Electrical work and repairs in Chigwell

Why do Chigwell houses ask so much of their electrics?

Chigwell is known for substantial houses on wide plots along Manor Road, Hainault Road, the High Road and the roads off them, and many have grown over the decades through side extensions, rear extensions, loft rooms, basements and the occasional extra storey. Each addition brought circuits, and the result is often a house with far more electrical load than the supply or the board was ever designed for: several bathrooms with electric showers and underfloor heating, a kitchen with an induction hob and two ovens, air conditioning, a cinema room, a gym and a garden with lighting, a pool and an outbuilding or two.

Can the supply cope?

That is the question an electrician will ask first in a house like this. Most homes have a single-phase supply with a main fuse of a fixed rating, and once a house passes a certain level of demand there is nothing more to be had without the network operator upgrading the supply, sometimes to three phase. Signs that a house is near its limit include a main fuse that has blown, meter tails that run warm and a board where circuits have been doubled up. An electrician can calculate the maximum demand and tell you whether an application to the network operator is needed before anything else is added. That process involves the operator rather than the electrician and can take time, so raise it early if you are planning more work.

How should outbuildings, pools and gates be wired?

Chigwell gardens commonly hold a garden room, a gym, a pool house, a workshop or stables, and the right way to power each of them is a dedicated circuit from the house, run in armoured cable buried or clipped at the right depth, feeding a small consumer unit in the building. Each of those is a new circuit and must be notified under Part P of the Building Regulations. A swimming pool or hot tub is a special location under the Wiring Regulations, BS 7671, with its own rules on zones, bonding and the type of supply, and the pump, the heater and the lighting all need to be designed as a set. Electric gates and driveway lighting on long runs need cable sized for the distance. Where a previous owner had these installed, ask for the certificates with the house papers; where there are none, an inspection report will show what was done.

What about the extended houses themselves?

A house extended three times by three different builders can have three different boards, cables of mixed ages and junctions hidden behind plasterboard. Common jobs are consolidating the boards into one properly designed unit with RCBOs, adding surge protection to guard a house full of electronics, replacing lighting with LED and the dimmers to suit, and fault finding across a large installation where a single RCD is tripping and nobody can say why. For a house with a separate annexe, a flat for staff or a let over the garage, say whether it has its own meter and whether the landlord inspection rules apply to it.

Are the village and Chigwell Row different?

Yes. The old village around the church is a conservation area, with cottages, former inns and listed buildings whose wiring has often been renewed in stages over a long time. Listed building consent can be needed before original walls or floors are cut into, and external fittings on a listed or conservation area building deserve a word with Epping Forest District Council first. Chigwell Row, to the east, stays semi-rural, and some houses along its lanes have overhead supplies and earth rods rather than an earth from the network, which changes how protection has to be designed.

Which council am I in?

IG7 runs across the boundary between Epping Forest District in Essex and the London Borough of Redbridge. Your council tax bill tells you which council deals with your building control notification and any listed building question. Both are in England, so Part P and the landlord regulations apply in the same way on either side.

What helps with a Chigwell enquiry?

Say how big the house is, how many consumer units there are, what has been added since it was built and what you want to add next. Photos of each board and of the meter and main fuse are the most useful things you can send. With your consent, one local electrician who covers IG7, if there is one, receives the enquiry. If nobody does, we tell you and your details go nowhere.