What’s involved in Rewiring

Rewiring Your Home

The most difficult task a homeowner can encounter is rewiring. Rewiring is a major project which needs to be implemented in every room of your home as the cables are laid inside your walls. We at Keith Gunn Electrical Solutions recommend that you rewire your home every 25 years because older cables can deteriorate over the years. This means cables that were once safe can become a hazard over time. Wrongly installed, sub-standard or faulty electrics can cause electric shocks or even fires. Our team will be able to eradicate any potential problems with your wiring and guarantee everything is modern, secure and completely certified.

During a full rewire, your Keith Gunn electrician will:

• Strip old wires
• Install new wires
• Rewire telephone and aerial sockets
• Fit new sockets and switches
• Rewire power and lighting circuits
• Install a new metal fuse board with full RCD protection
• Add modern technology, if required e.g. automated lighting

Upon arrival at your home or property, we’ll spend time making arrangements and preparations for the project. Then, we route your new cables from your consumer unit around your property. The cables will be terminated at every outlet throughout your property and then organised into separate circuits like plug sockets or lights for example. Routing is quite an extensive part of the project as cables can be underfloor or even in attic space. Routing can involve having to lift carpets/floorboards and chase through walls.

Rewiring Explained

If your property is around 25 years old then it is old enough to need rewiring. This means that it is also likely that the building has an internal construction of brick or plaster. For these different materials, we use different strategies. For brick, we use wall chasers with dust extraction and breaking power tools which allow us to work effectively through brick but it can still create some dust. For plaster, we cause as little damage as possible and any damage that does occur will be bonded to make it structurally sound again.

One issue which we may come to is with the fact that floorboards don’t always come up easily however, we do use professional and appropriate tools to establish that the best cuts are made which will, in turn, minimize damage. Once the floorboard has been removed we will route our cables by boring holes in the joist or notching a small part from the timber and replacing with a metal safe plate.

The floorboards are screwed down or nailed once the wiring is complete. Back boxes are mounted and we install a protective capping over the cables.

You need to understand that rewiring as a whole is a major project and there’s a lot of work involved, but we are happy to discuss any queries or aspect of the job before we start.