If you’ve searched this, you probably already suspect the answer is “it depends” — and you’re right, it does. But you didn’t come here for a shrug. Above, in the box, is the real range we work to for houses in and around Beaconsfield, and by the end of this guide you’ll know exactly what moves your job up or down inside it, so you’re not walking into a site visit blind.
What actually drives the price
A rewire quote isn’t really about the size of the house on paper — it’s about how hard it is to get cable from the consumer unit to every socket, switch and light fitting, and how much of the existing wiring is safe to reuse. Four things move the number more than anything else.
Size and layout. More rooms means more circuits, more back boxes, more first-fix cable. A two-bed flat and a five-bed detached house are never going to sit in the same band, and within a size band, an oddly laid-out house with long cable runs costs more than a compact one of the same floor area.
Access. This is the one people underestimate. A house with a suspended timber floor and an accessible loft is quick to rewire — cable runs under the floor and through the ceiling void with minimal disruption. A house on a solid concrete floor, or with dry-lined walls and no loft access in half the rooms, means more chasing into plaster or surface-mounted trunking, both of which take longer and cost more. If you know your floors are solid, mention it when you book the visit — it changes the conversation.
Age and construction. Period and older properties usually sit in the upper part of the rewire range, and sometimes above it, because solid walls, lath-and-plaster ceilings and non-standard room shapes all add time. If that’s your situation, our guide to signs you need a rewire covers the specific things that show up in older Beaconsfield housing stock.
How many points you want. The bands above assume a sensible, modern number of sockets and light switches for a house that size. If you want double sockets in every corner of every room, USB sockets throughout, or a heavier lighting scheme than standard, that’s more first-fix work and it moves the price toward the top of the band or above it.
What’s included in a fixed quote
A quote from us covers survey, first fix (cables and back boxes), second fix (consumer unit, sockets, switches, light fittings), full testing, and the Electrical Installation Certificate. It does not include plastering, decorating, or kitchen and bathroom fitting — those are separate trades, and we’ll tell you plainly what needs booking alongside us rather than pretending it’s included and leaving you to find out later.
Full rewire or partial rewire?
Not every house needs the whole thing gutted. If your consumer unit is reasonably modern, most of your cabling tests sound, and it’s really just the kitchen ring or an extension’s circuits that are the problem, a partial rewire covering only those circuits is both honest and considerably cheaper than a full one. We’d rather quote you accurately for what the house needs than upsell a full rewire nobody asked for.
The reverse is also true: if an EICR has flagged multiple C1 or C2 codes across different circuits, or the consumer unit itself is the old fuse-box type with a wooden back, patching individual circuits is usually false economy — you’ll be back paying for more work again within a year or two. We’ll say which situation you’re in after we’ve actually looked, not before.
What a site visit changes
Every price online — ours included — is a starting range. The number that actually applies to your house depends on things a form can’t capture: how many floors, whether the loft is boarded or has restricted access, what the walls are made of, how many circuits your current board already has spare capacity for, and whether you want anything non-standard like outdoor sockets, a home office circuit, or wiring pre-run for a future EV charger. A free site visit takes the guesswork out and turns the range into a fixed number in writing, before anything starts.
First fix, second fix — what that actually means for you
You’ll hear these terms a lot during a rewire. First fix happens before plastering: cables get run through walls, floors and ceilings, and back boxes go in for sockets, switches and light fittings. Second fix happens after the house is decoration-ready: the consumer unit goes in, faceplates and switches get fitted, and everything gets tested and certified. If you’re doing other building work at the same time — an extension, a loft conversion — this sequencing matters, and it’s exactly what our first fix, second fix guide for extensions walks through in more detail.
Listed and period properties
If your house is in Beaconsfield Old Town or is otherwise listed or in a conservation area, the electrics themselves aren’t usually what’s regulated — but how you get cable into the walls can be. Chasing into an original lath-and-plaster ceiling or a protected feature is a different conversation to a standard 1990s stud wall, and sometimes surface-mounted conduit or careful pull-through methods are the better answer, both for the building and for your budget. This is worth raising before the site visit if you know your property has listed status, so we come prepared with the right approach rather than assuming a standard method and having to change plan on the day.
Timing and disruption
For context, a typical 3–4 bed rewire runs around two to three weeks, confirmed once we’ve actually seen the house — a five-bed or a complex period property takes longer. If you’re living in the house, we plan the work room by room so you’re never without power everywhere at once, though whichever room is being worked on that day will be off. If the house is empty during the works — between tenants, mid-renovation, or you’re staying elsewhere — it’s usually faster and slightly cheaper, since we’re not working around your daily routine.
How to get an exact number
The short version: tell us roughly how many bedrooms, whether you know your floor and wall construction, and whether the house is occupied during works, and we’ll book a free site visit. You’ll get a fixed price in writing before anything starts, and if we find something unexpected once we’re in — an issue behind a wall, say — we’ll quote that separately before doing it, never bill you for a surprise afterward.
Why online rewire prices are all over the place
If you’ve searched around before landing here, you’ve probably noticed the numbers vary wildly between sites — some quote per-circuit day rates, some quote whole-house averages pulled from national surveys that don’t reflect the South East, and some are simply out of date. Beaconsfield and South Bucks sit at the higher end of national averages, mostly because of labour costs and the older housing stock in the area, so a “UK average” figure from a national directory is rarely the number that applies to your street. The ranges in this guide come from what we actually quote and complete locally, not a national survey.
What Jess actually looks for on a site visit
A site visit isn’t a formality before confirming a number we already had in mind — it genuinely changes the price. On a typical visit we’re checking: how many circuits the existing board serves and whether any of it can be reused safely, whether the loft is boarded and accessible or needs clearing first, whether floors are suspended timber (easier) or solid concrete (harder), what the wall construction is in each room, and roughly how many socket and lighting points you want versus what’s there now. None of that is guesswork from a photo or a phone call — it’s why the fixed price only exists after we’ve actually walked the house.
Comparing quotes from different electricians
If you’re getting more than one quote — which we’d always encourage for a job this size — make sure you’re comparing like for like. Ask each electrician whether their number includes testing and certification, whether it assumes a new consumer unit or reusing the existing one, and what’s explicitly excluded (plastering and decoration almost always are, but it’s worth confirming). A quote that looks noticeably cheaper than others is sometimes simply missing scope that gets added as extras later — the fixed-quote approach only protects you if the quote itself is genuinely complete.
Financing and phasing a rewire
Not every household wants to do a whole house at once, and that’s a reasonable way to manage the cost. Phasing a rewire — ground floor this year, upstairs next — is possible in principle, though it does mean two separate site visits, two lots of disruption, and slightly more total cost than doing it in one go, since some setup and testing work is duplicated. If budget is the main constraint, it’s worth discussing honestly at the site visit which circuits are the most urgent (usually the consumer unit and any circuit an EICR has flagged) so the first phase covers what matters most.
If you’d rather just get the ball rolling, use the form below and Jess will call you back to talk through your house specifically.
