Domestic Electrical Rewiring

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Tue 5 Mar 2013 20:10
Domestic Electrical Rewiring - Roundglobetrotter

I need to obtain the services of an electrician in order to have a light switch replaced.

From what I can gather, the chances are that such a person will not want to do just the above job but will be keen to rewire our property!

I know very little on this subject and do not want to be told that we need rewiring simply because of the age of the property.

I recall that an electrician can do a test wherby with a meter of some sort he can get an indication of the efficiency / safety of the system. Somewhere between 90 and 100% seems to ring a bell.

Please can someone advise me on this matter so that I am not sold something which I do not require....especially re the %age below which rewiring is necessary.

Thank-you in anticipation of your help.

Edited by Roundglobetrotter on 05/03/2013 at 20:12

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Tue 5 Mar 2013 20:34
Domestic Electrical Rewiring - cockle {P}

I need to obtain the services of an electrician in order to have a light switch replaced.

You might want to employ an electrician to replace a light switch but if it is a one to one replacement and you're not making any material changes to the circuit then you don't need to employ an electrician.

Replacing a light switch is a fairly straightforward job for any reasonably competent person and perfectly legal for you to do. Obviously if you don't feel it's within your scope then don't take the risk but it's really not much more than wiring a plug, just make sure you've isolated the power to the lighting circuit before you start.

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Tue 5 Mar 2013 21:00
Domestic Electrical Rewiring - Roundglobetrotter

Thank-you Cockle for such a rapid reply!

Point taken.

If you or anyone else out there can enlighten me regarding the %age business I will be able to bear the figure in mind for future reference.

Kind regards.

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Tue 5 Mar 2013 22:49
Domestic Electrical Rewiring - Leif

Just replace the light switch as cockle says. It is easy but turn off the power at the fuse box.

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Thu 7 Mar 2013 08:33
Domestic Electrical Rewiring - Cyd

As a domestic electrician (for 7 years now) I take exception to your attitude that all tradesmen are simply out to con you or commit fraud by un-necessarily bumping up the job.

It sounds to me like you already know you have an old installation that is "past its best" and are already aware it may need some remedial works. You just don't want to pay for it and don't want to hear it from a Professional.

You should be aware that if a Professional visits your house and can reasonably spot unsafe aspects of your installation, he is duty bound to inform you of such. He would be failing in his duty of care if he did not.

There are many aspects that can determine whether an installation is safe or not, some are easy to spot visually to the trained eye, some require testing and inspection.

About a dozen people a year die in house fires caused by faulty wiring. And there are many more fires caused which (thankfully) result in damage only. A similar number die from electrocution due to faults too.
Here's just one example:
http://tinyurl.com/car3dgm

Sweet dreams.

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Thu 7 Mar 2013 13:48
Domestic Electrical Rewiring - Leif

As a domestic electrician (for 7 years now) I take exception to your attitude that all tradesmen are simply out to con you or commit fraud by un-necessarily bumping up the job.

I have had a few instances of that. Once a stove seller invited a plasterer round, to touch up the fire opening for 'beer money'. The quote was £200, not beer money. That was in addition to the stove installation costs. A second company told me that the work was not needed, and that they would touch up the fire opening wih plaster as part of installing the stove for no extra charge.

I also had a builder plaster and rewire my kitchen ready for new units. 6 weeks later they came back to install the fuse box (which I asked to be installed at the same time as the rewiring) and charged me £150 for 'reworking' five sockets. I had put new face plates on 5 sockets in several rooms during that 6 week gap.I was not warned, and I feel that I was screwed.

Not all trades are out to rip you off, good ones don't, but I suspect most people who claim to be trades are chancers. Probably much less among electricians due to the training required.

About a dozen people a year die in house fires caused by faulty wiring. And there are many more fires caused which (thankfully) result in damage only. A similar number die from electrocution due to faults too.

Here's just one example:
http://tinyurl.com/car3dgm

Sweet dreams.

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Thu 7 Mar 2013 13:53
Domestic Electrical Rewiring - Leif
About a dozen people a year die in house fires caused by faulty wiring. And there are many more fires caused which (thankfully) result in damage only. A similar number die from electrocution due to faults too.

Here's just one example:
http://tinyurl.com/car3dgm

Fear, uncertainty and doubt. The truth is that too many pros do bad work. My neighbour is an electrician, and when I last chatted to him, he said he'd checked some pro work and it was dangerous. And that is not rare. Part P had good intentions, but it does not stop the dangerous DIYer from doing unsafe work, and it is too much of a jobs for the boys charter.

I had a pro electrician install a light fitting and shaver socket in my bathroom. The light switch fell off the ceiling. I took a close look, and it had been screwed into plasterboard. I had to go into the loft, screw a block of wood to the side of a joist, and then screw the light switch through the ceiling and into the wood. The cover on the shaver socket is loose, and not easily fixed. The bathroom installer did not reply to emails. It makes me mad that some trades are too lazy to do basic jobs correctly.

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Sun 10 Mar 2013 18:56
Domestic Electrical Rewiring - Oli rag

I am an electrician and qualified to inspect, test and certify electrical installations( C&G 2391.) Once you have any work done on an installation, the qualified person is obllged to let the customer know if there are any areas which do not meet current regulations, turning a blind eye is not an option!

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Fri 15 Mar 2013 20:53
Domestic Electrical Rewiring - focussed

There are about 30-40 people killed per year in the UK as as a result of faulty elecrical installations.

Any serious repairs or modifications or installations must by law be done by a qualified electrician in the UK

As comparison there was in 2011 killed 1,901 Seriously Injured 23,122 Slightly Injured 178,927 All 203,950 on UK roads.

Anybody over the age of 21 who posesses a licence to drive the vehicle can teach anybody to drive as long as it is not for money or money's worth.

No mention of them having to be taught by a qualified instructor then?

Doesn't make sense, does it?


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Fri 15 Mar 2013 22:18
Domestic Electrical Rewiring - Leif

There are about 30-40 people killed per year in the UK as as a result of faulty elecrical installations.

The question that interest me is not how many deaths there are, but how many there were before and after the introduction of Part P. I could only find some pre Part P stats:

www.electriciansforums.co.uk/electrical-forum-gene...7

If there are 30-40, then things might have got worse. But in truth most installation will be old. You would think that if they introduce regs, they would monitor them. Unless the regs are for the benefit of the trades of course. My view is that Part P was developed through a combination of good intentions and self interest, as the industry must love it. I suspect it does not prevent dangerous wiring, but without stats/monitoring, who knows if I am right or not?

Any serious repairs or modifications or installations must by law be done by a qualified electrician in the UK

At the risk of being pedantic, it has to be done by a 'competent person'. One way to become competent is to qualify as an electrician. However, I had Worcester Bosch do a minor warranty repair on my boiler yesterday. They discovered that the Gas Safe engineer(s) who installed it had used the wrong sized gas pipe, rather than 22mm as per the boiler connection. Consequently had there been any other gas appliances, it would have been dangerous. (There would not have been enough gas, and the boiler might have sucked up so much gas, that for example a gas hob would have gone out. Then when the boiler went off, the hob gas would have restarted, but without any flame, filling the room with gas.) In practice my 30kW boiler could only operate at 25kW due to the restricted gas supply. I think I have mentioned my bathroom, with a light fitting that fell off the ceiling because the qualified electrician had bodged it. The idea that a trade is competent because they are qualified is a joke. Too many UK trades are bodgers. I was chatting to the WB engineer, and he said he does as much as possible because, when it comes to trades "I know what they are like". He was not surprised that my boiler was bodged. I tiled my porch floor. I did a better job than the professional who tiled my bathroom floor, but not as good as the pro who tiled my kitchen. Sigh.

As comparison there was in 2011 killed 1,901 Seriously Injured 23,122 Slightly Injured 178,927 All 203,950 on UK roads.

Anybody over the age of 21 who posesses a licence to drive the vehicle can teach anybody to drive as long as it is not for money or money's worth.

No mention of them having to be taught by a qualified instructor then?

Doesn't make sense, does it?


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Thu 21 Mar 2013 20:35
Domestic Electrical Rewiring - mss1tw
I recall that an electrician can do a test wherby with a meter of some sort he can get an indication of the efficiency / safety of the system. Somewhere between 90 and 100% seems to ring a bell.

Please can someone advise me on this matter so that I am not sold something which I do not require....especially re the %age below which rewiring is necessary.

Thank-you in anticipation of your help.

Insulation resistance testing is only one of many electrical tests (Dead and live)

Done properly an inspection and test doesn't automatically mean a full re-wire.

(Also a 2391 qualified sparks. :-)

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