The truth about rewiring and re-plumbing your home

Does your house need rewiring?

Start with the age of the house. If you see rubber cables and round sockets the system may not be unsafe but you should lunge for the Golden Pages. You many have square and round outlets side by side in an older house as the house may have been rewired, but when? Every socket, ceiling fitting and switch in a home should be replaced every ten years, (five in the kitchen) as they are working features that burn and wear after a time. You should have your wiring fully checked at least every 5 years by a qualified electrician

 

Cables. Despite the fact that rubber cables have a shelf of only 30-35 years, there are a remarkable number of homes that have not been rewired since the 1930s. PVC cables were introduced in the late 1950s. Previous to that time rubber cabling was used. If there are square plugs but no visible cabling in an older house take a look in the attic. If you find a junction box in the attic even if it has PVC cables, the electrical system is vintage stuff.

 

Call in the Professionals. New outlets and switches do not mean a house has been rewired or upgraded, it just means the switches and outlets have been replaced! If you have concerns about your own home pay for a qualified electrician to check connections inside ceiling roses and behind switches (don't attempt this yourself). This kind of check costs from 65-100Euro and is a wise investment. A standard survey does not generally cover the electrical and plumbing system of the house. If you can establish that a home needs rewiring or re-plumbing you have a powerful bargaining tool when it comes to fine-tuning your offer.

Rewiring: Complete replacement of the electrical system.

Budget: for 3 bedroom home 2,300Euro plus VAT (Varies between 100-200Euro depending on contractor).

Timeframe: 3-4 days

The process

A certain amount of disruption, damage and dirt is inevitable. Taking up elderly foam backed carpets that are welded to the floor is a filthy job. Getting under a complicated floor may involved cutting out sections of T&G planks or even taking a Kangol hammer to a slab floor. Sometimes there is old conduit in the masonry walls, however, it may be necessary to ‘chase’ into the plasterwork. There are specialist firms who can take on this work. Mini-trunking which covers wires run on the surface of the wall is another answer. Wiring in parallel with the old system allows the electrician to put the new wiring in place while the householder uses the other.

Opportunities for improvement during your rewire:

Move the outlets to more functional positions and you can use the old outlets during the rewire, then switch systems seamlessly.

 

An extra socket is always superior to the use of adapters, which can easily become over loaded. All sockets should be 'switched'. Most TVs now demand three plugs, one for the television, one for the video and one for the satellite box, so why not add another outlet? We are coming to the age of interactive TV, so a telephone point near the TV and in the bedroom is a good idea and CAT 5 cabling will make your home Network enabled, a potential selling point.

 

Introduce at least two smoke alarms, which are BATTERY BACKED and interconnected to each other. There should be at least one alarm on each level. The system should expand into the bedrooms if there are smokers or elderly people who need extra consideration.

Upgrading your electrics

Replacement of an old fuse board with a Miniature Circuit Breaker (MCB), Bonding and Earthing.

Budget: for 3-bedroom home 1,200Euro plus VAT

Timeframe: 1 day

Many homes still feature an old fuse board with a voltage operated ‘trip’ system beside the fuse box itself. Bonding and Earthing are vital companions to the installation of a new fuse board and a new board may isolate old faults when it is turned on, and some new wiring may be needed. Any RECI registered electrician will give you a certificate for a rewire or an upgrade. File this safely with your other important house documents.

How are your waterworks?

Re-plumbing a home tends to go hand in hand with the replacement of a ‘wet’ central heating system. Here are a few telltale signs that you may need to take the plunge into new water pipes:

Damp patches especially around a skirting board with powdery plaster, may signal that your pipes are failing.

 

Blackening around the boiler. A gas boiler may become hot enough to burn the enamel off in places

 

'Gun-barrel' pipe (from the 1970s) may carry rust patches where it rises out of the floor and meets the air. Gun-barrel pipe relies on staying dry, hardly a great choice for plumbing and central heating! Your system may be rusting from the inside out.

 

The expansion tank in the attic is acting as another radiator, warming up as air is taken into a leaky central heating system. A heating engineer will notice if the gauge on the tank is dropping markedly.

The process of replacement

Budget: 5,500Euro for Radiator style Central Heating (including standard boiler). 500Euro for plumbing.

Timeframe: 1-3 days depending on house size

Again, this will be a noisy, dusty, grubby experience but well worth the effort to obtain a heating system with high efficiencies and contemporary detailing like continuos pipe-work. Hard or complicated floor coverings cause the most delay and difficulty so ensure your new home does not need a new system BEFORE you re-decorate. Most plumbers prefer to install a complete system that they feel they can then stand over, rather than joining on to someone else work. Plastic pex-pipe is uncomplicated to install and will not ‘creak’ when heating and cooling. Copper pipe is slower to install thus increasing your labour costs.

Opportunities for improvement: Before you get carried away by the seductive charms of close coupled loos and the siren call of marble hand basins, explore the superb modern concepts available in a new central heating system. The benefits of un-vented systems with low water content radiators, to zone control and TRVs for individual radiators, can transform the energy efficiency of your central heating paying for its installation within 3-5 years. Choose a 40-gallon cistern over a 30-gallon model and replace your rusting oil tank too as water may well be condensing in its ancient innards.