Which electrician to choose for house rewire?

Teknobry

Teknobry

Teknobry

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Joined
1 May 2007
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Manchester. UK
Recently bought a place, its currently gutted and in need of a rewire. We're pushed for time to get it done before we move in, so I've used my builder website to get some quotes.

Cheapest came in a £1550, next price was £2450 then a couple at £3k.

I'm stuck with who to choose! Budget is a huge consideration so I want to choose the cheapest option but he was the least thorough when looking round the place, although he talked about all the sockets, light fittings etc in each room he didn't write anything down and just emailed a quote which basically said 'house rewire as discussed £1550'. I'm worried it's too good to be true.
The £2450 guy was very thorough and methodical and the quote he sent through was itemised exactly, although he did try and upsell a few things.

I realise I've not given you much to go on, this is just the choices spinning round in my head and I need to make a decision asap.
 
My dads an electrician and lives within the Manchester region, i bet hed give you a good quote but also the quality...

youll find the cheaper option will include cheaper fittings.... ie £1 sockets were the more expensive might use better quality fittings
 
That is quite a discrepancy in prices and my gut feeling is £1500 is far too cheap.

You need a proper quote from them setting out exactly what they are doing in terms of numbers of sockets, numbers of circuits, cable sizes (i.e. Are they wiring the oven and hob on its own circuit with appropriate sized cable etc).

When we had our rewire done it took 5 days for a 3 bed semi, once you factor in materials the cheapest guy is not making a huge amount from it and that makes me suspicious. For comparison ours cost £2.6k in London.
 
Maybe reiterate a few things with the cheapest guy and see what hes saying.

In the last couple of days we had 20 double sockets added to our house. It had very few initially. That work has cost me £1k.

I didnt need a new Consumer unit or anything though.
 
don't forget the price will always be cheaper if the house is empty. this saves a lot of labour time instead of moving the house around were your working.
 
garak112 said:
That is quite a discrepancy in prices and my gut feeling is £1500 is far too cheap.

You need a proper quote from them setting out exactly what they are doing in terms of numbers of sockets, numbers of circuits, cable sizes (i.e. Are they wiring the oven and hob on its own circuit with appropriate sized cable etc).

When we had our rewire done it took 5 days for a 3 bed semi, once you factor in materials the cheapest guy is not making a huge amount from it and that makes me suspicious. For comparison ours cost £2.6k in London.
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When discussed the cheaper guy mentioned all of that and we agreed what we would like (all existing sockets to be doubles and pretty much an extra socket in each room) He said oven, hob etc would be on a seperate circuit. cable size wasn't mentioned by any of those who quoted, I assume they'd use the correct size for the current draw.

Wow that seems cheap for a rewire in london!
My house is just a two bed semi detached bungalow, but the bungalow sits above a large garage so access is very easy to get into the floor and roof.
 
Teknobry said:
Wow that seems cheap for a rewire in london!
My house is just a two bed semi detached bungalow, but the bungalow sits above a large garage so access is very easy to get into the floor and roof.
Click to expand...

I did get a slight discount because the guy lived in the next Road and was desperate to work somewhere it would only take a couple of minutes getting home from instead of spending over an hour a day in traffic.

Also I did the making good work since we were decorating the whole house at the same time. Think we have 25 double sockets, cooker ring on 6mm, 10mm for shower and 11 lights.
 
Were having our house rewired this weekend, 3 bed semi, £1,400. New sockets about 35 doubles. Some new light fittings and all wiring brought up to standard, new CU, an old alarm and panic buttons removed as well.

Its a near empty house at the minute which he said saves a lot of time, ive asked for no plastering as im running network cables after they finish.
 
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Avoid the cheap one like the plague, I always think a lack of professionalism up front will be matched when the actual job is done!
 
Depending on location. £1500 doesn't seem cheap really. The prices have been pushed down hard over the last few years. It's an empty two bed bungalow.. it's like two days graft for two lads max.

I'd go the other way and say £2450 is expensive.
 
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I would check them all out, make sure the are registered and if they have any reviews on trade sites and then go with gut instinct of which guy seemed more through, thoughtful and overall seemed would do a better job.

New wiring will last you atleast 25 years if not 50+ so not worth saving a few quid and finding problems down the line, lots of things you wont see after the install unless you take the floors up or sockets off etc, good and bad jobs on the surface can look the same but corners can be cut where you cant see or unlikely to look.

I would choose whoever looks like they take pride on their work and work to a standard rather than work to a price or time and do a cheap rush job etc
 
I would have paid £2.5k for mine and this was for new Consumer Unit, 5 rings (down sockets, up sockets, down lights, up lights and kitchen) and 4 radials cooker, hob, exterior lights and my av cupboard) 32 downlights and 6 exterior lights.

This also included wiring for 4 rooms of speaker wires and all rooms to have CAT6 installed.

This covered LED GU10's for the full house and exterior. basic sockets and switches which i then swapped out for brushed screwless.

I had a cheap 1.7k quote and a 3.2k quote and went for the middle. One thing id be careful of is big companied "keeping their lads busy" by doing household jobs around their current business jobs which is what my guys ended up being and they had taken ages to do the house and ended up telling them to leave the job unfinished and did 2nd fix myself and got a sparky to install CU and test.

If you're going to be doing the ripping out and making good you may as well do first fix as its just drilling and chasing holes and running cables if you have an idea of where they need to go and what cable to use. I wish I had done mine from start to finish!
 
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