Rewiring a bungalow quote

[Romany]

Hi all,

My dad had to guys down to look at rewiring his bungalow,
The lad said the walls need chiselling out to get to the old cables and put the new ones in. They didn't even look in the attic to see if they could be
Fed down the walls or to take a light switch off. My dad said forget it I'll need to redecorate afterwards. After he told me I went up the attic and could see the cables could be fed down and I'm no electrian. The bungalow is 50 years old are they right has anyone had to chisel out for cables.

Thanks.

 

[riveralt]

Are you saying that the cables in the house is currently in conduit?

If so and they are in good order (and more importantly) they're in the right places and there are sufficient number then you would not need to channel out the walls.

However, given the age of the house and the likely number of sockets/switches currently in existance I would suspect that they would have channel out the walls to bring the house up to modern standards.
Generally 4 sockets per living room and 3 per bedroom.

If its not conduit then the only other option without digging into the walls will be surface mounted trunking - which will look orrible!!!!

 

[Romany]

The cables were fed down inside the studded walls in the kitchen where it's
Solid walls it's fed down in trunk in.

 

[sparkticus]

Rewiring a property properly is a very dirty business that impacts just about everything. It is very common to "chase" out walls for cable runs. If you are lucky then some or all conduit runs can be re-used but some chasing will still be required. Trunking on the wall surface looks awful and will do nothing for the resale value of the bungalow except lower it.

 

[sparkwright]

Re-wiring the lights in a bungalow should be very easy if the existing switch drops are in conduit.

I assume from your description the socket cables are in the loft, and drop down to the sockets.

It may be possible to get new cables through any existing conduit, but you just can't tell for sure until you start the work. If you have wooden floors you may like to think about running the cable this way, if it would help.

It was very common 50 years ago to run cables in brick cavities, so you may have this arrangement on the outside walls.

 

[ColJack]

it's not always possible to run new cables down capping, so the sparky may have been warning that they might / will likely have to chase in new ones..

 

[Romany]

I am sure the socket cables run under the floor boards. Because
in my younger days i've been under there and seeing cables along the floor joist.

 

[ColJack]

under the floor?
you're not named Potter are you? live with your Aunt and Uncle??

 

[sparkwright]

If the socket cables are under the floor you should only have a very short distance to pull the cables through the conduit, so in theory there may be very little damage.

And any additional sockets can have the cables go up behind the skirting board, and a surface mounted box situated just above the top of the skirting board. Leave some slack cable under the floor, and these sockets can be flushed in and raised to the correct height next time you decorate.

It may be the case that the electrician you saw was inexperienced.

 

[RF Lighting]

Or experienced and correct...