Elec-craft Electrical Services

What is the average cost to rewire a house?

The definition of AVERAGE is just that, the sum total of all prices for rewires carried out, divided by the number of prices. I don't have that information. Judging from the responses on this question from other members I really dont think they understand what an average means. It is not a price RANGE. The average price cannot be answered In afraid. My best guess would be one bed house £2000, two bed house, £3000, three bed house £3750, four bed house £4,500, five bed house £5250. A house comes in many types, shapes and sizes. There is no such thing as an average price for a house rewire. There is an average price for a range of houses.

What does a consumer unit / fuse board do?

A consumer unit and a fuse board are a convenient way of containing multiple devices used to provide overcurrent and short circuit protection to electrical circuits in a neat and compact arrangement inside a single enclosure. Think of it as the heart of an electrical installation. Electricity is distributed by cables that enter buildings and in order to ensure the electricity is safely serving the building it MUST be contained in appropriate enclosures and insulated cables. The first enclosure is called the cut-out which contains a fuse to protect the cables outside in the ground or overhead. A meter is the next enclosure that enables the buildings use of electricity to be measured and billed. The consumer unit or fuse board comes next to provide a start point for all the circuits. That's the purpose. Several can be used in an installation so that circuits can be further divided or electricity taken to another part of the building.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of an RCBO?

The advantages of an RCBO? It is not an advantage in itself. An RCBO is a device that disconnects a circuit if a fault occurs, exactly the same as an mcb or a fuse does. But an RCBO has an added advantage over a fuse or mcb in that it also affords RCD protection, normally 30mA, which can detect neutral shorts to earth that a fuse or mcb cannot. Both fuses and mcb's protect individual circuits. An RCBO also protects individual circuits. The advantage of an RCBO is it can provide 30mA RCD protection individually to a circuit whereas adding 30mA RCD protection to circuits with only a fuse or mcb is usually provided by adding an RCCB to a group of circuits. In that situation multiple circuits are affected by one fault on any of the circuits being covered by the RCCB because when the RCCB trips it disconnects all of the circuits in its group. This is inconvenient. It is far better to be able to limit inconvenience by adding 30mA RCD protection individually to each circuit and this is achievable by using RCBOs or a mixture of RCBOs and mcbs. Disadvantages? There aren't any as such. If you compare prices of RCBOs to mcbs then yes they are more costly. They are also larger being taller than an equivalent mcb so take up more space in a consumer unit. That's about it.