House Rewiring Questions Answered

A full rewire of a 3-bed house in Ireland costs €7,000 to €14,500, and a 4-bed €11,000 to €19,000. A 2-bed is €6,000 to €11,000 and a 1-bed apartment €4,000 to €9,500, with testing and the Safe Electric certificate included. The cost guide breaks it down.

An old fuse box with fuses instead of trip switches, no RCD on the board, black rubber cable, round-pin sockets, scorch marks or lights that flicker are the usual signs. Testing. A registered electrician tests the insulation and earthing of every circuit and writes it up in a Periodic Inspection Report. The age of the house is a clue, not an answer. See signs you need a rewire.

4 to 10 days on site for a 3-bed house, and 6 to 12 days for a 4-bed. Living in the house adds a few days, because the work goes room by room.

You can, and many people do. Expect dust, lifted floorboards and parts of the house without power for a few hours at a time. It takes longer and costs about 15 to 20% more than an empty house. See living in the house during a rewire.

Yes. The law says a Registered Electrical Contractor must give you a completion certificate for almost all electrical work in a home, and a rewire always needs one. Without it, ESB Networks won't connect a new or altered installation. See the Safe Electric cert.

Not for everyone. The council's Housing Aid for Older People grant pays up to €10,700 towards rewiring for owners aged 66 or over, and the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant covers rewiring as part of doing up a vacant house. See rewiring grants.

Usually not. Cables are chased into the walls, and filling and plastering those channels is often a separate job: about €2,000 to €4,000 for a typical house. Ask whether the quote includes it.

Because they often price different jobs: one includes a new board, earthing, smoke alarm wiring, plastering and VAT, another leaves half of it out. Ask for every item in writing, with the number of sockets and light points, so you compare the same job.

One Safe Electric registered electrician who covers your county. We pass your request to one electrician only, not a list, and they ring you to arrange a look at the house.

In an empty property, first fix chasing and cabling takes 4 to 6 working days, followed by plaster patching and 2 to 3 days for second fix sockets, switches, consumer unit termination and Safe Electric testing. In an occupied house where furniture and floorboards must be lifted and replaced each evening, allow 8 to 12 working days.

No. Under Irish law regulated by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU), a house rewire, consumer unit upgrade, bathroom circuit or outdoor power circuit is Restricted Electrical Work and may only be carried out and certified by a Registered Electrical Contractor (REC) with Safe Electric.

A complete rewire replaces the consumer unit with a modern RCBO and SPD board, upgrades main earth bonding to water, gas and oil pipes, replaces all twin-and-earth socket and lighting cables in PVC oval conduit, installs mains-interlinked smoke and heat alarms to LD2 grade, and concludes with dead and live verification testing plus a Safe Electric Completion Certificate.

On masonry walls, vertical drops to switches and sockets are chased 20 to 25 mm deep so cables can sit inside oval conduit beneath the plaster finish. Most electrical quotes include rough bonding or leave chases ready for a plasterer; always check whether skim-coat patching is itemised in your quote.

Yes. Pulling a dedicated 6 or 10 square millimetre feed plus a Cat6 data cable from the consumer unit to the driveway and plant area during first fix costs only a small material extra compared with surface-clipping armoured cable through finished rooms later.

Key indicators include an old brown Bakelite or rewirable porcelain fuseboard, black rubber or fabric-sheathed cables, round-pin or single sockets in bedrooms, lack of green-and-yellow earth sleeves at light switches, flickering lights, or scorching smells at the fuseboard.