BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO RENOVATION PART 12: Rewiring a house

A whole house rewire ensues electrical safety as well as opening up the options in terms of new lighting schemes and smart home technology.

First impressions can be cruelly deceptive, potentially landing novice renovators with budget-crippling additional costs. For example, in a typical renovation project, alongside the outrageous wallpaper, you might expect to find ageing electrical fittings that look like they’ve escaped from a museum — yellowing switches, weird-shaped wall sockets etc. But what if, instead, they all appear to be fresh out the box? If this is the case you could be the beneficiary of a welcome windfall with the major expense of complete electrical re-wiring no longer troubling your renovation budget — unless of course those seductive brushed nickel fittings turn out to be a mere façade concealing a tangled morass of frayed cabling. As such, it’s essential to get electrical systems checked whatever the apparent condition.

Surveys

A good starting point when buying a renovation