Touch up plastering after full electrical rewire

fairplay1998

Hi guys,

I have just bought a house and discovered it is in need of a full electrical rewire. I have had a quote for £2600 for the rewire, but shopping around for more quotes. 

I'm struggling to get a quote for the patching up of the plaster after the work. I'm really struggling to find out how much this could cost me. There's 15 wall sockets in the house and 9 light fittings. Can anyone help by telling me how much I could expect to be paying?

Thanks.

rob7475

Most electricians will know someone who can fill the chases for you. Ask them to quote you with and without making good and see the difference.

Is it something you'd be willing to do yourself? A bag of bonding and some easifill will make light work of it and once you've done a couple, it's quite easy.

FreeBear

Your best bet would be a local handyman - Expect to pay something in the region of £150-200 per day. A plasterer wouldn't be interested in the job as it is small & fiddly unless you were to do a full skim of each room. In which case, budget around £400-500 per room.

TELLIT01

How are you planning to decorate the rooms after the electrical work and plastering?  If painting, as seems to be the norm these days, you are going to need a really good finish and that's probably not something you could do for yourself if you haven't done any plastering in the past.  It's not as easy as it looks.

ArbitraryRandom

FreeBear said:

Your best bet would be a local handyman - Expect to pay something in the region of £150-200 per day. A plasterer wouldn't be interested in the job as it is small & fiddly unless you were to do a full skim of each room. In which case, budget around £400-500 per room.

Agree with this. In a northern city I'm paying £25 an hour for handymen and recently paid around £700 for a small room (about 20 square metres of wall) boarded and skimmed, taking off the plaster board it would have been about £500.  

Alanp

When I used to be a sparks we used to fill any wall chasing ourselves, I guess times have changed now though

Nearlyold

TELLIT01 said:

How are you planning to decorate the rooms after the electrical work and plastering?  If painting, as seems to be the norm these days, you are going to need a really good finish and that's probably not something you could do for yourself if you haven't done any plastering in the past.  It's not as easy as it looks.

Plastering a large area is certainly not easy to master however filling in chases and getting a good finish is relatively easy to do provided the original wall surface beyond either side of the chase is flat.

I prefer Japanese/Continental filling knives which are more flexible than "traditional" filling  knives for this task - you need one wider than the chase plus some suitable filling medium. The knives and a bag of filler won't cost much, the OP could give it a go and see how it turns out.

stuart45

Screwfix  sell a set of continental knives quite cheap. Knauf fill and finish is really easy to use and sand.

Rambosmum

We've recently had a rewire and we did get a couple of rooms patched but the finish was not great and the cost was disproportionate when compared to a reskim of the room, so we are just getting the rest fully skimmed, one at a time. 

GDB2222

Good idea to remove any wallpaper beforehand.

twopenny

Alan is right. I had one wire chased in and he was horrified when I expected it filled.
Then he tried to do it with pollyfiller..
Took me less than an hour light plaster and sanding.
But I've recently had a quote from a plumber who won't do the 1ft of boxing in the pipe.
Times are changing