Is a rewire needed?

anto164

Instead of just looking at the consumer unit, consider the amount of sockets in the rooms - Are there adequate sockets in locations that you want, are they all the normal shaped sockets and not the round pins, are they on skirting boards and not sunk into the walls?

Are the lights in the positions that you would have them once the rooms are decorated, do you want interlinked smoke detectors.

If you are thinking that you want more sockets / lights / etc, then factor that in at the same time.

I would personally get the house rewired due to the age, and possibly because of the points above, but i would recommend living in the house before doing it as you won't know what you want where until you have spent a little time there. My wife and I had ideas as to where we wanted things when we moved in, however once we were in and spent a month there, we changed the locations of appliances / furniture which meant that sockets were moved.

Davesnave

William_Donati wrote: »

The house being older than 20 years I would suggest a complete rewiring

You being new here, I would suggest you start by posting about things within your range of knowledge and experience.

G_M

William_Donati wrote: »

The house being older than 20 years I would suggest a complete rewiring

What has the age of the house got to do with it?

It's the age of the wiring that matters. My house is 150 years old but the wiring is not that old!

OP - post you picture on a more specialist forum for qualified elecricians' opinions:

http://www.diynot.com/diy/forums/electrics/

ElwoodP

Thanks All. I ended up paying an electrician to do some tests. He said no rewire necessary even consumer units were fine for now if we didn't want to get them updated straight away. I think we will replace since we want an electric shower fitted which would require yet another unit otherwise.

AdrianC

An electric shower wouldn't require a new CU. It'd just require a new circuit from one of the two empty slots on the RCD/MCB-fitted plastic CU. It might require the tails (the wires from meter to CU) upgrading, but not necessarily - it'd depend on a number of things, not least how high-power an electric shower you want.

Do you NEED an electric shower? If the hot water system is up to a normal one (perhaps with a pump, if there's insufficient flow because of lack of head from a non-pressurised cylinder), then that's always going to be preferable. If not, then - for me - upgrading the hot water would be a higher priority than the electrics. I hate electric showers - I've never EVER tried a good one.

ElwoodP

Thanks Adrian. Hot water is from electric immersion heater. I find this very frustrating with multiple people in the house fighting over hot water for showers and waiting for water to reheat after it has run out. Electric power shower I think is a worthwhile investment.

AdrianC

The ONLY hot water is from an immersion?

The plumbing is definitely the higher priority...

ElwoodP

The property is in the sticks and off the gas grid so would require lpg. I don't think its really a priority for us, we've never had a problem with storage heater/immersion heater setup (apart from showering!). Apart from needing a good wood burner in the living room we like the rest of the house cool and barely have the storage heaters on until the coldest of months.

Niv

AdrianC wrote: »

The ONLY hot water is from an immersion?

The plumbing is definitely the higher priority...

This is quite normal out in the sticks, I know plenty of people that have this / immersion + aga (which obviously gets turned off in summer)

HouseBuyer77

You could investigate a ground source or air source heat pump. Basically very efficient (as in 400%) electric heating.. It's greater than 100% efficiency as you're using electricity to pull in and concentrate existing heat rather than creating your own.

However it's not cheap to install and sounds like you're pretty happy with the current setup minus the shower. A decent electric shower will be cheaper by a couple of orders of magnitude.