Estimated cost of having new electrical sockets installed

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woodson

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#199198 8-Aug-2016 16:47

I wondered if anyone knows the rough cost to have a couple of new electrical sockets installed in a house would be? Are there any factors that need to be considered when getting a quote?

Thanks for any advice :)

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#1606437 8-Aug-2016 16:51

Any new sockets will need to be RCD protected so if you have an old fuse board type thing with fuses and no protection then allow for a couple of 1000 to get that all up to spec before you even begin adding new stuff.

Otherwise there are plenty of cowboy sparkies that will extend a circuit with new sockets and not put any protection on it and think that it is fine. It is till you need a code cert if something blows up or someone is hurt.

Richard rich.ms

MikeAqua

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#1606439 8-Aug-2016 16:51

We had 4 sockets installed in various locations in our house daisy chained off existing sockets, so minimal wire running.

The job was done in 1.5 hours. It was ~$100 + parts and GST.

The type of sockets makes a difference.

You can get plain white ones from M10 or wherever cheaply. If you have more up-market sockets, the price increases accordingly.

Mike

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#1606440 8-Aug-2016 16:53

MikeAqua:

We had 4 sockets installed in various locations in our house daisy chained off existing sockets, so minimal wire running.

The job was done in 1.5 hours. It was ~$100 + parts and GST.

The type of sockets makes a difference.

You can get plain white ones from M10 or wherever cheaply. If you have more up-market sockets, the price increases accordingly.

Wow who is your sparky? I think we are up for $150 to even get our sparkies truck moving.

antoniosk

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#1606443 8-Aug-2016 16:54

woodson:

I wondered if anyone knows the rough cost to have a couple of new electrical sockets installed in a house would be? Are there any factors that need to be considered when getting a quote?

Thanks for any advice :)

1. State of your electrical board. Current specs are 3 fuses per RCD. Used to be 6.

2. Replacing existing sockets (eg replacing a single with a double plug)

3. Adding new sockets and accessibility (eg, if on ground floor and your house is on piles, they can cut holes in the wall and go under the house. If you're on the first floor... well....

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woodson

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#1606464 8-Aug-2016 17:11

Thanks for all the advice and tips, guys. Much appreciated. :)

greenbone

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#1607120 9-Aug-2016 16:54

richms:

there are plenty of cowboy sparkies that will extend a circuit with new sockets and not put any protection on it and think that it is fine. It is till you need a code cert if something blows up or someone is hurt.

so what the difference between that, and plugging in a 4-outlet multiplug

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gregmcc

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#1607132 9-Aug-2016 17:06

Factors to be considered

1) type of house construction (lockwood style are a good example of difficult to add power points)

2) type of floor (concrete means the wire must come from the roof space making in more difficult to get wires down the wall

3) age of existing electrical, really old house may have old non compliant wiring and fuse board, which may have to be upgraded, but saying that it's usually easy to get wiring up and down walls as there may not be any nogs or half nogs.

4) any new power points **must** be protected by an RCD, either built in to the power point or at the fuse board.

stay away from the M10 or bunnings power points, they are crap, ask yourself "are they worth the risk?"

greenbone

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#1607136 9-Aug-2016 17:15

stay away from the M10 or bunnings power points, they are crap, ask yourself "are they worth the risk?"

yeah theres been so many reports of those bunnings power points spontaneously failing and causing house fires

greenbone

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#1607137 9-Aug-2016 17:17

whenever i step into the ocean, i remember thats where sharks are too and think to myself "is it worth the risk?"

richms

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#1607143 9-Aug-2016 17:22

greenbone:

so what the difference between that, and plugging in a 4-outlet multiplug

One is fixed wiring and required to be installed to a certain standard, the other is an appliance.

Richard rich.ms

gregmcc

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#1607144 9-Aug-2016 17:23

greenbone:

whenever i step into the ocean, i remember thats where sharks are too and think to myself "is it worth the risk?"

Thank you for your meaningful and helpful comments

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richms

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#1607145 9-Aug-2016 17:28

greenbone:

yeah theres been so many reports of those bunnings power points spontaneously failing and causing house fires

There are also plenty of wholesaler ones that are crap. I have a house full of clipsal 2000 switches that are gradually starting to make arcing noises when turning off, and the sockets are getting loose. Just replace them when they start to act up and no dramas. I usually replace when redecorating in anycase so thats a 10 year or so cycle.

Richard rich.ms

neb

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#1607273 9-Aug-2016 21:15

richms:
Any new sockets will need to be RCD protected so if you have an old fuse board type thing with fuses and no protection then allow for a couple of 1000 to get that all up to spec before you even begin adding new stuff.

It's not that bad, I had my entire fuse board (from the 1970s) replaced with a modern DIN-rail one with RCDs and it cost under $1K, can't remember the exact price but the figure of $700 comes to mind. The guy did a really good job, it wasn't some dodgy cowboy price.

Scott3

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#1607290 9-Aug-2016 22:16

greenbone:

richms:

there are plenty of cowboy sparkies that will extend a circuit with new sockets and not put any protection on it and think that it is fine. It is till you need a code cert if something blows up or someone is hurt.

so what the difference between that, and plugging in a 4-outlet multiplug

Any "New" electrical installation (including adding additional GPO (general power outlet) face-plates) must be comply with current specs. One of the rules in the current specs is RCD protection on all socket outlets. My understanding is that you are allowed to replace existing power outlets (i.e. a broken wall socket with a new one, or a 2x outlet face-plate with a 4x outlet face-plate, without it counting as a new insulation).

Your are right a multi-board plugged into a non RCD protected outlet won't have any RCD protection. I think the rules are about slowly moving the contries electrical work to modern standards, without burdening society with a massive retrofitting program.

When I last called a sparky, the cost was $270 inc. I had him install a 2xGPO faceplate in my networking cabinet (sparky supplied parts for this, but was really hard/time consuming for him to run the wiring), Plus lots of little stuff (earth cabinet, replace 2x light switches and 2x power points (I had brought parts for these to do myself, but seen as I had a sparky there I had him do it), We also looked at installing an "over-run" timer for my bathroom fan, but decided not to proceed (not enough space to fit it in wall cavity, and zippy box required (which neither of us had) to install it in the roof space).

My house is about 15-20 years old (An era where RCD protection was only provided to bathroom power sockets), the sparky put my new outlet on that circuit so I didn't need to install additional RCD's (he was wiring direct into the distribution board due to proximity).

Lastman

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#1607297 9-Aug-2016 22:30

richms:
Any new sockets will need to be RCD protected so if you have an old fuse board type thing with fuses and no protection then allow for a couple of 1000 to get that all up to spec before you even begin adding new stuff.

Otherwise there are plenty of cowboy sparkies that will extend a circuit with new sockets and not put any protection on it and think that it is fine. It is till you need a code cert if something blows up or someone is hurt.

I would have thought the electrician would just be able to replace the circuit breaker on that circuit with a surface mount rcbo. Would entail running a neutral to it but doubt the whole board would need replacing or a particularly big job.

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