Household Rewires

What Is A Rewire?
A rewire replaces some or all of the electrical wiring of a house. A ‘rewire’ is rarely just a rewire; householders often replace, or add, electrical items, for instance sockets, light switches and fuse boards. A householder should remember that faulty electrical wiring can cause fires or damage electrical appliances when making the decision over whether to do a rewire.

How Often Should A Rewire Be Done?
There are many different opinions about how often you should rewire a house:

• After a specific time period, usually about 25 years.
• Many houses wired before 1984 didn’t have an earth cable and some used aluminium wire instead of copper. Aluminium wire is 55 times more likely to cause a fire than homes wired with copper due to aluminium wire running hotter than copper wire. Without an earth connection (the third wire in a cable) you are susceptible to electrical shocks if there is an overload of power going into your electrical equipment. The job of an earth wire is to drain any access electricity so you can’t get electrocuted.
• Only when you have specific types of wiring, for instance rubber insulated wiring, otherwise wait for a problem. Rubber insulated wiring shows the wiring is old – rubber insulation has not been used in the UK since the early 60’s.
• When a series of problems suggest the need for a rewire, for instance constantly tripping RCDs or constantly blowing fuses.
• When an electrical test and inspection (EICR) says that a rewire is needed. Electricians can carry out an inspection of a house to assess the state of the wiring, if the inspection fails a rewire may be needed.

If you decide to have your house rewired, think carefully about where you want electrical sockets and light switches etc. It may be you just want to follow the existing layout but you may decide that you need extra sockets/light fittings or can even reduce some of the existing sockets/light fittings.

Establishing if your house needs rewiring depends on the age of the house and the last time the house was wired. The best thing to do is have a rewiring survey completed on your property.

Having your property rewired is a serious undertaking and must meet all of the relevant standards and regulations, in order to comply with these PMG Electrics will always issue certification for both the electrical installation and for compliance with Part “P” of the Building Regulations.