DATA-BACKED GUIDE · UPDATED JULY 2026
Partial vs full house rewire cost in the UK: which do you actually need?
A lot of homeowners are told they need a full house rewire when only part of the wiring is actually past it. The gap between rewiring one circuit and doing the whole property is huge, so it pays to know which job you are really looking at before anyone picks up a chisel. The real prices on this page cover both partial jobs and whole-house rewires, so you can work out where your own house sits before you start collecting quotes.
The quick version
- A partial rewire tackles specific circuits or rooms, so it costs far less than doing every cable in the house.
- A full rewire is usually justified by rubber or fabric-insulated cabling, a fuse box with rewireable fuses, or an addition dated before the mid-1980s.
- All electrical work must meet Part P of the Building Regulations and should be carried out by a registered electrician who can self-certify it.
- An EICR report is the honest starting point. It tells you which circuits actually fail rather than leaving you to guess based on the age of the house.
- The real prices below cover both partial jobs and whole-house rewires so you can gauge the difference before you get quotes.
- Price per circuit tends to drop as the job gets bigger, because the electrician is already on site with the floors up and the walls opened, so a full rewire is rarely simply the partial price multiplied by the number of rooms.
What people actually paid
Real prices, in people's own words
- £4,200“I paid £4,200 for 3 bed rewire, including porch light and moving consumer board in 2020 (Somerset)”
- £4,600“I paid 4.6k for a 4 bed detached, including a mains alarm”
- £4,600“I paid 4.6k for a 4 bed detached, including a mains alarm”
- £7,000“the cost for materials and labour is coming in at nearly £7000. (plus the kitchen cost that was over £1700, so nearly £9000 total.)”
Genuine amounts posted publicly. We publish the price and the quote, never the person.
Why the price varies so much
The single biggest factor is how much of the house is being touched. A partial rewire of a kitchen and one ring main is a day or two of work, while a full rewire means lifting floors, chasing walls in every room and running new cables throughout, then making good afterwards. Access matters too: a house with suspended timber floors and a loft is quicker to wire than one sitting on a solid concrete slab where cables have to be buried in the walls and channelled out again. Property age, the number of sockets and light points you want, and whether you are adding extras like outdoor sockets or a car charger all push the figure around. Occupied homes with furniture to work around also take longer than an empty one, since the electrician has to protect and move belongings rather than just strip a room bare. Who you hire matters as much as the job itself. A one-person local electrician working from a van has lower overheads than a larger regional firm with an office and a fleet, and that difference shows up in the quote even when the standard of work is identical. Region plays a part too: labour rates and the cost of getting materials to site are not the same in every part of the country, so the same job priced in different areas will not land on the same figure. Whether the property needs building control sign-off through a registered scheme or a separate building notice can also add to the bill, along with anything unexpected found once the old cabling is exposed, such as unsafe joints buried in a wall or wiring that does not match what was expected from the age of the house.
How to pay less
- Get an electrician to test the existing installation first with an EICR report, so you only replace what genuinely fails rather than paying for a full rewire on a hunch.
- If the wiring is sound but the consumer unit is old, sometimes a new fuse board and a few remedial fixes buy you years without a full rewire.
- Get three quotes from local registered electricians, because national firms almost always quote above local trades for the same work.
- Pay any deposit by credit card where you can, so Section 75 protection covers you if the firm folds mid-job.
- Time the work around other building work. If you are already having floors up or plaster off for a renovation, a rewire done at the same time avoids paying twice for the same access and making good.
- Ask whether the quote is fixed price or day rate plus materials. A fixed price protects you if the job runs into unexpected problems behind the walls, which is common in older houses.
Common questions
How do I know if I need a full rewire or just a partial one?
Have a registered electrician carry out an EICR (Electrical Installation Condition Report). It grades faults and tells you whether the whole installation is unsafe or just certain circuits. Old rubber or cloth-covered cabling, a fuse box with ceramic rewireable fuses, and no earth on lighting circuits all point towards a full rewire, while isolated faults often only need a partial one.
Is a partial rewire a false economy?
Not necessarily. If the rest of the installation tests fine, replacing only the tired circuits is sensible. It becomes a false economy when the wiring is uniformly old, because you end up paying twice: once for the partial work and again for the full rewire a few years later when the rest fails.
Can I stay in the house during a partial rewire?
Usually yes. A partial rewire affects fewer rooms and rarely needs the whole supply off for long, so most people carry on living there. A full rewire is far more disruptive and some households move out for the noisiest days, though plenty stay put and work around it room by room.
Will a rewire add value when I come to sell the house?
A recent rewire with proper certification is a genuine selling point, especially on older properties where buyers' surveyors often flag the wiring anyway. It will not usually add pound for pound what you spent, but it removes a common negotiating lever buyers use to knock money off, and it means you are not the one paying for it under pressure during a sale.
Does a rewire include the consumer unit and outdoor sockets, or are those extra?
It depends on the quote, so always ask rather than assume. A basic rewire quote often covers the consumer unit as standard since the old fuse board usually cannot take the new circuits anyway, but extras like outdoor sockets, extra data points, or a dedicated car charger circuit are commonly priced separately. Get these itemised before you agree a figure, so you are comparing like for like across quotes.
How long does a full rewire actually take compared with a partial one?
A partial rewire covering a room or two is often done in a day or two. A full rewire of an average house typically runs to several days once you include first fix, testing, and making good the walls and floors afterwards. Larger or more complicated properties, or ones where access is awkward, take longer, so ask your electrician for a realistic timeline rather than a rough guess.