Attempting to rewire a terraced House. Advice please

Frank_Sebem

My Sister has just bought a run down House that needs completely renovating. There's a good chance it needs a rewire. Now, like most first time buyers she is short on cash so we came up with the idea of doing the Donkey work for the rewire ourselves. Basically, we would run the wires from A to B but would DEFFO NOT try to connect anything up at either end. We figured that since we have done most of the dirty work the cost of an Electrician wiring it all together would be less than if he had to run the cables all over the place. Now, supposing we do this does anyone have an ideas or guides and would you be kind enough to set me straight on the following questions?!

Q1.!Am I correct in saying that there needs to be the following separate circuits in a typical terraced House:

1. Upstairs lighting
2. Upstairs Sockets
3. Downstairs lighting
4. Downstairs Sockets
5. Straight feed from consumer unit to cooker.!

Q2. What Cable do we buy from our Electrical Wholesale Shop and is cable for the Sockets the same as the cable for the lighting?

Q3. Is there anywhere we can't run cables? By this I mean that I assume it's safe to run cables through floor joists and up Walls as long as they are protected by those long thin metal plates. Can they run through wall cavity and behind or close to pipes etc?

Q4. My knowledge of a circuit is as follows and I guess I would need to run the following cables.!
From a NEW consumer unit I imagine that I run a Cable to the 1st Downstairs plug socket. From that Socket I then run another cable from this first socket to socket No 2. From socket No 2 I then run another cable to socket No 3. I do this until I have come to the last socket which is when I take a wire from this last socket back to the consumer unit. I assume I have now created a ring?? Is this correct? And is it the same for lighting circuits?

[Cons unit]---[S1]---[S2]---[S3]---This wire back to Cons unit---

Any advice peeps?

Ebe_Scrooge

Excellent idea, I've done this myself in the past as have many friends. It always seems a bit of a waste to pay a skilled electrician just for wielding a hammer and chisel :-) I know when I did it, the guy that came round tested the wiring by putting 10,000 volts through it ( or something like that ), when his meter said nothing was leaking he happily connected it all up. That was a long time ago, mind, I'm sure regs. have changed since then.

Anyway, everything you've said is pretty much spot on. The circuits you've mentioned is the usual way of doing it. Nothing to stop you splitting, say, the downstairs sockets into 2 circuits if you wanted, but not really necessary and may get confusing. There is a limit as to how many sockets you can have on a circuit, but for practical purposes in a domestic situation you won't exceed that.

Definitely a separate circuit for the cooker. Other circuits you may wish to think about : electric shower - each on it's own circuit. Garage - lights and / or sockets. Shed ? Garden ? Even if you don't need to run power to outside lights now, it's easier to get the wiring in place now if you may want power outside in the future.

And yes, your description of the circuit is correct - CU to socket, to next socket, to next socket ..... back to CU.

casper_g

Some electricians I've spoken to will consider getting involved in jobs where the home owner has done done the donkey work (chasing out, running cables etc). However, they usually prefer it if they are consulted before work starts, rather than after the first fix, so they can ensure the right cables are run to the right places!

Ebe_Scrooge

casper_g wrote: »

Some electricians I've spoken to will consider getting involved in jobs where the home owner has done done the donkey work (chasing out, running cables etc). However, they usually prefer it if they are consulted before work starts, rather than after the first fix, so they can ensure the right cables are run to the right places!

That's a very valid point, which I forgot to mention ! Definitely talk to your electrician beforehand. He / she will also be able to advise on the latest regulations ( which seem to get updated every 6 weeks ! ).

macman

I suggest you confine yourself to planning the basic position of sockets and switches and chasing out /making good as necessary, following prior discussion/agreement with your electrician.
To be blunt, the fact that you think it might be OK to use the same cable for ring mains as lighting circuits, or that lighting circuits are wired as rings, indicates that you don't have a clue what you are doing.
Please ignore Ebe's info regarding circuit wiring, this applies to ring mains only.
Your basic plan of the circuits is OK, but you might want to put the kitchen on a separate ring main-it all depends on the area of the house, the no. of sockets etc-which is why you need a professional electrician to do the calculations and advise if more than the basic upstairs/downstairs ring mains are required.
There are specific rules for the routing of cables, you can't just run them anywhere whether in conduit or not.
Your electrican will prefer to buy the materials himself, which he can get at trade prices far cheaper than you.