First topic message reminder :

Just wondering if someone can give me a ballpark figure to rewire a 7 room house? i know it will only be a rough figure without going to see the house and see whats already there, just need a figure so we can put it into our budget.
Thankyou
Steve and Sian

Totally agree with what you posted GinaA. On the other hand, some of the points the guys have mentioned are worthy of mention or comment. Have they considered that maybe no one has a valid answer because they haven't had this type of work done? Also, that many folk are reluctant to discuss their own financial transactions with people they don't know. Just my two bobs worth.

As a retired self employed electrician here in the UK I find it amazing that no-one seems able to give a ball park figure.

My formulae was counting how many:
Light switches are required. (Light switches only not the actual lighting point, so a two way light would have 2 switches)
Sockets. (Single or double still count as one because what is saved on material is counteracted by labour)
Cooker point.
Water heater.
Central heating point.
Consumer Unit (This was still counted as 1 unit, plus the extra)
Outside lights were counted as 1 unit per light.
etc
etc.
The total of these were then multiplied by what I then used was £30 per point, plus £50 for the latest RCD consumer units.
This figure then allowed for all cabling of which was usually pretty standard of 200 meters of lighting and 200 meters of socket cable plus all earth bonding cable and equipment.
Example of 30 points = £900 (at 1999 prices) But remember this was only a 'Ball-Park Figure'

I can assure you this formulae was fairly accurate, actually it usually worked out a bit over the top so my customers actually got it done cheaper once a proper survey had been done.
The problem is that most people do not want to work this way for fear of frightening customers away when they start adding it all together without having the opportunity of explaining or getting a foot in the door to persuade the person why they should chose them, but for myself I found it worked, and although I retired early, none of my customers were ever overcharged.
(well except for the ones who I never wanted to work for to begin with, they then paid the full estimated cost or could go elsewhere.)

Maybe if 'Bigneacy' could have a good count up and work out how many points etc he was wanting then dividing by the €3,200 that 'might' give people a ball-park figure to work with.
Obviously this €3,200 all depends if the estate agent has actually had a 'quote' in the past or just making a guess on average prices that he knows of.
If it's of any help, that price is about 50% of what is now being charged here in the UK for a average 3 bed terraced house. (30 points)

Bigneacy wrote:

Hi Guys,

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread.

We have a 3 storey over basement, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom (12 rooms in total) townhouse that needs complete rewiring- we've been given a price by our estate agents of €3200 for rewiring including labour, but not including fittings (i.e. Sockets, switches &
light fittings)

Does this price seem ok?

Edit for my above post.

Sorry I forgot the price was €3200 and not 'LEV' but also not knowing material prices in Bulgaria I would still think €3200 would be very expensive especially when you also add the cost of second fix materials.

I had a quote in September last year , 100sqm house, living room, bathroom and kitchen and hallway downstairs, 2 rooms and landing upstairs, a light in each room and a couple of double sockets in all but the bathroom , 2 outside lights and a switch for them , aircon wired in and a light and power feed and 2 sockets in the barn, and fit the fusebox

I have the light switches a few of rolls of wire the fusebox and the rcds, but the rest of the wire , light fittings and sockets are supplied

Cost around 500 to 800 Lev from the local village electrician, who knows how qualified he is but everyone in the village uses him

That sounds about right Will..my house is somewhat bigger, in terms of rooms and I had it done around five years ago. In addition, he wired up my workshop for 3 phase supply. The completed job was inspected by the electric company and a certificate of safety and compliance was issued by them. I've not had a problem;
not even a tripped breaker in all that time. The cost was just under 1000 leva.

Also been looking into getting our house rewired. Come to the conclusion that it is a good idea to bring a consumer unit from the UK. Read a few times the quality would be better. for £130 you can get a 11 way consumer unit fit with 11 x 30mA RCBo's (extra safety than RCB's). Another issue is do you stay with the Bulgarian wiring system, and if you don't are you going against Bulgarian regulations and are these regulations going to change in the near future. Have not yet moved to Bulgaria, will be moving over in October so am I still stuck in the British over safety conscious state of mind. I do wonder if having 6mm cables running to the cooker and water heaters is appropriate when my supply runs to the house on a couple of 4mm wires. All my appliances will be fit with UK plugs should I bring UK sockets ... wait maybe this would effect any testing carried out in bulgaria. Earth spikes for extra earthing... does anyone actually test these when they fit them, Our house is on a slope not the best of places to have an earth spike. Sometimes think just pay someone and close my eyes .... but I can't ... boy I need to relax

As you said mate..just relax for a moment. Telling us just where your new dream home is would be a good start. Not every area in Bulgaria operates in the same way (maybe it should, but it doesn't!!!) When I moved here six years or so, ALL of my appliances had UK plugs and I changed them over to the two pin EU style with little effort and no cost (apart from buying the new plugs). and I've had no problems at all. All I've done to keep a gap was to drive a steel pipe into the ground about a metre from my metre box and connect a heavy earth wire (10mm) to the plug provided.

Hi bgbazz, In a village 20 mins from Vidin. Wiring is very old. Fuse box needs replacing:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

1. are these regulations going to change in the near future.
a) The million lev question that no one knows the answer to, but at best all you can do is to assume they will change and try anticipate it.

2. I do wonder if having 6mm cables running to the cooker and water heaters is appropriate
a) The size of cable also needs to be determined by the size of the cooker that will or might eventually be used, at least overdoing it now then at least it would not need upgrading at a later date if your incoming supply is upgraded, which might then need ripping your home to pieces to install the new cable.
Don't forget at present most pictures you see of properties for sale only seem to have a small 2 ring electric cooker plugged into a normal socket, so almost any size cable would do. (well at least 2.5mm that is)
If you want a full size (4 burner, Grill, and Oven or even double oven) cooker then maybe thinking of a gas cooker might be a better option. bottled gas of course.

3. All my appliances will be fit with UK plugs should I bring UK sockets ...
a) Personally I think in the long run trying to combine the European sockets and UK sockets is not a good idea, what about if you ever want to sell the property, then again anything new you buy (or borrow) will also need having the plug changed to the 13a UK pin type, and as you say you will probably be having a 30mA RCBo's (extra safety than RCB's) unit installed.

Maybe bucking the system will bounce back and bite you in the long run ..............

Before you make big plans for the re-wiring of your village house please check the rating of the cable coming IN, most village homes are usually rated at 6kwh (goes back to the "
former years"
when no-one hardly had any electrical appliances), fortunately there is a big program from the Elec companies of upgrading/renwing the cables and Meters and they are using thicker cable (ie more Amps capacity) to homes, but it is worth checking 1st. I know of one case where a home was rewired and fitted with all the mod cons, including an imported (from UK) 9kwh shower which when used for the 1st time overloaded the feed-in cable and it frazzled. Calculate all the appliances you plan to use, ok i don't imagine they would all be on at the same time, but it will come as a surprise (anything that produces heat is/are the most greedy), say this total is a modest 15kwh, divide this by the voltage, 230v in this case 15000/230v = 65 Amps approx potential. Check your meter and see what it's rated at (if you can).
Another pointer, if your Tok account is registered to your company you will probably have a "
standing charge"
you can get your rating from this charge, 3 Leva and a few stotinki a month means your rated at 6kwh and so on.

edna is correct we changed our cable from the electric metre to the house cost us about 1500 lv and that was several years ago it travels 40 metrs tot he house the electrician and the evn electricians had to involved too so it is all cost but definately worth it safety first with water electrics log burners etc surprises when renovating will always pop up some times it feels ike it is getting worse before it gets better!!

Hi All, The price for replacing the cable to the house should cost you no more than 180 lev plus the cable and cable hangers, the cable is around the 1.60 lev per meter. This normaly includes a new meter box, 63a mcb to isolate and meter outside if not already there.

We also had the old box removed and a new one put in but this time inside the villa - Each fuse in the box is for a different electric point just like in the UK The main thing was to get the cooker separated from everthing else. Cost us about 280lev. It took the chap nearly 3 days to do it. Our first experience of how the builders work - Make sure you give them dust sheets and cover everything as they do not clean up after themselves.

Something I forgot to mention before was also to check if you have a single or 3 Phase supply going into the property, because a lot of the properties do have 3 phase supplies.

3 phase is basically 3 supplies but there will only be one meter, so don't go looking for 3 meters, that way unless you buy 3 phase water heaters things like water heaters could be on one phase, cookers on a second supply and lighting and the rest of the property on the 3rd phase, (there is only one neutral supplied which is then shared across each phase)

With 3 phase supplies you are supposed to try and even the load across the 3 phases, but in these circumstances it's not always possible, simply because you can't split a cooker into more than one supply, for water heaters they do make 3 phase water heaters so that could be the best way forward with those.

In some cases it's simple enough to check, just look at how many electric cables are going into the property.
2 ingoing cables would = single phase (1 live and 1 neutral)
4 ingoing cables would = 3 phase (3 lives + 1 neutral)

NB.
Not being able to share the load makes it awkward for the suppliers to regulate the turbines that produce the electricity, which is also why there are so many power cuts because the demand on one phase is much crater than the other phases, also not to mention the installers probably wired too many properties onto the same phase instead of again trying to even out the distribution.

Sorry but what you are saying is very Dangerous and should never been done in a house, Never wire a house using a different phase for different things, you are introducing a 440v potential which is lethal. 3 Phase is industrial and is installed over here at properties for the use of heavy machinery. You may split the 3 phase, eg one for the house, one for the barns etc etc.... I am not getting into a discussion about this.