Does a house rewire mean replastering?

Mess and disruption is the worry people raise most about a rewire, so here is exactly what happens to your walls.

What a chase is

To hide the new cable, channels are cut into the wall and the cable is laid in them. Those channels are the chases. Where cable runs down the wall to a socket or a switch, there is a chase.

What Ian puts back

• Every chase is plastered, so the wall is closed with the new wiring behind it.
• The house is left as it was before, with one exception.

What he doesn’t do

Painting. Ian doesn’t offer it, but he can recommend a painter if you need one.

Original features

In older houses, ceilings and cornicing are often a big part of the character. How the cable will be routed so as to protect them is a good question for any electrician, and the survey is where Ian goes through it, in the house, before anything is quoted. One customer who had just bought an old house wrote that they were concerned about not damaging original features and that Ian took great care to make sure of this.

Plan the order of work

If you are also renovating, the rewire goes in before the plastering and decorating. That way you plaster once and paint once.