House rewiring in Lincolnshire

Finding out whether you need one

Every rewire we quote starts with an electrical installation condition report. It takes a few hours rather than a week, costs a fraction of a rewire, and gives you a circuit by circuit account of what is sound and what is not. It is the only honest basis for a quote, because nobody can tell the condition of a cable from the age of the house it is in.

What tips a report towards a rewire is a pattern rather than a single fault. Old rubber or fabric insulation, lighting with no earth and circuits extended piecemeal over decades usually arrive together. When only part of the house fails, a partial rewire of those circuits is the right job, and when the wiring tests well the answer may be a new consumer unit and more sockets instead.

How the work runs, first fix to second fix

A rewire happens in two stages. First fix is the disruptive part, with floorboards up, walls chased and new cable run to every socket, switch and light position, plus a better place for the consumer unit if the old one is awkward. That is the moment to decide where you actually want sockets and switches, because moving one later means chasing a wall that has just been plastered.

Plastering comes between the two stages and is a separate trade, which we say plainly in the quote. Second fix puts in the sockets, switches, fittings and the new board, and then every circuit is tested before anything is energised. The circuit schedule on the board door records what each one feeds, so the next person to open it is not guessing.

Rewiring a bungalow on the coast

Bungalows are a big part of the housing around Skegness, from the interwar streets at Winthorpe and Seacroft to the villages inland, and they rewire differently from a two storey house. With the loft directly above every room, cable can drop down inside the walls from above, which means fewer chases and less making good. Where the floor is solid concrete, as it is in many bungalows, sockets are fed down from the loft rather than along under floorboards.

The loft still needs care. Cable run through insulation has to be sized for it, because insulation traps heat, and anything clipped across the joists should stay clear of where people step or store boxes. On this coast we also look hard at anything outdoors, such as a garage supply, garden sockets or outside lights, because salt air finds its way into a poor enclosure long before it troubles anything indoors.

Wiring for what the house will need next

A rewire is the cheapest moment to prepare for the next twenty years. A circuit for a car charger, a route and space in the board for a battery or a solar inverter, data cable to the rooms where people work, and interlinked smoke and heat alarms all cost far less while the walls are open than they ever will afterwards. If a heat pump is on the horizon the supply for it can go in now, and we wire the electrical side for heat pumps fitted by specialist installers.

At the end you receive an Electrical Installation Certificate with the test results for every circuit, the work is notified to building control under Part P, and a Building Regulations compliance certificate follows. Keep them somewhere safe, because a buyer's solicitor, an insurer or a letting agent will ask for them.