HomeRewire’s Guide To HomeReports.
Buying or Selling a House?
The HomeReport is a handy document that describes the property condition.
It categorises parts such as the electrical system into numbers 1-3.
The electrical system can be difficult for any surveyor to be accurate on.
Why?
The electrics in your home are mostly concealed in walls, under floors and hidden behind your fusebox, switches and sockets.
The surveyor won’t go as far as removing any items so are forced to make judgement based mostly on the consumer unit.
Here we show some typical consumer units and the relevant category we would expect.
You can also see an accurate description of the categories, but we like to keep it in simple layman’s terms.
1 – The electrics appear in good condition and do not required any upgrade. The surveyor is looking for new trip switches with RCD protection.
2 – The surveyor is not entirely sure of the condition and recommends an NICEIC approved contractor carries our further assessment. It may have trip switches but still shows signs of age.
3 – The electrics are dated and usually beyond repair with recommendation to replace and upgrade accordingly. Usually pretty obvious too see.. anything made of wood or cast metal is antique!
The difficulty is that it’s quite easy to make a installation that deserves a 3, appear like a 1.
Change the consumer unit for new, tidy up some switches and sockets…
Hey presto it looks new…
We are often tasked with rewiring homes that had new fuse boards hiding 100 year old wiring.
To the untrained eye it looked good and the HomeReport number was inaccurate at the point of sale.
The new homeowner is left with an expensive rewire job that they didn’t foresee.
The surveyors usually have a disclaimer on their survey to say that they are limited on their judgment, and quite rightly so.
Dodgy electrics can be hard to spot!
Despite this we think the HomeReport document is a great tool to gauge the condition of your home..
If your buying a home and want reassurance on the electrics there’s a few options…
You can carry out an EICR to determine the condition of the wiring at a cost of around £250.
Alternatively HomeRewire offer a free visual inspection. Our experience can usually determine whether you need a full rewire or a simple upgrade to the system.
To get started simply upload an image of your fusebox here!
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