House Rewiring
Southgate

Honest pricing depends on house size, age, and how much wiring already exists. As a guide for Southgate properties:

• Partial rewire (kitchen, 1-2 rooms, or consumer unit only): from £2,500
• Full 2-3 bedroom house (typical N14 Edwardian villa or 1930s semi): £4,500–£6,500
• 4+ bedroom or larger period property (the bigger The Bourne or Cannon Hill properties): £7,500–£10,000+

That includes materials, full first-fix and second-fix, new RCBO consumer unit, testing, certification, and Part P sign-off. Plaster patching with bonding plaster is included. Skim coats, painting, and re-decoration aren't — those are a decorator's job. Older Southgate stock with solid floors or lath-and-plaster walls adds 1-2 days of cable-routing time, which we factor into the quote upfront — not at the end. You get a fixed written quote after a free survey. No day-rate creep.

For most Southgate homes the work runs 5-10 working days end-to-end. A typical 3-bed semi takes 6-7 days; a period property with solid floors closer to 8-10. We work room by room so you can stay living there, and we maintain power to circuits we're not actively working on — fridge/freezer stays running, Wi-Fi stays up most of the time, and we do full power isolation only for short windows when connecting the new consumer unit (you get 24 hours' notice, never a surprise).

It's still disruptive: noise during wall chasing, dust during first-fix, and rooms come out of action one at a time. If you've got a baby, working from home, or pets nervous of strangers, some Southgate clients go to family for the noisiest 2-3 days — but most ride it out fine.

Honest answer: most "rewire" calls we get in Southgate turn out to be either consumer-unit-only jobs or partial rewires — not full rewires. The signs that genuinely point to a full rewire:

• Black rubber-insulated cable in the loft or under floorboards (1950s and earlier)
• Cloth-covered cables behind switches (pre-WWII installations, common in Fox Lane and Winchmore Hill Road period properties)
• No earthing to lighting circuits, or only two pins in some sockets
• Multiple circuits failing on EICR (small failures don't justify a full rewire)

If your fuse box just looks old (a wirewound or rewireable type), that alone is just a consumer unit job — usually £800-£1,200, not £6,000+. Frequent tripping on its own usually points to one bad circuit or appliance, not the whole house. We'll tell you which it is during the free survey, and we don't push rewires that aren't needed.

Usually not. A failed EICR (a single C1 or one or more C2 codes) means specific items need fixing, but a full rewire is overkill in most cases we see. The most common Southgate EICR failures:

• No RCD protection on circuits → fixed by replacing the consumer unit (£800-£1,200)
• Damaged insulation on lighting drops → fixed by replacing the affected circuits, not the whole house
• Missing bonding to incoming gas/water → 1-day remedial job
• Borrowed neutrals or shared circuits → targeted rewire of those circuits only

If your EICR has "rewire recommended" across most circuits with codes flagging cloth insulation throughout — then yes, the whole house probably does need it. Send us the report and we'll give you a straight read: targeted remedial work, partial rewire, or full rewire — and the actual price for each.

Yes, and it's often the right call for Southgate homeowners renovating in stages. Common partial scopes we do:

• Kitchen ring + lighting (tied to a kitchen renovation): £1,500-£2,500
• Ground floor or upstairs only: roughly half the price of a full rewire, sensible if one half clearly has older wiring
• Consumer unit + earthing only: £800-£1,500, fixes the most common safety failures

The catch: if your incoming supply or main earth needs upgrading, that's a one-off cost regardless of how much you rewire. We'll tell you whether partial works for your specific property — sometimes the saving is real, sometimes a full rewire is actually better value if you'd otherwise be back in two years.

Almost always before the finishes go in, at the same time as the structural work. This is where most homeowners waste money — rewiring the existing house, then ripping walls open six months later for the extension.

Practical order on a typical Southgate renovation:

1. Rewire + new consumer unit alongside the build's first-fix
2. New kitchen/loft/extension circuits installed at the same time, fed from one new board
3. Second-fix electrics with the kitchen install or after plastering
4. Single Part P Building Regulations Compliance Certificate covers everything

For loft conversions specifically: the new loft circuit and any added consumer unit capacity can be done as part of the loft build. Same for a side-return extension — we run new cabling for the kitchen and bi-folds without disturbing the rest of the house. Ask us to coordinate with your builder; we've worked alongside most of the Southgate ones.

Honest version: it's noisy and dusty for 2-3 days during first-fix, much calmer after that. Specifically:

• Walls: we chase shallow channels for cable drops — about 1-inch deep. We patch them with bonding plaster, leaving them ready for a decorator to skim and finish. Wallpapered walls need a strip peeled back, which has to be re-papered after.
• Floors: suspended timber floors (most Southgate Edwardian villas) need carpet/laminate lifted and floorboards lifted in strategic spots — refitted carefully, but they may show. Solid concrete floors (Southgate 1930s Metroland semis): we route through ceilings instead.
• Lath-and-plaster ceilings (period houses around The Bourne): we minimise drilling; sometimes patch repairs are needed.
• Dust: unavoidable during chasing. We use dust extractors at source, sheet up before starting, and clean down each evening — but expect a deep clean afterwards.

Plaster patching with bonding plaster is included. Skim coats, finishing, painting, and any re-decoration are a decorator's job, not ours.

Yes — and it's most of what we do in Southgate. The Cannon Hill, The Bourne, and Fox Lane Edwardian and Arts and Crafts villas have specific quirks:

• Lath-and-plaster ceilings — we work around them where possible, dropping cables into wall cavities and routing via the floor void above, so the original ceiling stays intact.
• Original cornicing and ceiling roses — we don't drill through them. Switch drops route alongside, not through.
• Brass, Bakelite, or period switches — if you want to keep them, modern smart-control kits can sit behind them invisibly. We'll tell you which can stay and which can't (anything pre-1955 with no earth has to come out).
• Original floorboards — we lift carefully and re-fit. Tongue-and-groove pine in good condition we keep; rotten or split boards we replace.

Tell us what features matter to you before we start. We've never had a customer regret the conversation, and we've often saved features a previous quote planned to remove.

Three steps, in order:

1. Get an EICR before exchange if you can. A homebuyer's survey only flags wiring as "outside scope" — they don't lift floorboards. An EICR is £180-£280, takes 2-3 hours, and gives you a real answer. We can usually book within a few days.
2. Use the EICR to negotiate. If the report shows C1 or multiple C2 codes, that's documented evidence to drop your offer by the cost of remedial work — typically £1,500-£8,000. Sellers often accept rather than risk losing the sale.
3. Don't panic about "old wiring" alone. A 1980s installation with a working consumer unit and RCDs may be perfectly serviceable for another 10 years. Truly dangerous installations (pre-1960s with no earth, burned or damaged cables) get flagged as C1 — that's the line, not just age.

Mortgage point: most lenders don't refuse mortgages over old wiring as long as the EICR is satisfactory or the seller agrees to remedial work before completion.

Yes — and it should. The point of rewiring now is not to be back in five years. What we include as standard on Southgate rewires:

• future high-load circuit allowance — spare 32A way on the consumer unit, labelled isolator at the meter end, ready for a 7kW or 22kW charger install
• Heat pump readiness — separate dedicated supply with the right cable spec from the start (saves money versus retrofitting later)
• Smart home wiring — neutrals to all switch positions (period houses often don't have these, which blocks smart switch installs later)
• Home office circuits — separate ring or radial, ideally with surge protection
• USB-C sockets in kitchen, lounge, or bedside areas if you want them

Specifying these up front during the rewire is a small incremental cost while we're already routing cables. Retrofitting them later — once walls are closed and finished — costs many times more because we'd need to chase walls, lift floors, and re-decorate. Tell us your future plans during the survey and we'll build the cabling around them.

Yes for most of it. Specifically:

• Power stays on overnight, every night — we leave you with a working consumer unit and at least one ring, lighting circuit, and fridge feed live every evening before we go.
• Phased outages during the day — when we're working on a circuit, that circuit is off. The rest stay live. You can usually still use kettle, microwave, fridge, and Wi-Fi from rooms we're not in.
• One full isolation window — when we swap the existing consumer unit for the new one (typically day 5-7). This takes 2-4 hours. We schedule it mid-morning, give 24 hours' notice, and warn you to defrost anything important.

If you're working from home, plan your critical calls or deadlines around the isolation day — we can flex which day if something is non-negotiable.

Honest answer: only if the wiring is genuinely failing or unsafe — not as a value-add alone.

What works:

• Failing EICR + a buyer survey ahead — yes, rewire (or do remedial work) before listing. Buyers walk away from C1/C2 code lists, or they negotiate harder than the cost of fixing it.
• Pre-1970s wiring with no modern consumer unit — at minimum upgrade the consumer unit (£800-£1,200) so the EICR comes back satisfactory. That alone removes the survey objection.
• Working installation that's just "old" — usually no. The buyer benefits more from doing it themselves (sockets where they want, smart-home ready) than paying you to do it generically.

If you do rewire pre-sale: time it 1-3 months before listing so the certificate looks fresh. Photograph the new consumer unit, keep the certificate, list "fully rewired with Part P Building Regulations Compliance Certificate" in the marketing.