Rewire advice

Rog4632

Hi i live in a semi detached, im considering a rewire really unsure if its required.  As most advice is house needs to be empty im abit reluctant to do it at the moment.

My question is do I need a rewire, fuse box has only 3/4 switches.

Biggest issue I have is all sockets are on skirting board.  Theres only 1 light in the kitchen that flickers here and there otherwise I dont see any issues with wiring.

Ive been advised to check the wiring in 1 socket to see what colour wiring there is and then base it from that.   Hope you can advise Thanks

EssexExile

Only an electrician can say if your installation is safe, the colour of the wiring will only tell you it's over a certain age, not how good it is. Personally I'd get it checked and yes, a rewire does make a lot of mess.

FreeBear

EssexExile said: and yes, a rewire does make a lot of mess.

It will make a lot of mess if the cable & back boxes are chased in to the walls - The dust gets everywhere and can take months to get rid of all of it.. Surface mounted boxes & trunking makes less mess but is piggin' ugly and not appropriate for a modern installation.

greyteam1959

Going to be a big mess no way round it I am afraid.
If your sockets are in the skirting boards the I believe modern regs say they have to be up the walls ??
And that equals more mess
Mine were in the skirting boards & were replaced in the skirting boards but that was 35 years ago.
You may be very lucky & find your cables are on metal conduit.

vw100

More so important than the colour of the wiring would be the condition of the wiring, check the sheathing of the cable, check behind the sockets for burn marks, frayed cables, how well they have been terminated at the sockets etc. If the condition of the cables look good, then you may not want to go down the re-wire route - although sockets should not be in the skirting idealy. If your wiring is rubber or cloth sheathed then it is recommended you update your electrical installation totally. This includes changing your consumer unit, unless it has been updated already.

Rosa_Damascena

The mess has been mentioned more than once...but you also need to consider whether replastering costs are factored in. I made the mistake of assuming they were.

Guess who was wrong?  

stuart45

It can save a fair bit of cash if you do all the chasing out yourself, as this is a lot of the work. Depends whether the sparks agrees to this and marks out the walls for you.

ka7e

We stayed in our house when it was being rewired, but it was hard work. As we were having the consumer unit moved (apparently fire brigade likes it to be just inside the front door and ours was in a store room) we kept most of the old circuits working until the new one was activated. We have 14 switches on the new unit and they are nearly all in use - 3/4 seems a remarkably low number.

Homer_home

It sounds like you have an old wylex board 
Any chance of some pics of your consumer unit?
That will give us an idea of the age of your installation.
Old installs arent a problem if they are not upto current regs as long as the wiring is sound as regs are not retrospective as the install was considered safe at the time.
Im almost certain you wont have rcd protection so that means that if you ever want to put in any new wiring in the future you would have to fit an rcd fitted (to the regs) which would mean a new board either working alongside your current consumer unit or replacing it 

Of course if you have any doubts about the safety of the wiring then get it checked out by a spark but make it clear that if he finds anything he wont be getting the job to fix it (it stops them trying to bull**** you and gives you a fairer picture of the state of your wiring)

Risteard

stuart45 said:

It can save a fair bit of cash if you do all the chasing out yourself, as this is a lot of the work. Depends whether the sparks agrees to this and marks out the walls for you.

Any time the customer has told me that they will track the walls they have run them incorrectly, and not deep enough or wide enough etc. It ends up the same amount or more work for me. For this reason I don't entertain it anymore. Also someone wanting to cut costs isn't my type of customer.

fenwick458

Risteard said:

stuart45 said:

It can save a fair bit of cash if you do all the chasing out yourself, as this is a lot of the work. Depends whether the sparks agrees to this and marks out the walls for you.

Any time the customer has told me that they will track the walls they have run them incorrectly, and not deep enough or wide enough etc. It ends up the same amount or more work for me. For this reason I don't entertain it anymore. Also someone wanting to cut costs isn't my type of customer.

I was just about to post the same thing!
last time this happened to me I think i actually spent more time trying to fix the backboxes into the enormous un-even caverns the customer had made into the thermalite blocks. it could have been so easy, but ended up a right nightmare
do you need a rewire? it depends..... if you only have 4 circuits now. I doubt you have enough sockets in the house?
If the cable is PVC then it's probably still got life left in it, I have yet to find a cable made of PVC that has deteriorated
however, I doubt you have an RCD, (this is the thing that saves your life) so i'd recommend to anyone that they have things that will potentially save your life.
a fuse or circuit breaker is only really designed to protect the circuit itself, not you.