Electrical installation

Most domestic electrical installation work in Cardiff is notifiable under Part P of the Building Regulations, meaning Building Control needs to know it happened. As qualified electrical contractors work is self-certified through the contractor scheme where applicable, which means the council notification, the test certificate, and the post-install paperwork all happen automatically through the contractor scheme where applicable. You never need to chase a council inspector or pay a separate notification fee.

What’s included with every install

Every notifiable install we carry out includes:

• A pre-work risk assessment and isolation plan so we don’t kill power to the wrong circuit.
• Full insulation-resistance, earth-loop-impedance, RCD-time and polarity testing on the new work and the affected existing circuits.
• An NICEIC-issued Electrical Installation Certificate (or Minor Works Certificate for smaller jobs) emailed to you within 14 days.
• Building Regs notification filed on your behalf, so you’ll receive a notification reference you can hand to a conveyancer or insurer.
• A 12-month workmanship guarantee and a free return visit if anything trips or behaves oddly in the first year.

Consumer unit upgrades

If your fuse box still has rewireable fuses, no RCD, a metal back box without dual-RCD protection, or you’ve got an older Wylex / MK Sentry unit installed before 2008, an upgrade is well overdue. Modern Wiring Regs (BS 7671 18th Edition) require 30mA RCD protection on every circuit, and the cleanest way to achieve that is a full-RCBO board, where each circuit has its own miniature trip rather than sharing one between several.

A typical upgrade is £550–£800 fitted, depending on the number of circuits and whether your meter tails need uprating. We always include a Type 2 surge protection device. These became near-mandatory in the 2022 amendments, so we won’t quote a board without one.

The job takes one working day. Power is off for around 90 minutes during the swap; the rest of the day is testing, certifying and tidying.

Common mistakes other firms make

• Installing a dual-RCD board. Cheaper to fit, but a single fault on a freezer circuit can knock out half your sockets at 3am. Full-RCBO is £80–£120 more and worth it.
• Skipping the surge device. Removing one from a quote saves £25 but costs you a £700 boiler PCB the next time the grid blips.
• Not testing the rest of the installation. A consumer unit swap requires a full inspection of everything connected to it. If the quote is “swap and go” with no EICR-style test sheet, walk away.

Full rewires

For older properties, usually visible as cracked Bakelite sockets, fabric or rubber-covered cables, lighting circuits without a CPC (no earth at the switches), or a fuse box that hasn’t been touched since the 1970s. A typical 3-bed terrace or semi rewire takes 4–7 working days and runs £4,800–£6,500 fitted. We work room-by-room so the property stays liveable: kitchen and one bedroom always have power, even on the worst day.

A rewire includes:

• All cabling replaced with modern twin-and-earth, fire-rated where it crosses an escape route.
• A new consumer unit (RCBO board, surge device).
• All sockets, switches, light points, and outdoor connections replaced.
• Plaster-skim repair where chases run: finish-painting is the homeowner’s after we leave (we’ll mark patches with masking tape).
• Smoke, heat and CO detectors interlinked to current standards (Welsh law from December 2022).

Additional circuits

Garden offices, EV chargers, hot tubs, electric showers, kitchen ring spurs, outdoor sockets are all separately notifiable, all certified through NICEIC. Some examples of the regional gotchas we see in Cardiff:

• Victorian terraces (Roath, Pontcanna, Canton) often have meter cupboards on a shared wall; we’ll need a 24-hour DNO appointment if the supply needs uprating for an EV charger.
• Cardiff Bay flats frequently sit on TT supplies, which means extra earth-fault protection on outdoor circuits (an O-PEN device or earth rod).
• Whitchurch / Rhiwbina post-war semis sometimes have lighting circuits looped at the rose with no CPC at switches, which is minor extra work to bring up to standard during any new install.

EV chargers

We’re an OZEV-approved installer for 7kW home wallboxes (Pod Point, Easee, Wallbox, Hypervolt), from £899 fitted for a standard install with up to 25m of cable run. The price band assumes off-street parking and a TN-C-S supply with adequate headroom.

The OZEV £350 grant ended in March 2022 for owner-occupiers but is still available for renters and flat-owners under the EV Chargepoint Grant (formerly EVHS). We file the application on your behalf if you qualify.

Warranty and aftercare

Workmanship is guaranteed for 12 months. Manufacturer warranties on consumer units are 5 years (Hager, Wylex Compact) or 6 years (MK Sentry). EV chargers carry 3-year manufacturer warranties as standard.

Every install is registered through the relevant contractor scheme, which is useful when you sell the house, since the certificate is searchable from the registration number alone.