In Bruton's older houses the trouble is rarely in the rooms you live in. It is in the loft, the airing cupboard, the cupboard under the stairs and the outbuilding nobody has looked at properly in years. Our electricians do the everyday work, new lights, sockets and repairs, and we make a habit of checking those hidden places while we are there.
Bruton's old core is medieval and Tudor cottages, with Georgian townhouses, Victorian terraces and converted mills and barns around it. Houses that old have been rewired, extended and altered piecemeal, and the oldest or most careless work tends to end up where nobody looks:
A report we produced in Bruton this year is a good example. A five-year landlord EICR found a burnt-out immersion heater element (coded C1, danger present), unsupported cabling in the loft and a loft floodlight with no local isolation (both C2), and a broken switch. We cleared every coded item, re-tested and issued updated certification.
Lofts in these houses are often used for storage, and a decent light and a socket make them far safer to use. We fitted loft lighting on a return visit to a Bruton house after the remedial work above. When we work in a loft we also clip up loose cable, put junctions in proper enclosures where they can be found again, and make sure any light or appliance up there can be switched off locally.
If your loft insulation has been topped up over old cable, mention it. Cable buried in insulation can run warmer than it was designed to, and it is worth checking.
We quote each job on its own merits, with a fixed price in writing before any work starts. Inspections are priced on the size of the installation and the number of circuits, alarms and rewires on the property itself, and remedial work after an EICR is quoted in writing from the coded observations.
An immersion heater element and its supply work hard. Warning signs include a switch or flex outlet that is discoloured or warm, a burning smell when the water is heating, or a heater that trips the circuit. A burnt-out element, as we found in Bruton this year, is a real fire risk and is treated as such. We replace the switch, the flex and the element connections as needed and test the circuit afterwards. There is more on our immersion heater page for Bruton.
Converted mills and barns have big volumes and few places to hide cable. Georgian townhouses have tall rooms where a single central light does very little. In both, the request is usually the same: more light, in the right places, controlled sensibly. That might mean wall lights on stone walls, pendants at a sensible height, lamps on switched sockets, or two-way switching between doors. We plan routes so cable goes under floors and through ceiling voids, and use neat surface runs only where there is no sensible alternative.
Anonymised, but all real.
If the hidden places point to a wider problem, these are the pages to read next:
Our Bruton area page covers the town and nearby villages, and there is a separate page for Batcombe.
Coverage area: High Street, Frome Road, the Plox, Hauser & Wirth fringe, Coombe, Cole, Pitcombe, Wyke Champflower fringe.
Leave your details and a line about the job. We will ring you back to talk it through and arrange a survey or a written price.
Yes, and we would encourage it. A look at the loft wiring takes little time when we are already on site, and it is where we most often find loose cable, buried junctions and lights with no isolation. We will tell you what we see and price anything that needs doing.
Treat it as urgent. Discoloration and heat at the switch or flex outlet mean a poor connection or an overloaded part. Switch the immersion off at the switch or the board and do not use it until it has been checked. We will replace what has failed and test the circuit.
Small planned jobs get a fixed price, often from photos and a phone call. Fault-finding where the cause is unknown is an in-hours call-out, Monday to Friday 08:00 to 18:00, with parts at cost plus 10%.
Yes. Conversions need more planning than an ordinary house because open roof spaces, exposed beams and stone walls leave few places to hide cable. We prefer to be involved before the finishes go on, so light and socket positions can be agreed on site, routes worked out while floors and ceilings are open, and everything tested once it is complete.
Batcombe, Pitcombe, Redlynch and Brewham are all on our regular list, as are Evercreech, which lies about three miles north-west of Bruton, and the villages between Bruton and Castle Cary. Batcombe has its own page on our site because so many of its houses are period stone and come with their own set of electrical questions.
Priced by the job, not by the hour. A written, fixed price after a survey, NAPIT certification on every notifiable job.
07889 334849