House Rewires & Consumer Unit Upgrades, North Yorkshire

What a rewire actually involves.

A full rewire means every circuit in the house comes out and goes back in new. Sockets, lighting, cooker, shower, immersion, the lot, back to a new consumer unit. Floorboards come up and chases go into walls, so it is disruptive, and anyone who tells you otherwise has not done one.

A partial rewire is the more common job. The lighting is sound but the sockets are on an old radial with no earth, or the kitchen has been extended twice and nobody ever upgraded the supply to it. There is no sense replacing cable that is doing its job perfectly well, so what gets replaced is what needs replacing, and you get told which is which.

A finished installation showing the meter cabinets, a wall-mounted isolator and the conduit run between them, all clipped in line. — Board, isolator and conduit, left tidy

When a fuse board needs changing.

Plenty of boards in this part of the world are still wired fuse carriers, or early plastic units with one RCD covering everything so a fault in the garden takes the whole house out. A modern board splits the circuits so a fault in one place leaves the rest of the house lit, and it adds protection that simply did not exist when a lot of these houses were wired.

A board change is not just swapping a box on the wall. Every circuit gets tested before it goes back on, and that is where the honest problems turn up. If a circuit fails its test, putting a new board in front of it does not fix anything, and you get told that rather than finding out later.

What is covered

The work itself.

Full house rewires, first and second fix
Partial rewires where only some circuits need doing
Consumer unit and fuse board replacements
Additional circuits for kitchens, showers and extensions
Every circuit tested and written up before it goes back into service
Certification handed over on completion

About £1,000inc VAT for a consumer unit change. A rewire is priced after a proper look, because no two houses of this age are the same and a figure over the phone would be a guess.

Get booked inBack to you within 24 hours, Monday to Friday.

Having a charger fitted at the same time.

If the fuse board is being changed anyway and there is an electric car on the way, doing both in one visit is cheaper than doing them separately. A consumer unit change is about £1,000 and a standard charger is £1,400, so the two priced on their own come to £2,400. Together in one visit it is £2,000.

That is a real saving rather than a rounded number, and it exists because one visit costs less to do than two.

See the EV charger page

Where

Covered across North Yorkshire.

This work goes out across the whole patch, from Swaledale and Wensleydale down to York and Harrogate.

HuntonHunton is home.See the area RichmondRichmond and the villages around it, from the market place down to the river.See the area Reeth and SwaledaleReeth and up the dale beyond it.See the area Hawes and Upper WensleydaleHawes and Upper Wensleydale.See the area LeyburnLeyburn and the surrounding part of Wensleydale.See the area Catterick and Catterick GarrisonCatterick, the Garrison and the estates around them.See the area

Hunton Richmond Reeth Hawes Leyburn Catterick Bedale Northallerton Darlington Harrogate York Middlesbrough All areas

Also

The rest of the board.

EICRsAn Electrical Installation Condition Report is an inspection and test of the whole electrical installation, written up so you can read it.Read more Fault findingTripping breakers, dead sockets, lights that flicker when the kettle goes on, a fault that only shows up when it rains.Read more CommercialInstallations and maintenance for shops, offices and small commercial units.Read more

Everything we cover EV chargers

Questions

Worth knowing before you ring.

How do I know if my house needs rewiring?

The honest answer is that you cannot tell by looking at the sockets, and neither can anyone else. What tells you is a test. An EICR inspects and tests the whole installation and comes back with a written report saying what condition it is in. That is the right first step if you are unsure, rather than paying for a rewire you may not need.

Do I have to move out while it is done?

Most people stay in. Circuits go off in sections rather than the whole house at once wherever that is possible, so you keep power and light somewhere while the work goes on. It depends on the house, and it gets discussed before anything is booked rather than sprung on you on day one.

What is the difference between a consumer unit and a fuse board?

They are the same thing, just different words for different generations. Fuse board usually means the older sort with rewirable fuse carriers. Consumer unit is what a modern one with circuit breakers and RCD protection is called.

Rewires and fuse boards, done to current standards.