How do I know if my Lavington house needs rewiring?

Three findings decide it: rubber insulation that crumbles when a cable is moved, a rewireable fuse board rather than MCBs with an RCD, and no working earth electrode. Any one of them is usually enough. We test rather than guess, and we will tell you if the answer is a partial job.

Is rewiring disruptive in an occupied house?

It is, but it is staged. Wet areas and kitchen first, then room by room, and the house is never fully without power overnight. We photograph every wall before it closes and hand you the images.

Plumber in Lavington, Nairobi

We cover Lavington including Valley Arcade, Hatheru Road, Kingara Road, Jamhuri, Amboseli, Muthangari, James Gichuru Road. Off James Gichuru Road and Gitanga Road. Most Lavington plots have a rear service gate that takes a van more easily than the main entrance.

What is different about plumbing in Lavington

Lavington houses around Hatheru Road built in the 1970s still carry rubber-insulated wiring that has gone brittle inside the conduit and cracks whenever it is disturbed.
Mature gardens along Kingara Road hide buried armoured runs to outbuildings and gate motors that nobody has a drawing for.
Valley Arcade properties commonly still have a rewireable fuse board with no RCD protection at all, which is the first thing we replace.

Electrical work in Lavington

Lavington’s housing stock is substantial, mature, and mostly wired to a standard that was appropriate when it was installed and is not now. More of our work here is rewiring than anywhere else we cover.

Rubber insulation

Cable from the 1970s used rubber insulation that hardens and cracks with age. Inside conduit it can look intact until it is disturbed, and then it crumbles off the conductor. The practical consequence is that every repair damages the installation a little further, so the house progressively becomes less safe through being maintained.

Once we find brittle rubber, we will tell you plainly that patching is a holding action rather than a repair.

Boards without protection

A great many Lavington properties still run rewireable fuse boards. No RCD, so an earth fault is not detected until something or someone completes the circuit. And fuse wire that has almost always been replaced at some point with something heavier than the rating.

Replacing the board is the highest-value single job on most houses here, and it is not expensive relative to what it protects.

What is buried in the garden

Decades of additions mean armoured cable running to staff quarters, gate motors, garden lighting and pumps, none of it recorded. Before any excavation or landscaping we trace and mark what is actually there. A digger through a live armoured cable is a bad day for everyone involved.

What we are usually called out for in Lavington

Rewiring and electrical installation Full and partial rewiring, consumer unit upgrades and installations brought up to current standard. Emergency electrician An EPRA-licensed electrician 24 hours a day for tripping boards, partial power loss and anything that smells hot. New house wiring New-build wiring from conduit first fix through to accessories, board and test certificate. Electric fence installation Perimeter fencing with correctly sized energisers, zoning, signage and backup power.

Landmarks we work around here: Valley Arcade shopping centre, Lavington Green, James Gichuru Road, Kingara Road. See our rates.