What does it cost to rewire a house in 2026?

Rewiring a three bedroom house costs roughly £4,000 to £7,500 in 2026, with the published UK cost guides spanning £4,000 to £8,000 once region, fittings and access are taken into account. A consumer unit replacement on its own, if the cabling turns out to be sound, is nearer £500 to £800.

One thing up front, because it is only fair: BASI is a Gas Safe registered heating and plumbing firm. We do not carry out electrical rewires and we do not quote for them. This guide exists because we are asked about it constantly by customers mid-renovation, and because there is one part of it we do know a great deal about: the heating work that should happen while the floors are up. The figures below are from published 2026 UK cost guides, not from us.

What a rewire costs in 2026

Prices sit at the top of those ranges in London and the South East and towards the lower end across Yorkshire. They generally exclude plastering and redecoration, which is a separate trade and a real cost, so budget for making good on top.

How a rewire is priced

Electricians price a rewire on the number of circuits and points, not on floor area. Every socket, switch, light fitting, cooker point and outside tap position is a point, and each one adds labour and cable.

That is why two houses of identical size can differ by thousands. The variables that move the number most:

• How many sockets and points you want. Modern expectations are far higher than a 1970s house was wired for. More points, more cost, and worth spending on because retrofitting one later is disproportionate.
• Access. Suspended timber floors with liftable boards are straightforward. Solid concrete floors, tiled floors you do not want disturbed, or a finished loft conversion all push the price up because the cable has to take a longer route.
• The consumer unit. A full rewire always ends at a new consumer unit meeting current regulations.
• Making good. Chasing walls for cable means replastering. Some electricians include it, most do not. Ask which.

What the job involves

The cable route is planned, then floorboards come up and walls are chased to take new cable. Old circuits are stripped out, new cable is run back to the consumer unit, and the new unit is fitted, tested and certified.

Rewiring is notifiable work under Part P of the Building Regulations. That means it must be signed off, either by an electrician registered with a competent person scheme such as NICEIC or NAPIT, who self certifies it, or by your local authority building control. You should receive an Electrical Installation Certificate at the end. Do not accept a rewire without one: it is the document that proves the work is compliant, and a buyer’s solicitor will ask for it.

Expect five to ten working days for a typical three bedroom house, and expect it to be genuinely disruptive to live through.

Signs a house needs rewiring

Some are structural, some are day to day warnings:

• Rubber, fabric or lead sheathed cable, which dates the installation to well before modern standards
• A fuse box with rewireable fuses rather than circuit breakers, or no RCD protection
• Round pin sockets, or too few sockets and extension leads everywhere
• No earthing on lighting circuits
• Sockets or switches that are warm, discoloured or scorched
• Breakers that trip repeatedly, or lights that flicker
• A smell of burning near a socket, or any electric shock from a switch or appliance

The last two are urgent. Stop using the circuit and get an electrician out.

If the house simply has not been rewired in 30 years, that on its own is a reason to have it tested rather than assumed. The test is an EICR, at around £240 to £350, and it is the only thing that tells you whether you need a full rewire or just a new consumer unit. Get one before accepting any rewire quote, because it sometimes saves several thousand pounds.

The part we do know about: heating during a rewire

Here is the thing most people find out too late. A rewire is the cheapest moment in a house’s life to sort out the heating, and skipping it is expensive.

The floorboards are already up. The walls are already open. Every heating job that needs access is suddenly a fraction of what it costs as a standalone visit six months later, when somebody has to lift a newly laid oak floor to reach a pipe.

Worth doing in the same window:

• Moving the boiler. Relocating a boiler from a bedroom cupboard to the kitchen or utility means new gas, water and flue routes. Far easier now.
• Replacing old pipework. Microbore or corroded steel pipe restricts flow and starves radiators. Replacing it while the floor is up is straightforward; it is a major job afterwards.
• Wiring for heating controls. If you want a room thermostat somewhere sensible, or a wired smart control, the cable is trivial to run now and awkward later. Tell your electrician before first fix, not after.
• Adding or moving radiators. Extra radiator, moving one off a wall you want to use, a heated towel rail in the bathroom: all need pipework under the floor.
• First fix for a new bathroom. If a bathroom is coming in the next couple of years, get the pipework in now.
• Zoning the system. Separate upstairs and downstairs circuits with motorised valves need pipework changes that are practical during a rewire and rarely worth it afterwards.

And the timing point: if the boiler is over ten years old, a rewire is the moment to decide about it. Replacing a boiler in an open house is a much better job than replacing it after everything has been plastered and decorated. Our signs you need a new boiler guide covers whether yours is near the end, and new boiler installation covers what a replacement costs.

Order of trades

If you are planning a whole renovation rather than just a rewire, the order that saves the most rework is roughly:

1. Structural work and any knocking through
2. First fix plumbing and heating, and first fix electrics, together, while everything is open
3. Plastering and making good
4. Second fix electrics and heating: sockets, switches, radiators, controls
5. Decorating, flooring, kitchen and bathroom fitting

The critical one is stage 2. Plumbing and electrical first fix want to happen in the same window, and they want to talk to each other, because the electrician needs to know where the boiler and controls are going and the heating engineer needs to know where the cable runs are.

Planning a renovation? Talk to us at first fix

We cannot rewire your house. But if the floors are coming up, that is the moment to get the heating right, and it is far cheaper now than it will ever be again.

We will look at what you are planning, tell you what is worth doing while the house is open, and quote it fixed. If the honest answer is that your existing system is fine and needs nothing, we will tell you that too.

Get a fixed-price quote, or call 0800 980 6018 and speak to someone in Bradford. We cover BD, LS, WF, HD, HX and HG.

Rewiring cost ranges from published 2026 UK cost guides (Checkatrade, Homebuilding), checked 7 September 2026. They are guidance, not a BASI quote, as we do not carry out electrical work.