WHAT FURNITURE DO I NEED TO MOVE WHEN REWIRING MY HOME? What do I do with my furniture?
When you are having your property rewired whilst you are living in the property you will have all of your furniture still in the property. This furniture will need to be moved to help aid the electricians carrying the work out. Where and when you move your furniture depends on a few factors. Below is a guide although your electricians carrying the work out will advise during the works.
DOWNSTAIRS
If you have floorboards on the ground floor then whilst having your downstairs sockets rewired it is advised and also makes the work much easier if you move all of your furniture into the middle of the room, this allows the electricians to lift the floorboards up in the corners of the rooms where you will be having your sockets installed. This will allow the electrician to feed his cables under the floors using some cable rods. This helps speed up the rewiring with minimal lifting of the carpets. Once the sockets are wired and chased into the walls the furniture such as settees can be put back in place.
If you are having your downstairs lights rewired then it is advisable to have your furniture around the edge of the rooms ensuring the centre of the room where the lighting pendant is situated is clear, this helps with feeding the cables under the floor from the upstairs and fishing the cables out in the correct lighting locations.
UPSTAIRS
Rewiring the upstairs is a little trickier when it comes to the furniture. Wiring the sockets is the same process as the downstairs, however, when rewiring the downstairs lights, the electricians will need access to the floorboards in the centre of the room, this will allow them to access the lighting points downstairs and also the switch cable drops downstairs. The electricians will still try and only lift the carpets around the perimeter of the room, this helps with restoring the floorboards and carpets at the end of each day. The landing area is usually a key cable run, most of the upstairs cables and some of the downstairs cables will be run under this floor area, it is advisable to move all furniture from the landing area, this will help as usually all of the landing carpet will be lifted each day to allow the electricians to lift the floorboards and drill cable holes into these joists.
BREAKABLES
It is advisable to place all breakables/valuables in a safe place, these items may be TV’s mirrors, vases, pictures. As your electrical rewire will require the moving of the furniture it is possible these may get damaged. A lot of customers place these either in their garage or conservatory or in a spare bedroom out of the way. If you do store these items in these rooms, then these rooms will be the last to be rewired. Your electrician will advise when it will be safe to move these items on a room by room basis