A full rewire is the most invasive thing a house routinely survives: every circuit replaced, floors up, walls chased, and family life continuing somewhere in the gaps. Households that thrive through one all did the same thing: they understood the sequence before it started.
CAN Electrical Contractors Limited carries out full rewires across Leeds, occupied houses included, and this is the honest survival guide.
First fix: the loud, dusty middle
First fix is the invasion: old cables out, new cables in, which means floorboards lifted along the runs, chases cut into walls for sockets and switches, and ceilings opened where lighting circuits demand. It is the stage the photographs never show and the one that decides everything, because every cable's route is being set.
The living-room shot on this page is mid-first-fix: boards up, runs going in, the room briefly a workshop. Rooms are done in sequence rather than all at once, which is what keeps an occupied house livable: tonight's bedroom keeps its floor.
- Boards up and walls chased along every run.
- Rooms sequenced so the house stays livable.
- Cable routes set now; changes later cost plaster.
Decisions that must precede the cutting
A rewire is the once-a-generation chance to put things where life actually happens: socket positions and counts per room, switch positions including two-way runs on stairs and landings, lighting points, outdoor power, and the loud-but-worthwhile extras, EV-ready capacity, network points, loft feeds, that cost pennies mid-rewire and fortunes after.
CAN Electrical Contractors Limited walks the house room by room with the customer before first fix, marking every position on the walls, because a socket drawn in pencil moves for free and a socket in fresh plaster does not.
- Walk every room and mark every position first.
- Count sockets for the life you have, then add spares.
- Extras are cheapest while the floors are already up.
Power, dust and the daily rhythm
Occupied-house rewiring runs on temporary supplies and sequencing: circuits stay live where possible, essential rooms are turned around fast, and the kettle and fridge keep a supply through the works. Expect rooms to take turns going dark rather than the house dying at once.
Dust is real and manageable: sheeting, room-by-room containment and daily tidy-ups keep it to the working zone. The honest promise is a house that is disrupted in an organised way, never a house that is uninhabitable.
Second fix, testing and the paperwork that ends it
Second fix is the payoff: faceplates, switches, lights and the new consumer unit going live, the house visibly becoming new. Then the invisible ending that matters most: every circuit dead-tested and live-tested, results recorded, and the Electrical Installation Certificate issued with building control notification following.
That certificate is the rewire's legal existence: solicitors ask for it at sale, insurers lean on it, and future EICRs stand on it. A rewire without the paperwork is, administratively, a rumour.
Related pages
Questions customers ask
Can we live in the house during a full rewire?
Yes, most households do: rooms are sequenced, supplies kept running where possible, and essential rooms turned around quickly. It is disruptive but organised, and the sequencing conversation happens before day one.
How disruptive is a rewire to walls and decoration?
Chases are cut for accessories and boards lifted along runs, then made good; redecoration afterwards is normal and belongs in the budget. A rewire is best timed just before decorating, never just after.
What paperwork should a full rewire produce?
An Electrical Installation Certificate with the test results, plus building control notification. Keep them with the house documents; every future sale and inspection refers back to them.
Mark the walls, agree the sequence, budget the making-good, and insist on the certificate. That is a rewire survived, and a house set up for its next forty years.
CAN Electrical Contractors Limited rewires occupied Leeds homes on exactly that rhythm. The contact page starts the room-by-room walk.
