Improving electrical safety without a full rewire

dominoman

We are thinking of moving to the Middle East for a couple of years and would need to rent out our house in the UK.

Our electrics look a real mess. There are lots of wires hanging loose under the house, and the fuse box is ancient. Before renting it out I would like to get it all looked at.

Everything works just fine, so I'm hoping we can avoid a full rewire. is it worth getting a new consumer unit fitted (by a competent electrician of course) and getting some "tidy up" done?

I want to make sure it is all safe (which it hopefully is already), and looks safe (which it doesn't at the moment!).

Ectophile

The best place to start would be to get a qualified electrician to do an EICR (Electrical Installation Condition Report). Beware of cowboys just inventing work to do and "drive-by" reports that barely look at the installation.

The report will list all the problems, rated C1 (this is dangerous - fix it now), C2 (this isn't right and should be fixed) or C3 (doesn't comply with latest standards, but not really dangerous).

Then decide what to do. You don't have to get the same electrician to do the fixes if you don't want to.

cyclonebri1

Great reply, the poster really knows this I think, he/she needs certs

dominoman

OK great. I'll get an EICR done then and will take it from there.

How much should I be paying for an EICR roughly? It's a 4 bedroom semi detached, built 1910.

cyclonebri1

dominoman wrote: »

ok great. I'll get an eicr done then and will take it from there.

How much should i be paying for an eicr roughly? It's a 4 bedroom semi detached, built 1910.

£75.............

Dan-Dan

£75 a bit cheap bri ?
i paid £120 3 years ago in home counties

cyclonebri1

Dan-Dan wrote: »

£75 a bit cheap bri ?
i paid £120 3 years ago in home counties

We're in the sticks, it has benefits, plus, I'm cheap, :beer::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

dominoman

Ok thanks. Is there a difference between a "good" EICR and a cheap one?

Never having seen an EICR I don't know what is included. Could there be different levels of detail?

stator

It will definitely be worth getting a new consumer unit but only a qualified electrician can tell you the rest.
The actual cables don't need replacing very often, so it's really a question of how competantly the installation was done.

Risteard

Dan-Dan wrote: »

£75 a bit cheap bri ?
i paid £120 3 years ago in home counties

Here it would be a minimum of £150. For a four bedroom house in London it will be more. It will not be less than £200, nor should it be if it is of quality.

£75 is a complete and utter nonsense.

DaftyDuck

If you are needing a new CU, and it sounds like you do, you should get a full report on having them fitted anyway. I've just had two consumer units fitted (2 X 3-phase set-up), and paid £500. Fully qualified sparkie, very efficient, took most of two days, so it was a bargain.

For renting out, you really, really, really want those electrics in fine working order, and certified so.

Get a hard-wired smoke and heat detector (and CO alarm where relevant) system fitted at the same time.