These days all new wiring is thermoplastic insulated, with a life expectancy of at more than 40 years.  Older homes used a variety of cable types, all of which are now due for replacement.

The common types of original cable you might find in an older home include Lead, VIR and Rubber.

Lead insulated cables are well past their use-by date and can cause dangerous situations.  We recommend that all lead cable be replaced or disconnected immediately.

VIR is a cloth insulated cable installed in a split metal conduit.  The VIR system uses the conduit for earthing. Over time the insulation deteriorates and the conduit joints come apart and the earth connection is lost.

Rubber insulated cable becomes brittle as it ages and if disturbed the insulation just falls off, exposing bare wires.

All three cable types are potential fire and electric shock hazards.

The only way to safely upgrade these old cables is by rewiring your home..

A full rewire involves removing every piece of old cable and replacing it with new cable.  At the same time new switches and power point fittings are installed and the old fuse board is replaced with a new circuit breaker switchboard, with safety switches.

Your mains cables may also be replaced at this stage.  Your mains are the cables that go from your switchboards to the incoming power supply point.

Rewiring your home usually takes 3-5 days work to complete a full rewire with new mains and switchboard.

There are plenty of older homes in Launceston, so at Mance Electrical we do quite a few rewires, and we also see quite a few rewires done by others.

It’s obvious that all rewires are not created equal.

Some home owners think their house has been rewired – meaning completely and fully rewired, but the truth is often a little different.

The Cheapest Quote Rewire

One of the common situations we see is what we call the “Cheapest Quote Rewire”.

In the Cheapest Quote Rewire everything is done to the bare minimum.

The mains cables will probably be new, but the smallest possible size, with no room for expansion.

The switchboard will also be the bare minimum with no room for extra circuit breakers for additional circuits in the future.  Bad luck if you thought you might build on a couple of extra rooms later, or install a nice big heat pump.

An even cheaper trick is to leave your old mains cables in place and fit a load-limiting circuit breaker instead.  If you try and run your heater, oven and clothes dryer at the same time your power will overload and trip out.

The old cables may not be removed as required, due to the time that takes.  New cables will not be installed in a tidy manner and will not be clipped as required – again because of time constraints.

Much of the work may be done by unsupervised apprentices rather than qualified tradesmen.  Regulations are conveniently forgotten in the rush to get the job finished quickly.

With the cheapest quote rewire there is not enough time allowed to do a quality job.  The object is to win the job by putting in the cheapest price and then do it as quickly and cheaply as possible.

There are other types of rewire that are not quite what they seem.  Things might look good on the surface, but there might be an ugly truth lurking underneath

Click here for The Truth About Home Rewires Part 2 – The Cosmetic Rewire

Click here for The Truth About Home Rewires Part 3 – The Too Hard Basket Rewire