Full House Rewire London 2026: Cost & Timeline

A full house rewire is the biggest piece of electrical work most London homes will ever go through. It is also the piece of work where the gap between a casual quote and a properly scoped quote is widest — we have seen the same three-bedroom Victorian terrace priced at £3,200 by one trader and £8,800 by another, with neither figure being obviously wrong until you read what each one actually included. This page is the price book and the programme book we use internally at Emergency Repairs London for residential rewires in the 32 London boroughs in 2026. Use it to sense-check whatever quote you have in front of you.

The properties that come to us for a full rewire fall into a narrow set of patterns. The most common is a property built or last rewired in the 1960s or 1970s where the original rubber-insulated or fabric-covered cables are still in place behind the plaster; the second is a property where an EICR has come back with multiple C1 or C2 codes across multiple circuits and a remedial-only repair would cost almost as much as a fresh installation; the third is a property where the consumer unit is a legacy wire-fuse or unprotected MCB board with no RCD on the lighting or socket circuits and regular trips are interrupting daily life. If any of those describe your property, a full rewire is normally the right answer rather than another round of patch repairs.

Signs You Actually Need a Rewire

Before the price conversation it is worth being honest about whether a full rewire is justified at all. The signs we treat as decisive are:

• Wiring dated 1960s or 1970s — rubber-insulated cable degrades over forty to sixty years and the insulation cracks when disturbed. Fabric-covered cable predates that and is almost always end-of-life.
• No RCD protection on the consumer unit — pre-2008 consumer units frequently have no residual-current protection at all. This is a non-compliant arrangement under the current edition of BS 7671 for socket outlets used by ordinary persons.
• Regular nuisance tripping that an EICR cannot localise — if a competent EICR has been carried out and the inspector cannot pin the trips to a single circuit, the underlying installation is usually past sensible repair.
• Visible scorching at socket faces, switch plates or the consumer unit itself — heat damage at the accessory is usually a symptom of loose terminations or undersized cabling at multiple points in the installation.
• An EICR with multiple C1 (danger present) or C2 (potentially dangerous) codes across multiple circuits — at three or more C2 codes a full rewire is normally cheaper than serial remediation.

If only one of those is present, a London EICR followed by targeted remediation is usually the right call. If two or more are present, a full rewire is normally the cleaner answer.

Cost by Property Size — London 2026

ERL pricing for full residential rewires in the 32 London boroughs, 2026 rates, all figures inclusive of plaster make-good and the NICEIC Electrical Installation Certificate, exclusive of VAT and exclusive of final redecoration:

• 1-bedroom flat — £2,800–£3,800. Typically six to eight final circuits, one consumer unit, single bathroom.
• 2-bedroom house or flat — £3,200–£4,500. Eight to ten final circuits, often a kitchen with downlights and an extractor.
• 3-bedroom house — £4,500–£6,500. Ten to fourteen final circuits, two storeys, frequently with a downstairs WC.
• 4-bedroom house — £6,500–£9,500. Fourteen to eighteen circuits, often three storeys, two or more bathrooms.
• 5-bedroom house — £9,500–£14,000. Eighteen to twenty-four circuits, three or more storeys, multiple bathrooms, occasional three-phase supply consideration.

The range within each band reflects the cost drivers covered in the cost-drivers section below — primarily circuit count, accessibility of cable runs and whether items like an EV charger or three-phase supply are in scope. A site survey is the only way to land on a fixed figure; we book surveys free of charge across the boroughs and the survey fee, where one applies on tighter timelines, is credited back against the rewire quote.

What an ERL Rewire Includes

The line items inside the rewire price as we quote it:

• Every final circuit replaced — ring finals, radial circuits, lighting circuits, dedicated cooker and shower circuits, smoke-alarm interlink wiring, doorbell, hard-wired CO alarms.
• New 18th-Edition consumer unit with RCBOs on every circuit — not a dual-RCD split-load board with shared protection, but a fully RCBO board so a fault on one circuit cannot trip a second. Surge-protection device fitted at the origin.
• Earthing and bonding brought up to the current edition of BS 7671 — main earth conductor sized to the supply, supplementary bonding to incoming gas and water services, and bonding inside bathrooms where required by the assessment of zones.
• All sockets and switches replaced — to the client's choice of standard white moulded, brushed-chrome or screwless flat plate. Brushed-chrome accessories sit at the upper end of the price band on each property size.
• Plaster make-good — chases filled and skim-coated. See plaster make-good explained below for the boundary with the painting trade.
• NICEIC Electrical Installation Certificate (EIC) — valid for five years and accepted as the EICR baseline for landlords, conveyancing and insurance.
• 24-hour fast-track callback for 12 months — if anything misbehaves inside the first year we attend the same day or the next morning at the latest, no callout charge.

What Drives the Final Cost

The six factors that move a rewire quote inside (and occasionally outside) the bands above:

• Circuit count — the headline driver. Each extra final circuit adds cable, accessories, a way on the consumer unit and labour time. A property with separate circuits for an electric shower, an outside socket, an EV charger and a garden room sits at the upper end of its size band.
• Distance from the consumer unit — third-floor bedrooms with the CU in the basement need longer cable runs and more first-fix labour than the same circuits laid in a flat.
• Accessibility of the runs — joist-accessible (lift carpets, lift floorboards, run cable, replace boards) is the fastest and cheapest. Concrete floors that have to be chased, or finished hardwood that the client wants to keep down, force the cable into wall chases or surface trunking and add labour everywhere.
• Kitchen and bathroom complexity — downlights, extractors, IP-rated zones in showers, induction hobs that need a 32-amp dedicated radial, integrated appliances on individual fused spurs. A modern kitchen-bathroom refit running alongside the rewire adds £400–£900 of electrical work over a like-for-like replacement.
• EV charger inclusion — typically £900–£1,400 added if scoped at the same time and the supply has the headroom. Doing it as part of the rewire is meaningfully cheaper than retrofitting a year later; see our London electrical work page for the wider service.
• Three-phase upgrade — only relevant on larger five-bedroom properties or where a heat pump, two EV chargers and an electric shower together exceed a 100A single-phase supply. Coordinated with the DNO (UK Power Networks across most of London) and adds £1,800–£3,500 plus the DNO's charge.

Timeline by Property Size

Working days on site, excluding weekends and excluding the painting trade that follows:

• 1-bedroom flat — 4–6 working days
• 2-bedroom house or flat — 5–7 working days
• 3-bedroom house — 7–10 working days
• 4-bedroom house — 10–14 working days
• 5-bedroom house — 12–16 working days

These are realistic site-day figures with a two-electrician crew. Single-electrician crews are slower and we do not run them on rewires of three bedrooms or above — there is too much load on first fix and too much risk of slow plaster make-good if one person is on site.

Day-by-Day Schedule on a Typical 3-Bed

The programme below is the schedule we run on a standard three-bedroom Victorian terrace with timber floors throughout. Larger properties stretch the middle days; smaller properties compress them.

• Day 1 — Strip-out. Existing accessories removed, old cabling pulled where accessible, floors lifted, walls marked up for chases. Skips arrive and leave the same day where the borough allows.
• Day 2 — First fix begins. New back-boxes set, chases cut where needed, joist holes drilled, cable runs pulled from the consumer-unit location outward.
• Day 3–4 — First fix continues. All circuits pulled and labelled at the CU end, smoke and heat alarm interlink wired, bathroom supplementary bonding installed.
• Day 5 — Consumer-unit change and power back on. Old board out, new RCBO board installed, supply switched back on, every circuit dead-tested and live-tested. This is the day power is fully off for the longest single block — typically four to six hours.
• Day 6 — Second fix. Sockets, switches, light fittings, cooker outlet, shower switch, accessories all installed and terminated.
• Day 7 — Plaster make-good. Chase-fill and skim coat across every chased wall and ceiling. Skim left to dry — paint cannot follow for roughly two weeks.
• Day 8 — Final testing and certification. Full BS 7671 inspection schedule completed, NICEIC Electrical Installation Certificate issued, walk-through with the client and circuit-by-circuit handover.

Can You Live in the Property During the Works?

Partial occupation is feasible on most rewires and is what we recommend by default. The crew sequences room by room: bedrooms first while the family uses the living area, then the living area while the bedrooms are reoccupied and so on. The kitchen and at least one bathroom can normally be kept usable for all but one day each, with a microwave-and-kettle setup if the kitchen has to come out completely for a refit.

A fully simultaneous rewire — every room open at the same time — is faster overall and is the right call when the property is empty between tenancies, between sales or during a wider renovation. It typically requires the household to be out for three to five working days, most importantly the day the consumer unit is changed and the supply is off.

The decision turns on whether the household has young children, vulnerable residents, pets or remote-working arrangements that cannot tolerate dust and noise; on whether a relative or short-let can absorb the household for the noisy days; and on the timeline pressure on the overall renovation. We will quote both modes separately at survey so the client can choose with the numbers in front of them.

Plaster Make-Good Explained

The single most common misunderstanding on a rewire quote is what "plaster make-good" actually covers. The ERL definition — and the industry-standard definition across competent London contractors — is:

• Chase-fill — every chase cut into a plastered wall to take a cable is bonded and filled flush with the surrounding plaster.
• Skim coat — a fresh thin coat of finishing plaster over every chase-filled area, feathered into the surrounding wall so the surface is flat and ready to take paint.

What plaster make-good does not include is the painting, papering or final decorative finish. If a wall needs more than a chase-fill and skim — for example a damaged ceiling that needs over-boarding before skim, or a wider re-skim across a whole room — that is the dedicated London plastering service and is quoted separately. Painting is a separate trade and a separate cost — fresh plaster needs roughly two weeks to fully dry before a mist-coat goes on, and a competent decorator will refuse to mist-coat green plaster because it causes flaking later. Most clients book a London painter and decorator to start the week after the rewire completes.

Cheaper Alternatives — When a Full Rewire Isn't Needed

Not every property in front of us needs a full rewire. The two cheaper paths we quote regularly are:

• Partial rewire — kitchen and bathroom only — £1,400–£2,200. Right call when the rest of the installation is sound but the kitchen and bathroom circuits are dated, undersized for modern appliances, or have no RCD protection. Includes new cabling on those circuits, new accessories, supplementary bonding in the bathroom and a minor-works certificate.
• Consumer-unit upgrade only — £500–£900. Right call when the existing cabling is in good condition (PVC-insulated post-1980s, no scorching, no nuisance trips) but the board itself is a legacy wire-fuse or unprotected MCB unit. A new 18th-Edition RCBO board, supply re-terminated, full installation EICR-tested to BS 7671 and the existing circuits brought under modern protection. See our dedicated page on fuse board upgrades in London.

The honest call between these and a full rewire is made on the back of an EICR or a site survey, not on the back of a phone description. A property where only the kitchen circuits are tired and the rest of the installation passes EICR almost always wins on a partial rewire; a property where every circuit has a question against it almost always wins on a full rewire, because the labour overhead of returning to site for repeated remedials usually exceeds the cost difference.

NICEIC Certification — What You Get at Handover

On completion you receive an NICEIC Electrical Installation Certificate (EIC). The EIC is issued under BS 7671 by the qualifying supervisor who signed off the work, lodged with NICEIC under our scheme registration, and valid as the baseline electrical condition record for the property for five years. Specifically the EIC:

• Records every circuit, its protective device, its cable size, its test results (continuity, insulation resistance, polarity, earth-fault loop impedance, RCD operating time) and its declared safe condition.
• Is the document a conveyancing solicitor will ask for on sale, a buildings insurer will ask for if there is a fire claim, and an HMO licensing officer or borough enforcement team will ask for on inspection.
• Becomes the EICR baseline for the next five years — the next EICR compares the installation against the EIC, so a clean handover here saves money on every future inspection cycle.

For landlords in particular the EIC at the end of a rewire is the cleanest possible compliance position under the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 — the five-year EICR clock starts from the EIC date. Pair it with the wider compliance picture on our London EICR page.

FAQs

The FAQ schema at the foot of this page covers the cost of rewiring a three-bedroom London house, typical full-rewire timelines, partial occupation during the works, the redecoration question after plaster make-good, and the distinction between a full rewire and a partial or consumer-unit-only upgrade.

For the wider electrical service catalogue across the boroughs — from emergency callouts through to full full rewire London projects, fuse board upgrades and EICR inspections — start on the London electrical work hub.

Ready for a site survey and a fixed quote? Call 0207 046 1363 or WhatsApp 07456 975436. Most surveys are booked inside 48 hours and most rewires start inside two weeks of the quote being accepted.

John Alexander N. — Director, Emergency Repairs London