Tier 1 coverage, Merseyside
Electrical work in Birkenhead
The oldest housing stock on the peninsula, a lot of it rented, and installations that range from recent to very old indeed.
- We look before we price
- In writing, itemised
- We say what is not ours
Old houses, and installations of every possible age
Birkenhead's housing is largely Victorian terrace, and the thing that matters for wiring is that the house being a hundred and forty years old tells you almost nothing about the installation in it. Some have been fully rewired in the last twenty years. Some were partly rewired in the eighties and have original cable still buried in a back bedroom. A few have had nothing but additions since the house was first wired.
So the first question on any Birkenhead job is what is actually there, and the honest answer is that it cannot be known from the doorstep. Lifting a socket front and looking at the cable, and looking at what is in the consumer unit, tells you more in five minutes than any amount of guessing from the age of the brickwork.
What a partial rewire leaves behind
The common pattern in these streets is a house that has been improved in stages by different people over forty years. A new kitchen with new circuits, a bathroom done at some other point, a loft conversion with its own additions, and the original lighting still running on whatever was there before.
That is not automatically a problem and it is frequently why a job is more involved than it looks. Adding a circuit to an installation nobody has a full picture of means establishing what is there first, and that is time rather than materials. It is also why we would rather look than quote over the phone.
Rented property, and the landlord's duty
A large share of this housing is rented, and a landlord in England has a legal duty to have the electrical installation in a let property inspected and tested at regular intervals and to act on what the inspection finds. That duty sits with the landlord and the rules are the government's rather than ours.
What is worth knowing as a landlord is that the inspection is an examination of the whole installation and it takes real time, and that any remedial work it identifies is a separate piece of work after it. Booking the inspection and assuming nothing will come out of it is how people get caught short between tenancies.
Converted and subdivided property
Birkenhead has a lot of large old houses split into flats, and a subdivided building raises questions a single house does not: where the supply is, how the meters and the submains are arranged, whose circuit the hall light is on, and what is shared.
Those are worth untangling before any work rather than during it, and on a converted property the first visit is as much about reading the building as looking at the wiring.
What Birkenhead asks for most
Rewiring in Birkenhead
Houses improved in stages, where nobody has the full picture.
Read moreConsumer units in Birkenhead
Older boards in long untouched terraces.
Read moreLandlord electrical checks in Birkenhead
A large share of this housing is rented.
Read moreFault finding in Birkenhead
Installations with forty years of additions in them.
Read moreAlso in Birkenhead: sockets and lighting in Birkenhead, car charger installation in Birkenhead, outdoor and garden electrics in Birkenhead, smoke and heat alarms in Birkenhead, electric showers in Birkenhead, extractor fans in Birkenhead, electrical prices in Birkenhead.
Questions from Birkenhead
How do I know if my house needs rewiring?
The age of the house tells you very little. What tells you something is what is behind a socket front and what is in the consumer unit: old rubber or fabric covered cable, round pin sockets, a fuse board with rewirable fuses, or lighting with no earth at the switches. Any of those means a proper look at the whole installation.
Can I have one circuit done rather than the whole house?
Often, and it is a normal way to spread the cost. What decides it is the state of what the new circuit joins onto, which is exactly why establishing what is already there comes before any quote.
I am a landlord. How often does the installation need inspecting?
There is a legal duty on landlords in England to have the installation inspected and tested at regular intervals and to act on the findings. The interval and the detail are set by the government rather than by us, so the sensible thing is to check the current rules for your situation.
Other areas covered
Twelve towns across the peninsula. What decides an electrical job is the age of the installation rather than the age of the house, and on the Wirral those two are often decades apart.
Get a price for a job in Birkenhead
A photo of the consumer unit and a note of roughly when the house was last worked on tells us most of what we need.
Get in touch
Tell us what the job is and roughly how old the house is. A photograph of the consumer unit and of the inside of a socket front answers more than any description.
- Phone0151 453 8836
- Emailcontact@wirralelectrics.com
- WhatsAppSend us a photo of the job
- Based inWirral, Merseyside
- HoursMon to Fri 8 to 6, Sat 8 to 2, closed Sunday