Owning a HMO can be an incredibly lucrative opportunity. Especially if the aim is to rent out individual rooms for contractors or students. But one thing that can turn everything on its head, is the need to rewire your property. Rewiring is no easy feat, even in a domestic setting. And when you factor in all the individual suites, it can feel overwhelming. However, it doesn’t have to be. In fact, rewiring your property could be a blessing in disguise, and can help you to include electrical solutions you might have missed out on otherwise. So how do you you know if your HMO needs rewiring? What are the signs to look out for? Well here at Walker Electrical, we are Preston’s leading electrical experts. As a result, we have produced this guide to rewiring a multiple occupancy home.
Does your HMO need rewiring?
A property that needs to be rewired will reveal some key secrets and signs that reveal the issues. A home that is indicating any of the following, should be rewired immediately:
- exposed wiring
- aged sockets or an old fuse box
- hot sockets
- sparking sockets
- electrical shortages and outages
- flickering lights
What will happen during a rewire?
If any of these warning signs are true of your property, you might be wondering what happens next? Well here are some guidelines:
- the work can take a different amount of time depnding on the size of your property. And so without taking a look ourselves it would be almost impossible to plan a timescale. However, the average HMO takes around 4 weeks.
- you might need to rehouse your tenants for the duration of the work, because all rooms will need to be open and accessible for the electricians.
- a lot of channeling might be necessary to remove the old wiring and fit the new wiring
- you might need to hire a skip for all the old cables
Making changes to your HMO
if there are any electrical changes you would like to make, this can be a great opportunity. You could consider:
- installing more sockets to make rooms more practical and reduce the amount of extension leads, and the risks they pose
- installing more light fixtures, like up-lighters or task lighting in private rooms
- installing motion sensitive lighting in the stairs or corridors so you aren’t paying out for wasted electricity
If your property needs rewiring, or for more advice, contact the experts today, here at Walker Electrical.