House Rewire - Things to Do and things to avoid?

n30_mkii

n30_mkii

n30_mkii

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Alfreton,Derbyshire
So we've come up with a plan for our electrician to do a whole house rewire for a property which needs refurbishment before we move in. The things I've covered are

- Socket locations pretty much all doubles
- Light switch locations, 1/2/3 way including dimmers for bedrooms and living areas
- Cat6 network points for certain rooms and for wireless backbone etc
- Cat6 for PoE cameras
- Patch panel in loft
- spot lights, pendants for rooms
- LED batten lights for garage and loft
- Two double sockets in loft at gable ends
- UFH thermostat locations and wiring back to control box
- Doorbell Cable back to Consumer unit
- Outside lighting locations (approx) but need a better plan on a good setup for this
- Heat/Smoke detectors
- Grid switches for kitchen appliances
- Outdoor socket locations
- Future wiring above ceiling for possible media wall

I'm just second guessing myself that I've missed something obvious, I'm not planning on a hardwired alarm system at this point. Let me know if there is anything you'd add or change, anything that you've regretted etc

The sparky is really good and happy to accommodate what we need but first fix will start next week, so need to nail this down to avoid rework or last minute changes.
 
Oh one things we are still trying to decide on is spotlights or pendant only in the living room. Either way would be dimmable, with secondary lamps for mood lighting. Myself and the wife are back and forth with it. We like functional lighting, but also like the aesthetic of a nice pendant, both is likely a bit much
 
Get radials rather than rings for the sockets/kitchen. It’ll cost more but is far superior if youre going down the re wire route you may as well go full hog IMHO

I’d get Network points in every room as well, never know what the future holds.

Also I’d stick some sort of pipe in a wall where there’s things that might need to be changed in the future as we never know what’s going to be the next big thing - perphaps for your media stuff - although that might actually all turn out to be over WIFI 8E :D

—

I’m a spotlights man myself, you can get colour changing ones as well. Saves having lamps.
 
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Currently doing a complete rewire so to speak.

Buy all the cables and fitings yourself. Its cheaper via screwfix etc as if you just let your electrician get it, they wil charge u more than if you had bought it yourself.

Mark down on your walls where you want stuff to be in.

Seriously think about running some fibre LC cables as well. Future proof and they operate better for 10gbit.

OM3 cables are caoable of 100+gbi(depending on length)

They are more future proof.

Get yourself a POE router or switch.
 
Careful about providing your own kit, many tradies won't warrant their work with someone else's stuff, or will argue more if something goes wrong.

You don't want them telling you that you must have provided them with poor quality cable / switches etc.

As for pendants, I would have the wiring put in for both spotlights and pendants. It's easy to patch the ceiling and hide the cable if you decide you don't want pendants, not so easy to wire them after the fact.
 
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A few thoughts that might help:
Extra deep backboxes, with neutrals at light switches (to support any future smart switches that need a neutral)
Spare cables from meter to wherever a solar inverter may go in the future (T&E plus probably cat6)
Is whole central heating being rewired? Another candidate for a grid switch and cable(s) for (smart?) thermostat
House alarm - you could get cables in now if it's a future possibility. Also grid switch?
Cat6 to ceiling mounted POE APs?
Extractor fans and location of isolators (do you want to be able to reach them easily to turn off?)
 
Participant said:
Careful about providing your own kit, many tradies won't warrant their work with someone else's stuff, or will argue more if something goes wrong.

You don't want them telling you that you must have provided them with poor quality cable / switches etc.

As for pendants, I would have the wiring put in for both spotlights and pendants. It's easy to patch the ceiling and hide the cable if you decide you don't want pendants, not so easy to wire them after the fact.
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By buying your own kit. I mean the kit that the electrician tells u to buy
 
Sounds like you've thought of more than most will.

I'd say a double CAT6 in every room just in case, i've used mine to route my land line around to another room to have my router more centrally in then house so i don't need to mess around with AP's for example.

Plan capacity for solar, heat pump and an electric car charger
 
sovietspybob said:
I'd say a double CAT6 in every room just in case, i've used mine to route my land line around to another room to have my router more centrally in then house so i don't need to mess around with AP's for example.
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This. Almost everything is internet capable now and even if you don't need double today, you could well tomorrow.
 
n30_mkii said:
The sparky is really good and happy to accommodate what we need but first fix will start next week, so need to nail this down to avoid rework or last minute changes.
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Need to be thinking even further forward IMO, so a few things to consider.

* Location of consumer unit, and how many spaces you will have for future expansion. Also use all RCBO's in the CU for the cost difference it is much better solution.
* Relating to above, if you don't already have it planned then ensure you can integrate Solar PV and home battery easily back to the main CU. Consider moving the CU to a plant room/central utility area.
* Have a circuit put in place for an EV charger and cabled up to where you'll likely want it installed.
* Heat/Smoke alarms, have the versions that are -wired- together not wireless, so that they all sound at the same time, can link these if you need.
*Integrate Shelly type devices in every light switch and socket of you want to make your house smart without proprietary devices/software that must have internet access and manage them all with Home Assistant instead.
* I have speaker cables in all ceilings (some unused) and have in ceiling speakers in certain rooms, and use a quality central sound source rather than expensive proprietary things like Sonos, these can all be fitted afterwards, but the cables are a pain. I also use have them wired for Atmos in the living area, currently unused.
* PoE as mentioned above, for outdoor cameras and other things and make sure you run at least double runs of Cat6.
* In wall, and underfloor cable access if also a god idea, ducting or similar, and make sure in the relevant places they can fit things like HDMI connectors through.
* Consider a few sockets with integrated USB-A/C so you need less actual sockets if wasting them for things like chargers and even smart IHD or Firestick etc.

There is more but I'll pop back later and add that in. :)
 
Participant said:
Wouldn't it be harder to not have a neutral at a light switch than to have one?!
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It depends how they are wired. I'd hope current convention is to provide a neutral, but in the original part of our house the lighting rings (with neutral) go between the ceiling roses, and a T&E drops from the rose to the switch - one core is the permanent live, the other is the switched live back to the light.
 
Personally don't think I'd bother with network cabling. WiFi is getting better all the time. I no longer have any wired connections.

I do wish our light switches had a neutral wire though!
 
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413x said:
Personally don't think I'd bother with network cabling. WiFi is getting better all the time. I no longer have any wired connections.

I do wish our light switches had a neutral wire though!
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I would bother cabling rather than just WiFi if using a lot of foil backed insulation e.g. Celotex, it absolutely wrecks wifi strength!

-Id have a think about what you want in each room, switches wise (I'd account at least one per corner)
-Make sure any tv mounted electrical socket isn't too high
-have a more detailed think about lighting - personally I like spotlights only in kitchens /bathrooms

Media walls - if you mean the ones above fire I think these are currently a bit trendy but will very quickly go out of fashion and also lead to the tv being mounted too high above the fire.
 
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How big is the house? a lot of that list seems overkill for a typical 3 bed, but probably not if you have an 8 bed 3 story east and west wing type place.

Participant said:
Wouldn't it be harder to not have a neutral at a light switch than to have one?!
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Not sure what current wiring regs are, but it is easier not to have a neutral at the switch. The ring circuit just runs between the light fittings and you run a single cable to each switch using the neutral core as the switch live. In my house, the switches have 2 red cores in them not a red/black as a normal cable would have. Running neutrals to the switch requires running three core & earth cable to the switch (or running the ring circuit through the switch which I don't think is done), so you need a different cable type just for that purpose. If rewiring I'd certainly do it with a neutral using three core & E cable, but then you have to have a loose neutral cable hanging around in the backbox as most switches don't have a place for it, so you have to be careful to terminate it so its safe.
 
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Journey said:
Explain what is overkill in that list?
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For a typical UK sized 3 bed house?

Double cat6 to several rooms
Cat6 for PoE cameras
Patch panel in loft
Doorbell Cable back to Consumer unit
Grid switches for kitchen appliances
Outdoor socket locations
Future wiring above ceiling for possible media wall

Now if its a much larger house, then sure some of that might be worth it.

Journey said:
Consider moving the CU to a plant room
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Blimey is the guy living in a skyscraper?!
 
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danlightbulb said:
Now if its a much larger house, then sure some of that might be worth it.
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So what you are saying is that because he has less space, things should be less well connected and thought through, for now and in the future.

Why is having outdoor sockets a bad idea? What has that got to do with the size of a house. If I want to plug in my pressure washer it goes in to an IP65 rated socket either at the front or back of the property, or if I want to work with non-battery power tools outside then I can plug them in safely without having windows and doors open.

Why is Cat6 a bad idea for PoE cameras? Why have battery powered or mains powered cameras if you are having network cabling put in anyway.

Why is having cable run in a ceiling for future use a bad idea? Or would you prefer to pay someone twice to do the same job, the cable is cheap, the labour isn't.

Why wouldn't you have a patch panel somewhere if you are using Cat6 in the house, what is wrong with a loft space?

danlightbulb said:
Blimey is the guy living in a skyscraper?!
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I have a plant/utility room in a 'small' house - it contains the CU(s), solar PV/house inverter, house batteries, and other electrical switching, all network gear (sans modem for now), all the gubbins for hot water storage, water tank, and the control area for my soon to be fitted heat pump, it has the washer/drier and a sink on the plumbed side

The costs to implement aren't great if it is though out in advance, and it allows a much greater scope in your property. May I ask when the last time you had a property rewired was, or indeed did it yourself?
 
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