Pricing

How to price a full house rewire

By QuoteSnap·25 July 2026·7 min read

A rewire is one of the easiest jobs in the trade to underprice, because the bit customers see — sockets and switches — is a fraction of the actual work. The chasing, the lifting of floors, the loft, the making good, the certification and the day you lose because the plasterer can't come until Thursday: that's where the money goes.

This is a repeatable way to price a domestic rewire so the number still works when you're three days in and the joists are running the wrong way. All figures here are indicative — put your own rates and current supplier prices in before you quote.

First, decide what kind of rewire it is

"Full rewire" means very different jobs on different sites. Before you price anything, pin down which one you're standing in:

Empty property, floors up, no one living there. The easy version. Clear runs, no dust sheets, no working around a family.
Occupied house, room by room. Slower — sometimes 30–50% slower — because you're protecting furniture, working in phases and restoring power every night.
Partial rewire. Consumer unit, new circuits to kitchen and bathroom, existing sound circuits retained. Priced on what you're actually replacing, not on the house.
Rewire plus alterations. New kitchen layout, extra sockets, outside supply, EV charger. These are separate priced items, not "while you're there."

Write that down at the top of the quote. Most rewire arguments start with the customer picturing the empty-house version and paying the occupied-house price, or the other way round.

Count the points — it's still the best estimating unit

Estimating by point (each socket, switch, light, spur, smoke alarm, cooker outlet) is the fastest way to a defensible number. Walk the house, count what's going in — not what's there now — and note the run length and access for each.

A rough domestic count looks like this:

Property	Typical point count
2-bed terrace	45–70
3-bed semi	60–90
4-bed detached	90–140

Those are indicative ranges to sanity-check yourself against, not a price list. What matters is your own time per point, which you only know by looking at your last few jobs. Most sparks land somewhere between 45 minutes and 1.5 hours per point once you include chasing, second fix, testing and the share of the day spent on the consumer unit — but your number is the one to use.

Points are an estimating tool, not a quoting format. Don't present the customer with a per-point price; they'll start deleting sockets to save money and you'll lose the efficiency that made the price work.

Then price the things that aren't points

Points cover the accessories. These don't:

Consumer unit and supply side. New board, SPD, main bonding to gas and water, tails, and the earthing arrangement. If the bonding or the main earth needs upgrading, that's a separate line — you can't know it until you've looked.
Testing and certification. A full rewire is notifiable work. It needs testing and an Electrical Installation Certificate, plus notification to building control — either through a competent person scheme (NICEIC, NAPIT, ELECSA and similar) or a direct building control application, which costs more and takes longer. Price the certification time properly; it's a real day's work on a big house.
Access work. Lifting and relaying floorboards, laminate, chipboard. Chipboard flooring in a newer house is slower and more destructive than boards in a Victorian terrace — factor it.
Making good. See below. This is the one.
Waste and skip. Old cable, old accessories, plaster.

Making good: decide it out loud

Chasing walls and lifting floors makes mess. Who fixes it?

There are three honest positions, and the only wrong one is leaving it vague:

Chase and leave — you patch the chases to a fillable finish, the customer arranges plastering and decorating. Cheapest, and needs saying clearly.
Chase and plaster — you include a plasterer to skim the affected areas. Add their days and their markup.
Full make-good — plaster and decoration back to how it was. Rare on a rewire and expensive.

Put the chosen one on the quote in one plain sentence: "Chases are filled and left ready for decoration. Plastering and decorating are not included." That sentence has saved more margin than any pricing formula.

Build the number

Work it in this order:

Labour days. Points × your time-per-point, plus separate allowances for the board, the supply side, testing and certification, and access. Add a day for the things you haven't thought of on any house over 3 beds.
Materials at cost. Cable (and price it now — copper moves), accessories, back boxes, board and devices, clips, capping, fire-stopping, consumables. Add a wastage allowance on cable; you always cut long.
Materials markup. You carry the cost, the trips and the warranty. A markup in the region of 10–20% is normal.
Sub-trades. Plasterer, if included. Their price plus your management markup.
Fixed costs. Skip, parking or permits, certification/notification fee, scheme levy.
Contingency. 5–10% on anything pre-1970 or previously extended. Old houses hide surprises: no earth on the lighting, an old rubber-sheathed circuit buried under the stairs, a bathroom that was clearly done by a mate.

Then present it as one fixed price with a scope list. Not a per-point breakdown.

The exclusions list is part of the price

A rewire quote with no exclusions is an invitation. Yours should say, briefly and without drama, what isn't in:

Plastering, decoration and floor covering reinstatement (unless stated)
Upgrading the incoming supply, meter position or DNO cut-out — that's the network operator's, and their timescales aren't yours
Asbestos — if it's suspected, work stops and it gets surveyed
Any structural or joinery work needed for access
Customer-supplied accessories (fit only, no warranty on the item)
Fire alarm grades beyond what's specified

Each of those is a real job that has cost a real sparks real money. One line each is enough.

Occupied houses: price the disruption honestly

If the family is living there, you are being paid for slower work, not worse work. Build in:

Power every night. Temporary circuits, or phasing so nothing critical is dead at 6pm.
Protection and clean-up daily. That's half an hour a day, minimum, and it isn't free.
Phasing. You'll go back to rooms you'd rather have finished.

A useful check: if the same house empty is 8 days, occupied is rarely less than 10–11. Price the days you'll actually be on site.

A worked shape

Three-bed semi, 1960s, occupied, roughly 75 points, chase-and-leave, new board and bonding, full test and certificate:

Labour: point-based estimate + board/supply day + testing and certification day + access allowance + 1 contingency day
Materials: cable, accessories, board and devices, sundries — at current cost
Materials markup: 15%
Fixed: skip, certification and notification
Contingency: 8% (age, previous alterations)
Deposit: a third on acceptance to fund materials, staged payment at first fix complete, balance on certification
Stated: chase-and-leave, exclusions list, price valid 30 days

That's one number, a clear scope, and a payment structure that means you're never funding the job out of your own pocket. Staged payments matter more on a rewire than almost any other domestic job — see staged payments and retentions for how to set them.

The two habits that protect a rewire price

Price validity. Cable prices move. Thirty days on the quote, and mean it.

Variations in writing. "Can you just put a socket in the shed while you're here" is a variation, not a favour. Price it, text it, get a yes, then do it. Every rewire that lost money lost it in ten-minute favours.

A rewire quote lives or dies on how clearly the scope and exclusions read. QuoteSnap turns a plain-English description of the job into a branded, itemised quote with your scope, exclusions, deposit and terms already on it — written in the van, sent before you've pulled off the drive. Try it free for 14 days.