Full house rewire or leave wiring as is with new RCBO CU?

I’d get at least 2 other quotes from reputable registered electricians , that would be my 1st start of advise .

if you can’t find any , Google component person .gov and have a look there with your postcode 

Very much doubt a full rewrite is in order , 

a domestic 3 bed eicr should take far longer than a hour if done correctly and properly that’s for sure ,  at least half a day in my experience of 25 plus years .

Hi and thank you for the reply 24Hour.

I know your right about the quotes. It's a tricky one...

The Electrician recommendation came from a very good friend. In fact my friends brother just had the guy do a rewire in November last year and he says his work was excellent. He is an older chap of about 45-50ish. He said he is punctual, neat and tidy and explained every aspect thoroughly. A good job done.

It's not cheap, but who wants cheap... He is in the middle ground I would reckon judging by online research.

I have my own business and he was very happy for me to supply all the materials. I can get the materials with discount through my trade accounts... He is going to give me a list of stuff to be going on with and see what we need as we come to it. I asked him if I could help him out and he said no problem at all. He knows I'm a Joiner and my Dad was an Electrician and that I worked with my Dad for years.

And, by all accounts the original EICR was done with all the appliances and the like plugged in and the power was only switched off once for 10-15mins. My wife was here for the EICR while I was at work.

The new guy said he will perform a full EICR and tests before changing the CU. I haven't asked him about the 4mm kitchen radial yet but I will be interested to hear his opinion. I don't know if the cabling is good or not. I don't know how long is too long for a wiring installation. As I said we suspect it's 1980s? But I have a niggling doubt that says what the hell get it done...

Thank you for your thoughts and all the best...

I agree - PVC cables in a domestic should have a service life in excess of 70 years - probably much longer if not heavily loaded for long durations, I can't see an 1980s install being a problem unless it's been abused. You might want a re-wire for good reasons - lifestyles have changed a lot of 40 years and you may want a lot more in the way of lighting and sockets and lots of other gadgets, and a rewire might be a reasonable way of achieving that in some circumstances - but that would be elective rather than there being any particular need to.

Rings are sill perfectly acceptable, as is feeding a hob and oven from a common circuit (unless manufacturers instructions say otherwise) - after all load wise it's just the same as feeding an old complete cooker, except that the hob and oven happen to be in different boxes. 6mm² T&E can be good to 47A depending on how it's installed (e.g. clipped direct or embedded in plaster on a masonry wall) or 38A if it's in a building void (e.g. under a timber floor or above a shallow false ceiling) (or even lower if thermal insulation is present next to it).

A new CU can do a lot to bring a new installation up to date - consider surge protection too these days - but nothing you have said suggests to me so far that it is required even if renting out - lack of RCD protection for cables in walls and lighting circuits would normally only be a C3 on an EICR - so still (just) a 'satisfactory'.

   - Andy.

A new CU and a re-wire are very different things. As Andy has said, PVC cables last for decades and nobody really knows how long their useful life might be. It might last as long as copper plumbing. For me, it really depends upon the condition of the wiring, whether it was installed well or badly, and how much has been done over the years.

If the cables are under capping or in mini-conduit, you will bless their installer, but if they have been plastered in, do you really want all the bother of opening the chases and making good afterwards? (Last time that I did that, I ended up in hospital, but that's another story.)

I can see that a new modern CU would be worthwhile. Now then, you might have a 1970s classic car, which you enjoy driving at weekends, but would you use it for daily commuting, or would you prefer something which has been made to modern safety standards?

Thanks for the advice  AJJewsbury ,

My family and I live in the house it's not a rental. We bought it about 3 years ago...

Two sisters and a Dad were the owners for 60 years before us! We had the new shower and circuit put in. 10mm cable in new colours. About 25m long.

It's a big old house and the cables to the kitchen are 40-45 meters long. 

The hob and oven are wired in the same box. It's a dual integrated box same as this one.

Yes your summing up sounds good though. A bit of thinking to do...

Thanks and all the best.

Hi and sorry to hear about your mishap... but judging by your classic car analogy, your sense of wisdom and humour has not been affected heh heh! I absolutely love that analogy being a classic lover myself!

As far as we know all the cabling is under capping in the kitchen. Which we think was refurbed in the 1980s along with the rewire. We have had a new kitchen since but never changed any wiring as I done the job myself.

Before my mate went off to other climes... He done the shower for us. He had a look  around at the accessories and the like and said it was a very good job that was done. The lighting circuits are in old steel conduit. When you take down a ceiling rose the 1mm twin and earth comes out of a round steel junction type box and there are tubes/conduit snaking around in the ceilings and down the walls. My mate took a Neodymium magnet around the walls and there was a very strong magnetic pull below switches and the like. The sockets are all fed from below the floor and when we had the floors up for the heating you could see the twin and earth running around the solemn on the ground.

I don't think it would be a particularly difficult job to rewire... ( He says famous last words)

A new CU for sure anyway...

Anyway, thank you for your time and I appreciate your thoughts.

Cheers for now...

Stewarty said:

It's a big old house and the cables to the kitchen are 40-45 meters long.

Strewth! I thought that 20 m from my desk to the kettle in the kitchen was a long way.

Brilliant! haha! Love it...

Stewarty said:

My mate took a Neodymium magnet around the walls and there was a very strong magnetic pull below switches and the like.

I have some wee pill-sized magnets which are useful for finding things like capping and even the nails in lath and plaster walls, and therefore, the position of studding. No. 2 grand-daughter thought that sticking the magnets to the wall was magic.

Bear in mind that formally, an EICR done under the auspices of BS 7671 ("the electrical regs") is required to list all the things that don't comply with the current edition of the regs. Amendment 2 to the current 4-year old edition of the regs came out a few days ago. Very few installations will fully comply with the current edition! That's why failures are classified as C1 (immediate danger - e.g. bare wire), C2 (dangerous after a fault, e.g. the wrong circuit breaker rating that might not trip when you put a nail through a cable) or C3 (anything else not up to the current standard).

Most C3's can be though of as 'next time you're redoing the kitchen / lounge / whatever, you might want to take the opportunity to fix up problem X".

So apart from C1/2 failures, there's usually no need to run around fixing everything. For example - lack of RCD on lighting circuits: that wasn't even required until 4 years ago. Millions of houses don't have such protection, yet hundreds of people aren't dying each year from flicking a light switch or changing a light bulb.

If it was my house: the cabling I'd leave as-is, unless it was the old stranded/tinned  imperial stuff, in which case I'd arrange that any time a room was being refurbished, replace all the cabling in that room at the same time as adding new sockets etc. (Or as someone else said, if it looked to be in bad condition). As long as an RCD protects all sockets, especially ones likely to be used for outdoors equipment, then that's reasonably safe. If might be nice to replace the CU with a new RCBO one (plus surge protection) but not essential.