specified the number of products on a spec sheet or electrical layout drawing, in this case, it's again as simple as populating each box and working your way through the rooms.
Step 4 is the easy one as we have done all the hard work for you, we realise that we can't expect our customers to understand the requirements of a electrical installation so these areas have been auto-populated for you, for example, the number of smoke detectors will auto-populate depending on the number of hallways and landings you have selected.
Once you have hit the big blue button the quotation will arrive into your email inbox and also notify us that you have completed a quotation and if you're happy with the price you can book in your survey.
The price is only a guide and subject to a full survey from our team. The next steps if you wanted to progress with the work would be for us to visit your property. Simply get in touch and a member of our friendly team will arrange a property survey at a time that is convenient for you.
Our team are fully trained professionals and take pride in providing the highest levels of service. We would love to be part of your project and help you with your rewire.
Just some of the reasons why we think you should choose us include because we provide:
A Five Star Service - Yes, we are excellent electricians, but even better, we are passionate about giving you an amazing and reliable service.
Quality Assurance - All our domestic work is part P certified, meets industry regulations, and comes with a 6 year insurance-backed guarantee.
Fully Certified Work - All our team are fully trained and certified to the highest standards so that you can be sure of a professional, expert service.
Quick Response Times - With super quick response times our team can be on the scene to deal with your repair in a matter of hours, if not less.
We know that you will love working with us, but don't just take our word from it. Find out what our customers have to say about choosing Smart Electricians.
