Rewiring?

wanderer

Does a house need to be rewired every 25/30 years? The wires are all PVC insulated and in good working order. If needed, is it an expensive job for a 4 bedroom house? The house is 60 years old and was rewired 25 years back

micko2602

Its not mandatory to get a house rewired at anytime, but 25/30 years is the norm before insulation starts to go brittle and problems occur.
You can get it checked out by a registered electrician, JIB approved and has upto date certificates for inspection and testing.
They can check the insullation is still doing its job and a reputable one will tell you if its worth doing or not.
As far a price it is not just the size of the house, but also the number of sockets, lights etc which add to the price. It will also be worth upgrading to an RCD consumer unit in place of the fuse board (if you still have one) if you do decide to get the work done, safer than fuses, and easier to reset.
If you do get the work done, it may be worth trying to do some labouring yourself, pulling out old cables and running in new ones is a bit of a pain and every spark I know would rather someone else did it for them. It will help bring down the overal cost.

wanderer

Thanks miko2602 for the good advice. I am going to get a periodic Inspection report.Hopefully there wont be any major concerns.

black-saturn

I got my house rewired when I first moved in here about 3 years ago. Before that it hadn't been rewired since the wires were first put in in about 1926 :eek: This house was built in 1896. The men that did it said they could'nt believe it hadn't caught fire as there were all bare wires in the wall with no insulation round them that heated up every time they were being used. The fusebox was like something out of a museum.

boogiemaster

The fuse box was ok for that period of time, electricity had to start somewhere and it may look funny today but was perfectly acceptable when it was installed.

Lots of shocks and fires until health and safety came in, if in doubt ask an electrician!

wanderer

thanks black saturn and boogiemaster. I got the inspection report and spoke to the vendor. He was not pleased. 8 items in the report needed urgent attention