House re-wire

Wiseman_Vaughn

Wiseman_Vaughn

Well-known member
Morning all - Hoping for a bit of info on getting a house rewired.

My partner and I are working towards putting her house on the market. We know that it needs a complete re-wire before we can put it up for sale.
It's a 4 bed, very old (1700s) cottage which has had bits added to it over the years.

Anybody out there had anything like this done recently? How long does it take, how much (ball park) etc??

Many thanks in advance.

W_V
 
Why do the work for someone else? You may put electrical sockets in a place the new owners don't want them. Yes, you may get a bit more money for the house. You may still get the same money for the house as its advertised. Someone will buy it as it is no matter what the condition.

Unless you know its unsafe then just say it is in the selling pack. Up to the new owner to deal with it.

There are other things you need to do to sell the house.

Dress it up a bit - lay the table out nice l, have bread baking when someone comes to visit. That sort of thing.

When we sold our old house the agent said do t worry about wrapping the kitchen or putting re flooring in. It won't be to everyone's taste. So we didn't and see still made a very good profit
 
SalfordBoro said:
Why do the work for someone else? You may put electrical sockets in a place the new owners don't want them. Yes, you may get a bit more money for the house. You may still get the same money for the house as its advertised. Someone will buy it as it is no matter what the condition.

Unless you know its unsafe then just say it is in the selling pack. Up to the new owner to deal with it.

There are other things you need to do to sell the house.

Dress it up a bit - lay the table out nice l, have bread baking when someone comes to visit. That sort of thing.

When we sold our old house the agent said do t worry about wrapping the kitchen or putting re flooring in. It won't be to everyone's taste. So we didn't and see still made a very good profit
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The buyer should get an EICR done before completion and would normally request a reduction in the offer price for the amount of work that needs doing.
 
It’s a fair bit of work which usually then requires redecoration afterwards due to the cables being chased in to the walls and new sockets being fitted. I would just sell it as it is, you can still get an electrical report done. If the house is that old then any potential buyer should surely expect that sort of work might be required.
 
I agree, you can argue it's priced into the sale price as is.

I think from what I've seen on MSE you're looking at a few grand for the rewire and then the remedial decorating /filling work but as they'll probably want to decorate themselves it's doing it twice. Unless it's desperately bad and unsafe?

Better to focus on little cosmetic changes you can make
 
I would also say don't bother getting the rewire done, but what I would say is get a couple of quotes for the rewire and "making good", then you can pass that on to wannabe buyers, so it doesn't put them off.
It's not worth the hassle of going through the upheaval, and then complete redecoration, which the new buyer won't fully appreciate/ value, and may also not like the decoration.

I wouldn't even mention the wiring or EICR on the sale description mind, and if you get little interest you can allow some discount to cover the rewire, if you get loads of interest, say you've already allowed for it in the price once you get to solicitors stage (which is when the EICR gets checked).

Hard to say how much a rewire would cost, but I would be expecting 3-5k for average houses, depending on location, and maybe even up to 10k if it's a massive house or chewy job, with loads of chases in brick etc, if you want it doing to a decent standard anyway. My guess is you're gonna be in the 7.5k range, being a 4 bed cottage and likely on the chewy side.

In-between a move is an ideal time to get a rewire done mind, as it's easier to remove carpets and do the chases, but the purchaser wouldn't really be able to move in on completion day.
 
Many thanks for the replies!

We were under the impression that we would need to get the work done before we could sell it!
As mentioned above, it make more sense to get the work done when we move out and the new owners move in.

Thanks again!
 
Wiseman_Vaughn said:
Many thanks for the replies!

We were under the impression that we would need to get the work done before we could sell it!
As mentioned above, it make more sense to get the work done when we move out and the new owners move in.

Thanks again!
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I don't think so. Recently sold my Aunt's house after she died. Buyer asked for a gas certificate. British Gas came out and condemned the boiler flue and capped the gas supply but the sale still went through with no remedial work being done.
 
Wiseman_Vaughn said:
Morning all - Hoping for a bit of info on getting a house rewired.

My partner and I are working towards putting her house on the market. We know that it needs a complete re-wire before we can put it up for sale.
It's a 4 bed, very old (1700s) cottage which has had bits added to it over the years.

Anybody out there had anything like this done recently? How long does it take, how much (ball park) etc??

Many thanks in advance.

W_V
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If I was you, I'd get a quote for rewiring the house, even if you don't go ahead with it.

If the wiring is old, and not up to current regs, this will be highlighted in the survey. And, these days, anything that comes up in a survey is always severely overblown - the surveyors have to justify their fee and cover their backs if something goes wrong. Your purchasers may look at it and assume it's a huge job. If you can show them a quote then you can assure them it's not so bad, and use it as a lever to keep the selling price high. Purchasers are looking for anything to justify a reduced offer - your house needs £10k of work so we will knock £20k off the offer.
 
Soutra said:
If I was you, I'd get a quote for rewiring the house, even if you don't go ahead with it.

If the wiring is old, and not up to current regs, this will be highlighted in the survey. And, these days, anything that comes up in a survey is always severely overblown - the surveyors have to justify their fee and cover their backs if something goes wrong. Your purchasers may look at it and assume it's a huge job. If you can show them a quote then you can assure them it's not so bad, and use it as a lever to keep the selling price high. Purchasers are looking for anything to justify a reduced offer - your house needs £10k of work so we will knock £20k off the offer.
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Thanks for that! This is exactly what we/she is going to do. We've had the survey done and it needs new fuse boxes (it has 2 - one is the V old bakerlite cover type) and total rewire. We've got him to quote and he's saying 2,200 - which seems v cheap, knowing this house.
 
Wiseman_Vaughn said:
Thanks for that! This is exactly what we/she is going to do. We've had the survey done and it needs new fuse boxes (it has 2 - one is the V old bakerlite cover type) and total rewire. We've got him to quote and he's saying 2,200 - which seems v cheap, knowing this house.
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:oops: That does seem very, very cheap, not sure how they would make that work/ cover costs? I assume they're not changing any sockets and switches in that?

Assuming £500 for the materials, which seems low, then it's only £1,700 left. Even at 4 days (which seems quick, for your property, which I assume is full of furniture and carpet etc), that's only £400 a day for two lads, so maybe £250 for the spark, £100 for his mate and £50 for fuel/ van/ tools/ consumables. Where's the profit, and cost to cover lost time, admin, other expenses?

You're likely going to need two lighting rings for up and down, three socket rings for up/down/kitchen and separate circuits for cooker, shower, heating, smoke detectors and then all the testing of that? I'd have expected 1k in materials alone, and then 5 days at best of £500 a day, so 3.5k and that's them just "ticking over".

Most trades are manic now, so can pick and choose what they want to do, and this escalates price, so now should be more expensive than ever before.

I wouldn't even think a new build basher would do it for that, in an empty house with no walls and a simple 1st and 2nd fix.
 
Andy_W said:
:oops: That does seem very, very cheap, not sure how they would make that work/ cover costs? I assume they're not changing any sockets and switches in that?

Assuming £500 for the materials, which seems low, then it's only £1,700 left. Even at 4 days (which seems quick, for your property, which I assume is full of furniture and carpet etc), that's only £400 a day for two lads, so maybe £250 for the spark, £100 for his mate and £50 for fuel/ van/ tools/ consumables. Where's the profit, and cost to cover lost time, admin, other expenses?

You're likely going to need two lighting rings for up and down, three socket rings for up/down/kitchen and separate circuits for cooker, shower, heating, smoke detectors and then all the testing of that? I'd have expected 1k in materials alone, and then 5 days at best of £500 a day, so 3.5k and that's them just "ticking over".

Most trades are manic now, so can pick and choose what they want to do, and this escalates price, so now should be more expensive than ever before.

I wouldn't even think a new build basher would do it for that, in an empty house with no walls and a simple 1st and 2nd fix.
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Thx mate - we thought that the quote seemed low TBH - I think we'll need to get another couple after all - Great info BTW!
 
Wiseman_Vaughn said:
Thx mate - we thought that the quote seemed low TBH - I think we'll need to get another couple after all - Great info BTW!
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I don't know what Sparkies charge like, but they're generally more expensive than plumbers and they're more than other trades etc, so I shouldn't be far off with that. A good sparky should be able to pick up north of 40k a year though, in todays climate, most should be well above that.

I've got an electrical background and could do a rewire myself, and could figure out the testing, but having watched some domestic sparkies on youtube it's really not worth the hassle, not on a lived in house, and I'd need my mate to sign it off anyway. If anyone's interested check out Artisan Electrics and N Bundy Electrical on youtube, as this is the sort of standard electricians should be working to.

If just getting quotes (and I've not used them before) then one way which I roughly estimate them is by how they treat their van. Van's a mess = works a mess, van's old an battered, they're doing stuff cheap/ have no pride in their work, so have to (or choose to) blitz through jobs. If they're too busy to spend 5-10 minutes on keeping their van tidy, then they're too daft to realise it's costing them time in being disorganised.

Seems to correlate well in construction too (my field), but I give groundworkers more leeway as they're up their eyes in crap all the time, and on the roughest sites. Saying that, I employ some groundworkers, and they keep their van immaculate and we're flat out.

I only use tradesmen who come recommended from mates in the construction industry though, as they know what is good and what isn't. Our lass gets all sorts of recommendations from her mates, but each one has been poor quality/ finish.

Try and get itemised prices, or at least some sort of breakdown per section, worse case if they insist on lump sum, get a list of what they're including and more importantly what they're not including so you have some method of comparison. If it's a big job like that and someone just quotes "Rewire: £2,200" then I'd be a bit concerned.
 
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