The question we hear first in Shepton Mallet is not about cable. It is whether the family has to move out. Usually it does not. We change the house over one circuit at a time, so you keep a working kitchen, a kettle and somewhere to sleep, and the disruption moves through the house rather than sitting on all of it at once.
The old installation stays live while the new one goes in alongside it. Each room is opened up, new cable is run, and that circuit is moved onto the new board before we close up and move on. At no point is the whole house stripped out and left dead for days.
What you notice day to day is a room or two out of action, furniture pushed to the middle, some boards up and a short power cut while a circuit is switched across. We agree the order of rooms with you at the start, so the bedrooms and the kitchen are not out of use at the same time.
On a three-bedroom house that typically takes 5 to 10 working days. A flat is usually 3 to 4 days. A bigger or older property, such as a Georgian townhouse, tends to take 2 to 3 weeks.
We quote each job on its own merits. The price depends on the size, construction and access of the property, and whether it needs a full or partial rewire. Interlinked mains smoke and heat alarms, a new RCBO consumer unit and Part P notification are included in every rewire. We survey first, then give you a fixed written price for the job.
The Victorian stone terraces near the Market Place usually have suspended timber floors downstairs, which makes running cable much easier than the solid walls would suggest. The Georgian townhouses on Town Street have more floors, longer stair runs and often several generations of wiring in one building. Edwardian semis are generally straightforward to work in. The modern estates on the edges of town rarely need a full rewire at all.
One arrangement we have come across in town is a split set-up for off-peak heating: two old boards and extra boxes bolted on beside them. On a rewire that can all come out and be replaced with one metal board, which is simpler to live with and far easier to fault-find. For older and listed buildings, see our heritage rewiring page for Shepton Mallet.
Not all of this was rewiring, but each job is the kind of thing that decides whether a rewire is needed or whether repairs will do.
A trip switch that keeps going off makes people think the whole house is failing. Often it is not. We switch circuits off one at a time and test, and the cause can be a single faulty appliance rather than the wiring. If your installation has not been checked for a while, start with an EICR in Shepton Mallet, or if the board is the weak link, look at a consumer unit replacement first.
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.
In almost every case, yes. Because circuits are changed over one at a time, the parts of the house we are not working in stay live. There are short planned power cuts while a circuit is switched across, and we tell you before each one. If something must never lose power, such as medical equipment, tell us at the survey and we will plan for it.
There is some dust and disruption, mostly in the rooms being worked on that day. Floorboards are lifted and refixed, and walls are only chased where cable cannot sensibly go through a floor or ceiling void. We sheet floors and furniture, clear up at the end of each day, and make good the small chases we cut.
It is usually the right time. The kitchen is the room with the heaviest electrical demand, and doing the wiring before the units go in means cables run where you want them, not where the old ones happened to be. We agree the kitchen layout with you and the fitter, then wire for the hob, oven, extractor and appliances.
If the survey shows it is the right call, the old boards can be brought together into one metal RCBO board. We did exactly that for a house in town this year, with new meter tails and a full test. What happens to your heating arrangement is something we talk through at the survey before anything is priced.
If the house clearly needs rewiring throughout, the survey is enough to price the job. If you are not sure, an EICR is worth doing first. It tests every circuit and can show that only part of the house needs new cable, which can save a lot of money.
Priced by the job, not by the hour. A written, fixed price after a survey, NAPIT certification on every notifiable job.
07889 334849