Electrician in Bracknell

Bracknell is a designated new town, and most of its housing went up in a concentrated burst between the 1950s and the 1970s. Wildridings, Harmans Water, Priestwood, Easthampstead, Great Hollands, Birch Hill, Crown Wood and Bullbrook were built to plan, to a standard, and largely at the same time: Harmans Water from about 1960, Wildridings in the late 1960s.

That is unusual, and it has a direct electrical consequence. A very large number of Bracknell homes are the same age, wired to the same era’s standards, and arriving at the same point in their life at the same time.

Original new town wiring is now somewhere between fifty-five and seventy years old. Three things decide what it needs: the cable, the board, and everything added since.

In housing of this age the cable is the first thing to assess. Rubber-insulated cable, used before PVC became standard, goes brittle with age and can crack when it is disturbed. That is why an installation that has been left alone can seem to behave perfectly until somebody changes a light fitting.

Early PVC is more durable, but it still degrades with heat over decades.

The second is the board. A rewirable fuse box gives no RCD protection at all, and RCD protection is the part of a modern installation that is specifically there to protect a person rather than the cable.

Replacing the board is a much smaller job than a rewire, and often the single most worthwhile thing you can do. If the cable is sound, a new consumer unit gives you 30 mA RCD protection and surge protection without the disruption of a rewire.

The third is everything added since. Extensions, converted garages, loft rooms, outside supplies and kitchen refits all get connected to circuits that were designed for a 1965 household, with far fewer things plugged in.

Full and partial rewires in the original estate houses are planned around you still living there: floors protected, the power back on at the end of each day, and a programme agreed before we start.

The programme comes with the quote, because it depends on the size of the house, whether it is occupied and how much making good is involved.

Alongside the housing, Bracknell has office space, business parks and a retail core. Lighting, distribution, testing and inspection and fit-out work for offices and smaller units, scheduled around occupancy. More on commercial work.

Bracknell is in Bracknell Forest, the same council as Sandhurst. Notifiable work, such as a new circuit or a consumer unit replacement, is notified for you, and you receive the Building Regulations compliance certificate.