Sockets on skirting board

[Rags11]

Hi,

I bought a Victorian period conversion flat & wanted a couple of additional electrical sockets put in. The existing eletrical sockets in the living room & bedroom are in the skirting board, with trunking below to the floor (they are high skirting boards).

The eletrician was going to install the additional ones in the same way, saying it would be very expensive to have them above in the wall & he couldn't give me a quote...When he pulled up the carpet, he found chipboard over the floorboards, so he advised having trunking run along the floor from one socket to another (rather than pull it all up).

This doesn't look great, but I can just about live with it. My main concern is when I come to sell the property, will it affect the value? How much would it cost to sort out the 4 double sockets in the living room & 2 in bedroom? I bought the property for just less than the stamp duty threshold, so there is a limit to what i can expect to sell it for. I have also never seen electrical socket boxes like this in a property before, only slimline ones, is this common?

Any advice/suggestions gratefully received.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

This doesn't look great, but I can just about live with it. My main concern is when I come to sell the property, will it affect the value?

How much did it affect it when you bought it?

How much would it cost to sort out the 4 double sockets in the living room & 2 in bedroom?

Hard to say without seeing it, and underfloor access sounds like it could be a problem. Do you know where pipes and joists run?

What's on the walls? How easy to make good? Has the skirting just got things screwed to it, or bits cut away?

I bought the property for just less than the stamp duty threshold, so there is a limit to what i can expect to sell it for.

The value of property can go up as well as down.

I have also never seen electrical socket boxes like this in a property before, only slimline ones, is this common?

?

Any advice/suggestions gratefully received.

Get a few quotes.

 

[pjcomp]

saying it would be very expensive to have them above in the wall & he couldn't give me a quote

Sounds like he didn't fancy the job and just wanted out! It would certainly be more expensive than the average knocking in of sockets, but without seeing the job I couldn't say how much. Some tradesmen don't want to work on older properties like yours because they offer more challenges than some people can cope with - additional layers of materials (like your chipboard on the floor), deep skirting boards (which are actually quite easy to get past), plaster that crumbles to sand when you chase into it and bricks that fracture.

It all takes a bit more thought, time and effort to do the work, which pushes up your costs of course, but had he been prepared/able to do the job he could still have quoted you and let you decide if it was too expensive.

I'd also surmise that if you haven't seen those sorts of sockets before you might have bitten off more than you bargained for with this house??

pj

 

[Gees]

Hi,

I bought a Victorian period conversion flat & wanted a couple of additional electrical sockets put in. The existing eletrical sockets in the living room & bedroom are in the skirting board, with trunking below to the floor (they are high skirting boards).

The eletrician was going to install the additional ones in the same way, saying it would be very expensive to have them above in the wall & he couldn't give me a quote...When he pulled up the carpet, he found chipboard over the floorboards, so he advised having trunking run along the floor from one socket to another (rather than pull it all up).

This doesn't look great, but I can just about live with it. My main concern is when I come to sell the property, will it affect the value? How much would it cost to sort out the 4 double sockets in the living room & 2 in bedroom? I bought the property for just less than the stamp duty threshold, so there is a limit to what i can expect to sell it for. I have also never seen electrical socket boxes like this in a property before, only slimline ones, is this common?

Any advice/suggestions gratefully received.

My home has exactly what you describe as to the mounting of the sockets.
It certainly didnt influence my decision to buy,
You could move them up to the wall but only if you paint the woodwork after making good.
Not on option in my case...
Sockets are mounted on Flat frames that screw to the woodwork.

Untitled

• Gees
• 16 Mar 2010
• 2

Untitled

• Gees
• 25 Aug 2013
• 1

[/img]

 

[ban-all-sheds]

The existing eletrical sockets in the living room & bedroom are in the skirting board, with trunking below to the floor

OOI, what sort of fusebox/consumer unit do you have? Is the socket circuit RCD protected?

 

[wingcoax]

My last house was an Edwardian Semi, with sockets on the S/B. I moved them up to the wall during the re-wire(TRS cable) and used the holes left to mount aluminium plates with all the A/V connections. If you use a long masonry drill they do have a degree of flexibility and can run down behind the skirting.

 

[flameport]

Sockets in or on the skirting boards are very common in older properties. They are not done like that in new ones because modern skirtings are generally too small, they are more likely to be damaged by vacuum cleaners and furniture, if very low the flex is damaged when the plug is inserted, and Building Regulations require that they are positioned much higher up anyway.

Adding others with surface wiring is the cheap option. Always possible to have them flush with concealed wiring, but this will cost significantly more. For 6 of them, expect a few hundred £. Floors will need to be lifted to get cables underneath, holes cut into the probably very poor walls for the backboxes, some filling and replastering is inevitable, and the holes left in the skirting will need to be dealt with.

As for value - not likely to make any difference at all. The majority of people probably wouldn't even notice until after they have moved in.
Some people only notice that they have old and ruined wiring once they have grossly overpaid for the property in the first place and then spent £1000s more on having walls replastered, expensive wallpaper, new carpets (usually white), laminate flooring, new bathrooms, kitchens, etc.

 

[sparkwright]

Difficult to decide how best to do this job without pictures, but sounds like you already have cables in trunking.

If skirting board is high enough you can certainly cut metal back boxes into it for flush sockets.

As getting the floor up sounds a problem, would suggest D line trunking on top of the skirting board. This should blend in well with the skirting board. B&Queue do it, and it's available in different sizes and colours. You should be able to run the cable behind the skirting board between the socket and the trunking.

There may be traditional floorboards in other rooms which may provide a route for wiring under the floor.

Pictures required.

 

[plugwash]

Note that MK still make a socket that is similar to this though boxier.