Rewiring a House - Homeowners Guide to What's Involved

A full rewire is a thorough, whole-property job. It’s not simply swapping out a few sockets — every electrical circuit in the building is replaced from scratch. In practice, that means:

• Removing all existing wiring throughout the property

• Running new cables to every room, including lighting and power circuits

• Replacing all back boxes on sockets and switches

• Installing a new consumer unit

• Replacing or relocating any hard-to-access sockets

• Rewiring telephone points and any other fixed electrical connections

• Full circuit testing and certification on completion

Optional upgrades — smart lighting, USB sockets, EV charging points, recessed downlights — can all be incorporated at this stage far more easily and cost-effectively than retrofitting them later.

Here’s the section on how HomeRewire carries out a rewire, rewritten in the same natural, human tone:

How We Rewire Your Home

Before any work begins, our team takes time to properly prepare the site. Tools are organised, access routes are assessed, and the sequence of work is planned out so the job runs efficiently from the first hour to the last.

Starting at the Consumer Unit

Every cable run begins at the consumer unit — the heart of your home’s electrical system. From there, new cables are routed throughout the entire property, carefully laid to reach every electrical outlet across every room. As the cabling progresses, circuits are organised into their separate functions: lighting, sockets, kitchen appliances, and so on. This separation is what allows individual circuits to be isolated if needed and keeps the whole system manageable and safe.

How Cables Are Routed

Getting cables from one part of the property to another is the most labour-intensive part of the job, and it’s where experience makes a real difference.

Cables travel under floors, through the attic space, and within the walls and fabric of the building. In practice, that means lifting carpets and floorboards and, where needed, chasing channels into the wall surface. Neither of these is a quick job done carelessly — we use the right tools throughout to make clean, precise cuts and keep any disruption to the structure of the property to a minimum.

Floorboards are treated with particular care. They don’t always come up cleanly, so we take our time to ensure the best possible cut each time. We’re aware that many homeowners choose to re-sand or restore their floorboards at some point, and we work with that in mind from the start. Where a floorboard needs to be removed to route cables beneath it, we bore holes through the joist or cut a small notch and fit a metal safe plate over it — protecting the cable from any future fixings going through from above. Once the cabling in that area is done, the floorboard goes back down, screwed or nailed according to your preference.

Protecting the Cables

Once all cables are routed and back boxes are mounted in position, we fit a protective capping over every cable run. This isn’t a regulatory requirement, but it’s something we do on every job as a matter of good practice. It keeps everything neat and organised, and — importantly — it means that when the plasterers come in after us, they can work freely without any risk of catching or damaging the new cables beneath.

What You’re Left With

By the time our team leaves, every circuit has been tested, the consumer unit is fully installed and operational, and your Electrical Installation Certificate is ready to hand over. The property is left clean and tidy, with floorboards back in place and cabling protected and ready for any making-good work to follow.

If the property is old enough to need rewiring, it is likely to be internally constructed of brick or lath and plaster. On brick walls we use wall chasers with dust extraction and breaking power tools. These allow us to work through the brick quickly and efficiently, though they can still create some dust. On lath and plaster walls we cause minimal damage to the internal strapping, and any damage caused is suitably bonded to ensure it remains structurally sound.

Our plasterers then get to work repairing and making good any damage we have made. When the plaster sets, we finally fit your fresh new sockets and switches.

Rewiring is a major task and you should fully understand the work involved and the scale of the job. Our engineers are more than happy to discuss every aspect of the work with you prior to our arrival — just get in touch and we will walk you through exactly what to expect.