Electrical cables left exposed in a plastered wall during rewiring — A rewire is a building job that produces a document.

A rewire is a building job that produces a document. We carry out NICEIC house rewiring in Ilford — IG1 to IG6, including Seven Kings, Goodmayes, Newbury Park and Barkingside — with full certification and building control notification as part of the job.

Call 07502 396654 for a survey.

What NICEIC registration buys you on a rewire

Cable is cable, and BS 7671 applies to everyone. What scheme registration adds is an audit regime: periodic on-site assessment of completed work, instrument calibration checks, and review of documentation and technical competence.

Two things follow. We can self-certify notifiable work under Part P and notify building control for you — an unregistered installer cannot, which means you notifying the council yourself, in advance, at your own cost. And scheme membership brings a complaints process and warranty arrangements that outlive the job, which matters more on a rewire than on almost anything else, because a rewire is buried in the walls and its defects surface years later.

The documents a proper rewire produces

Written specification and quotation — circuits to be installed, accessory positions and counts, what making good includes, and the consumer unit specification.
Part P notification — handled through our registration before work starts.
Electrical Installation Certificate — recording the design, construction, and inspection and testing of the new installation.
Schedule of inspections and test results — the measured values, circuit by circuit. A certificate without this is an assertion.
Building control compliance certificate — issued via the scheme. This is the document a buyer’s solicitor asks for, and the one people cannot find eight years later.

What a rewire in an Ilford house involves

Unfinished socket position with cable tails during first fix wiring — First fix: cable routes earned through solid walls and lifted floors.

For a three-bedroom terrace, expect five to ten working days. Floors come up where the joist runs allow, walls are chased for drops to switches and sockets, every circuit is replaced from a new consumer unit outwards, and the whole installation is then tested from scratch.

Older terraces bring their own complications: solid walls that need chasing rather than cable in stud voids, chimney breasts that dictate routes, and lath-and-plaster ceilings that do not enjoy the experience. None of these are surprises to anyone who works the area, and we discuss them before quoting rather than discovering them on day three.

Properties that have been partially rewired before — which is most of them — need the boundary between old and new established early. A rewire that leaves a 1970s lighting circuit in place because nobody looked in the loft is not a rewire, and the certificate has to say so.

Does your house actually need one?

Digital multimeter alongside circuit breakers and electrical tools — Insulation resistance decides whether it is one bad circuit or a whole installation.

Not every old installation does, and the test is measurement rather than age. Insulation resistance across all circuits, tested at 500 V, distinguishes a house with one bad circuit from a house whose cable is at the end of its life.

Three findings genuinely point to a full rewire: rubber-insulated cable, typically surviving on lighting circuits in lofts; multiple circuits reading low on insulation resistance rather than one; and an installation so heavily altered that nobody can establish what is connected to what. Everything else is usually remedial work — a consumer unit replacement, main bonding, a couple of circuits renewed — which is days rather than weeks and a fraction of the cost.

Making good

A rewire is as much a building job as an electrical one, and this is where most disappointment lives. Establish before you sign whether making good means filled ready for decoration, finished plaster, or finished and painted. The three are different jobs at different prices, and we state which is included.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we stay in the house?

Usually yes. Most rewires are done room by room with supply restored each evening. It is slower and considerably cheaper than moving out. An empty house is faster and gives a better result on making good — tell us which you want at the survey, because it changes the plan and the price.

How many sockets will I get?

As many as you specify. A 1930s house was built with about two per room, and a quote based on like-for-like replacement will faithfully reproduce that. Count what you want room by room before anyone prices it.

Will you notify building control?

Yes, through our NICEIC registration. You receive the compliance certificate afterwards.

Do you do partial rewires?

Regularly. Where testing shows only some circuits have failed, replacing those is the honest answer and we will say so rather than selling a full rewire.