Two bedroom upstairs flat in a 1930s conversion. Rubber-sheathed wiring on the lighting circuits which an electrician says is original and perished at the ends. Sockets were redone at some point in what looks like the 1980s and appear sound. Full rewire quote is around £6,500, partial is roughly £2,200. I'm staying at least ten years. Where does partial stop being false economy?
The argument for doing it all at once is the mess, not the wiring. A rewire means channelling walls, lifting floors and patching plaster, and in an old flat that's the expensive and disruptive part. Doing it twice means paying the disruption cost twice, which is a big chunk of the gap between your two quotes.
This is the real point. My partial rewire cost me a second round of plaster repairs and redecoration three years later, and by the time I added that up the full job would have been cheaper.
Whatever you decide, do the consumer unit and RCD protection now. That's the single biggest safety improvement per pound in an old installation, and it's a day's work.
Get the independent EICR before you choose. Mine came to about £180 and it turned a guess into a decision — the socket circuits tested clean apart from two minor codes and the lighting was as bad as the electrician suspected. Also ask whoever does the partial to run empty conduit or draw cords where the rest of the rewire would go later. Costs almost nothing on the day and saves a second round of channelling.
One thing people forget in a conversion flat: ask whether the supply and the meter position are shared, and whether any of your circuits pass through common areas. That can complicate a rewire in ways that don't show up until the electrician is standing there.
@yamlfatigue · 11mo ago · 3 replies
Rubber sheathed lighting circuits are the one thing here that genuinely needs to go — the insulation goes brittle, cracks when disturbed, and the failure mode is a short or a fire rather than a nuisance. So the lighting rewire isn't optional in any sensible version of this.
Whether you do the sockets depends entirely on what a proper test says, not on how they look. Get an EICR from an electrician who isn't quoting for the work. It gives you insulation resistance readings, earth continuity, and a list of coded faults. 1980s PVC in good condition can easily have another 20 years in it; 1980s PVC that's been buried under insulation or run without earths at the lighting points is a different story.
The usual answer for a flat you're keeping ten years is: rewire lighting, replace the consumer unit, keep tested-sound socket circuits, and accept a bit of extra making-good cost later if you ever do the rest.
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@yamlfatigue · 11mo ago
It's a defensible choice with a test report behind it. Without the report you're guessing, and that's the part I'd spend money on first.
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@immutable_infra · 11mo ago
That's roughly the partial quote's scope. Good to hear it isn't obviously the wrong choice.
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