Getting Your Home Rewired: What You Need To Know

If you notice that you are constantly dealing with issues like flickering lights, constant power surges, or you notice that you are constantly having to flick your switchboard back on, then you might have an issue with your home’s wiring. Depending on the severity of the issue, you may only require minor rewiring done, but you may also need to have your entire home rewired if the problem is truly severe.

Likewise, if your home is over a certain age, then it may need to be rewired completely. Older homes, especially those built in the 60’s and 70’s were not built with wiring to accommodate all the modern appliances and electronics that you will find in your average home. If you have no idea where to start when it comes to rewiring, then do not worry, we have compiled this guide which will tell you everything that you need to know about getting your home rewired.

Calling an electrician

The first thing you need to do when determining whether you should get your house rewired is to call an electrician, who will come down to your house and evaluate the state of your home’s wiring. The electrician will do a complete evaluation of your home and determine whether your home needs to be rewired or not. Of course, even if they do not say that your home needs to be rewired, then you can still opt to get your home rewired. There are benefits to getting your home rewired, even if you do not have an urgent wiring problem that needs to be fixed, but we will cover the benefits of home rewiring later. Anyways, once the electrician has finished evaluating the state of your home’s rewiring, then they can give you a rough idea about how much the rewiring will cost.

Determining how much it will cost to rewire your home

Obviously, it can be difficult to determine exactly how much you will be spending to get your house rewired because so many different factors go into determining the price. But, we can give you a rough idea of how much it will cost to get your house rewired. First off, one of the major costs is going to be new wiring. Copper wiring is expensive, to say the least, so if your house needs a lot of new wiring, then quite a bit of your final cost will end up being copper wiring.

The next major cost you need to be aware of is labour costs. Labour costs are made up of two components. The first component is how much your electrician charges on an hourly basis. The second component is going to be how difficult it is to rewire your house. If an electrician has to put in more effort to rewire the house, then you are going to end up paying more. Generally speaking, to get a standard house rewired you are going to need to pay a couple thousand dollars at least. Of course, you can always get lower quotes by shopping around.

In general, when it comes to contractor work, you never want to go with your first quote unless it is an absolutely great offer that you just cannot pass up. Also, when you get a quote, make sure to get the electrician to break down the quote and explain why they are giving you that price. That information will be very useful if you decide to get someone else to come into your home and give you a second quote.

Benefits of getting your home rewired

Alright, now that we have covered things like pricing and getting your wiring inspected before it gets replaced, let’s discuss the actual benefits of getting your home rewired. Even if there is no urgent issue in your home, it can still be beneficial to get your home rewired if you happen to have the money to spend. Let’s cover a few of those benefits.

It boosts your home’s value

If you are looking for ways to skyrocket your home’s value, then getting the home rewired is a great way of doing so. See, wiring tends to degrade over time and so if someone is looking into buying an old home, they may know that they will soon need to replace the wiring. But, if you are able to say that you have already gotten the wiring replaced, then that is going to make your home that much more valuable. Of course, it is also a great selling point if your house is on the market, being able to say that you got the wiring replaced recently can be a nice, extra selling point.

More power

As we said at the beginning of the article, many older homes were just not built to handle the electrical demands of modern society. When many homes were built, families only had one television, and they had no computers, no gaming systems, no entertainment systems, and many did not have power hungry appliances like washing machines and dishwashers. Not only do modern homes have more appliances, the appliances are also far more powerful than they were in the 60s and 70s. So, older wiring can sometimes struggle to accommodate all the new demands being put on it, which then leads to flickering lights, the switchboard being tripped, and a whole host of other electrical problems. If in the future you plan to significantly increase the power usage in your home, then it might be a good idea to get rewiring done beforehand.

More safety

Over time, electrical wiring begins to degrade, specifically, the insulation in the wiring degrades. This can lead to issues like arcing, specifically near outlets, which causes electrical fires. Plus, as the wiring’s insulation degrades, it becomes more susceptible to overheating and other issues, which of course leads to electrical fires. Finally, you can also get the outlets checked out when you get your home rewired. If you do not already have 3 pronged outlets installed, then you should get them installed when you get your home rewired, as they are much safer.