The whole problem with old wiring is that it is behind the walls, so it fails quietly for decades before it announces itself. The good news is that the era your house was wired in tells you most of what you need to know.
Pricing agreed before we start. We usually reply the same day.
A rewire is the least visible money you will ever spend on a house. Nothing looks different afterwards. That is exactly why it gets deferred, and why it is so often done in a hurry after something has already gone wrong.
What actually degrades is the insulation, not the copper. Rubber and cloth-braided insulation from before about 1960 hardens, cracks and eventually crumbles away from the conductor, and it does that whether the circuit is used heavily or barely at all. By the time it is exposed, a light fitting being changed or a ceiling being lifted is enough to make it shed.
The second issue is what those installations were designed to do. A house wired in the 1950s was built for lighting, a radio and not much else. Earth conductors were frequently not run to lighting circuits at all. Then sixty years of appliances got added to it, usually one power point at a time.
So the question is rarely whether old wiring is dangerous today. It is whether it can be relied on to keep being safe while it carries loads nobody designed it for.
Take the year the house was built or last substantially renovated. That usually places the wiring, and placing the wiring settles most of the argument.
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Why the colours matter: Australia moved to harmonised conductor colours in the early 2000s, from red, black and green to brown, blue and green with yellow. A house that has been added to over the decades will contain both, which is precisely why identifying conductors by colour alone is unsafe and why this is not a job to take on yourself.
None of these require tools. Two or more together is worth a proper look.
The one people most often dismiss is lights dimming when the kettle goes on. It means the circuit is dropping voltage under load, which is a sign of undersized or deteriorating cable rather than a quirk of the house.
The one that should never wait is a burning smell you cannot locate. That is heat being generated at a connection somewhere inside a wall.
The part most quotes skip. Worth understanding before you commit, because the disruption is the real cost for most people.
We work room by room or zone by zone wherever the house allows it, so power is off in the area being worked on rather than everywhere. You keep a functioning kitchen, a functioning office and lights at night.
A full rewire in one hit is quicker overall, and genuinely disruptive. We will tell you which makes more sense for your house rather than defaulting to whichever suits us.
Most cable can go through the roof space, under the floor or inside existing service chases. Damage comes from the runs that cannot, which is why we survey first and tell you where the patching will be.
Solid double brick, concrete slabs and the sandstone and Knitlock walls around Castlecrag are the ones that force decisions.
New circuits landing on a board full of ceramic fuses makes little sense, and the rules usually settle it anyway: altering a board or replacing its protection triggers mandatory RCD protection on the circuits it feeds.
We quote the switchboard alongside the rewire so the figure you are looking at is the whole job.
While the walls and ceilings are open, adding points where you actually need them costs a fraction of what it will later. Kitchen benches, bedside tables, the home office, outdoor areas and wherever the extension leads currently live.
Same goes for data cabling, which is far cheaper to run now than to retrofit.
For an average Sydney house, a rewire generally lands somewhere between $3,000 and $9,000. That is a wide band and the width is honest, because the variable is almost never floor area. It is access.
At the cheaper end: single storey, a roof space you can move around in, a subfloor you can get under, and plasterboard walls. At the expensive end: two storeys, a concrete slab, solid masonry, a shallow or inaccessible roof space, or a heritage property where surface runs and visible conduit are not acceptable.
The other cost driver is scope. A rewire is the natural moment to add the points and circuits the house has been missing, and most people do. That is money well spent while things are open, but it is worth separating from the base figure so you can see what you are choosing.
Patching and painting are usually excluded, and we will say so plainly rather than leaving you to discover it. We tell you where the damage will be so you can line up a plasterer or decide to live with it.
Worth knowing on the other side of the ledger: buyers routinely commission building inspections, and old wiring is one of the things those reports flag. It becomes a negotiating point against you at exactly the moment you have least leverage.
A rewire is not only new cable. It brings the installation onto the current edition of AS/NZS 3000, which for a domestic property means RCD protection with a maximum rated residual current of 30 mA on the final subcircuits, a properly sized and tested earthing system, and circuits arranged for how the house is actually used rather than how it was used in 1955.
It also removes the mixed colour code problem. Australia moved to brown, blue and green with yellow in the early 2000s, and a house that has been extended piecemeal can contain both systems on the same board. That is a hazard for anybody working on it later, including future electricians.
The work is certified. We lodge a Certificate of Compliance for Electrical Work confirming the installation was tested and complies, within 7 days of testing, which since 1 July 2026 goes through the BCNSW eCert portal. Keep it. It is what you hand an insurer or a buyer.
Age is the first clue. Anything wired before about 1960 is likely to be on rubber or cloth-braided insulation, which perishes with time and crumbles when disturbed, and that is a rewire rather than a repair. Between the 1960s and 1980s you are usually looking at early PVC, which is often sound in itself but frequently has no earth on the lighting circuits. After that it comes down to condition and capacity. The visible signs are two-pin sockets, cloth or rubbery cable at the light fittings, brittle or discoloured insulation, repeated faults, and a burning smell you cannot place.
Usually not. We stage most rewires room by room or zone by zone so the house keeps working around the job, with power off in the area being worked on rather than the whole property. A full rewire in one hit is faster overall but far more disruptive. Which approach suits depends on the house, whether anyone works from home, and how much of the place is accessible from the roof or under the floor.
Some, and we minimise them by planning routes first. Most cable can be run through the roof space, under floors and inside existing service chases, so the damage is far less than people fear. Solid double brick, concrete slabs and the sandstone and Knitlock walls you find around Castlecrag are the ones that force surface runs or chasing, which is why the survey matters more than the quote. We tell you where the patching will be before we start, not after.
Almost always, and often it must. Under AS/NZS 3000, when a switchboard is altered or its circuit protection replaced, RCD protection with a maximum of 30 mA becomes mandatory for the final subcircuits it supplies. There is also little sense running new cable back to a board full of ceramic fuses. We quote the two together so the number you see is the real one.
For an average house, somewhere between $3,000 and $9,000, and the spread is mostly about access rather than size. A single storey home with a generous roof space and a subfloor you can move in is at the lower end. Two storeys, a concrete slab, solid masonry walls, restricted roof space or a heritage property that limits what can be surface run all push it up. We look at the house before quoting, because guessing this one over the phone helps nobody.
Attending your job is a chargeable callout. We confirm what it costs when you book, and the price for the work itself is agreed before we start, so there are no surprises on the invoice.
Based in Castlecrag, covering all of Sydney. A few of the suburbs we work in most:
Covering all 48 North Shore suburbs. See the full list of locations we service.
Upfront pricing, with the price agreed before we start. Call before 11am for same-day service.
