Do you actually need a full rewire?
A new customer in Cleckheaton recently contacted me because he believed his home needed completely rewiring.
Now, a full house rewire is a decent sized job for any electrician. But me being me, rather than simply providing a quote, I politely asked him why he thought the property needed one.
We ended up having a good 20 minute conversation about the electrics in his home and he sent me some photographs so I could get a better idea of what he was dealing with.
To be fair, some of it didn’t look great.
There were electrical cables hanging from the cellar ceiling and the old fuse board was installed in a damp area and had started to rust.
Looking at the photographs alone, I could understand why he was concerned.
However, from the type and apparent age of the electrical cables, I wasn’t convinced that a full rewire was necessary.
Instead, I recommended starting with an electrical safety inspection, also known as an EICR.
Some might say that’s not particularly good business sense when a customer has contacted you asking for a full rewire.
I just call it being honest.
I don’t want to rewire a property that doesn’t need rewiring. As an electrician working in somebody’s home, I think I have a responsibility to give them a fair assessment of what actually needs doing rather than simply selling them the biggest job possible.
Thankfully, after carrying out the electrical safety check, my initial thoughts were right.
The property had actually been rewired around the mid 1990s and much of the existing electrical installation was still in reasonable condition with plenty of life left in it.
There were problems that needed sorting, though.
The existing fuse board was in a poor location towards the bottom of a damp cellar and had suffered from corrosion. There were also cables hanging through the cellar that had been exposed to the damp conditions.
The electrical inspection identified the work required to get everything back into a safe condition, without unnecessarily ripping apart a house that didn't need a full rewire.
One of our main recommendations was relocating the fuse board.
We moved the consumer unit higher up in the cellar to a much more sensible and drier position before installing a brand new Hager consumer unit.
Hager is generally my go to choice for consumer unit replacements. I know the equipment, I trust the quality and I’m confident installing something that should serve the customer well for many years to come.
Alongside the fuse board relocation, we carried out the other electrical repairs identified during the EICR and got the installation back into a safe condition.
The end result was a customer who was absolutely thrilled.
He originally contacted an electrician expecting that his Cleckheaton home needed a full rewire. Instead, an electrical safety inspection established what was actually required and allowed us to concentrate his money on fixing the genuine problems.
No unnecessary rewire. No ripping the house apart for the sake of it.
Just an honest assessment followed by the electrical work the property actually needed.
If you have an old fuse board, rusty consumer unit or older electrics and you’re worried that your home might need rewiring, an EICR can be a sensible place to start.
If you’re searching for an electrician near me in Cleckheaton, get in touch and we can have a chat about what you’ve got before deciding what, if anything, needs doing.
Your Local Electrician and Extractor Fan Specialist in Cleckheaton.
