A full rewire of a standard three-bed semi in Ireland costs €7,000 to €12,000 including VAT, materials and certification, and takes 5 to 8 working days. A two-bed terrace sits at the lower end; a four-bed detached with two bathrooms, an ensuite and a converted attic can run past €14,000. Below is what sits inside those numbers, what moves them, and (just as usefully) how to tell whether you need a rewire at all, because a large share of the houses we're asked to quote don't.
The honest answer on price ranges
Published rewire prices in Ireland run from about €4,000 to over €20,000. That spread is too wide to be useful, and it is the single biggest reason people end up asking strangers on forums whether their quote is reasonable. The spread is real, but it is not random. It comes from a handful of specific things, and once you know them you can compare two quotes properly instead of guessing.
Cost by property type
| Property | Typical full rewire | Working days |
|---|---|---|
| 3-bed semi-detached | €7,000 – €12,000 | 5 – 8 |
| Smaller: 2-bed terrace or apartment | Typically below the 3-bed range | 4 – 6 |
| Larger or rural: 4-bed, bungalow, farmhouse | Typically above the 3-bed range | 7 – 12 |
| Partial rewire (targeted circuits) | Quoted from test results | 1 – 3 |
| Fuse board upgrade only | €350 – €1,400 | 1 |
All figures include VAT, materials, testing and the Safe Electric completion certificate. They do not include light fittings and decorative accessories, which are a choice rather than a fixed cost, or making good. See below, because that is where quotes diverge most.
We publish real ranges rather than hiding behind "contact us for a quote", but they are a guide, not a quote. Every house is different, and the accurate number comes after the installation has been tested.
The figures above are indicative ranges for guidance only. They are not a quote and not an offer. Rewiring varies enormously with floor construction, wall type, circuit count, access and the condition of what is already behind the plaster, and none of that can be judged from a photograph or a phone call. Jamie gives you an accurate fixed price in writing after the installation has been tested.
What actually moves the number
1. Spec, and it is the one you control. How many sockets per room, how many light points and switches, whether data points get run to the bedrooms and the home office, outdoor sockets, an EV way in the board, USB outlets, smart switching. A rewire specified to the minimum and the same house specified generously are genuinely different jobs, and that accounts for most of the spread above. Decide what you want before you collect quotes. Otherwise every quote is pricing a different house.
2. Circuit count, not floor area. Labour follows circuits. A four-bed with two bathrooms, an ensuite, a utility and a converted attic has far more circuits than a four-bed bungalow of identical square footage. When you compare quotes, compare the circuit schedule, not the house size.
3. Occupied or empty. An empty house is faster and therefore cheaper. Working around a family means sequencing room by room, keeping circuits live overnight, and tidying every evening, all of it real time that has to be priced.
4. Chasing and making good. This is the big one. Cutting channels into solid walls for new back boxes is the messiest and most variable part of the job, and whether replastering and decorating afterwards sit in your quote or someone else's can be thousands of euro. It is the commonest hidden difference between two quotes that look comparable.
5. Floors and access. Lifting traditional floorboards is straightforward. Semi-solid or engineered floors that cannot be lifted without damage force a different cable route and more hours. Good attic access saves money; a cramped or trussed roof space costs it.
6. Access to the board. Sockets per room, outdoor circuits, EV charger provision, surge protection, smart switching. This is the part you control, and it is worth deciding before you collect quotes rather than after. Otherwise you are comparing different jobs.
7. The board and the supply. A board with spare capacity in a sensible position costs nothing extra. A board that is full, badly positioned, or needs the incoming supply looked at, does.
When the house's age says you don't need one
The year the house was wired changes the job more than anything else, and it is the fastest way to sanity-check a quote before you go any further.
- Built before 1961: rubber or lead-sheathed cable with a finite insulation life, often no earth on the lighting circuits. This is the era where a full rewire is genuinely the right answer.
- 1961 to 1990: the deceptive one. PVC cable, so it looks modern, but usually a rewireable fuse board, undersized earths and no RCD protection. Rewire or partial depending on what testing shows.
- 1991 to 2010: roughly two in five Irish homes, and almost never a rewire. Sound PVC twin-and-earth with an earth on every circuit. What is dated is the protection and the number of ways in the board. See do you need a rewire or just a new fuse board?. This is the group most often quoted for work it does not need.
- 2011 onward: nothing is wearing out. These houses are simply under-specified for what gets added now. EV charging infrastructure only became mandatory in new Irish homes on 1 November 2022 under S.I. 535 of 2022, so anything older is a retrofit.
Full detail on each era, and how to work out which yours is, sits on our house rewires page.
What a rewire quote should itemise
A quote you can actually compare separates these out. If yours does not, ask, the answers are more revealing than the headline figure.
- Labour and materials, split
- The consumer unit and its protective devices, priced separately
- Circuit schedule: how many, and what each one serves
- Making good: chasing, replastering, decorating: in or out, stated explicitly
- Accessories: how many sockets and switches, and to what spec
- Testing and the Safe Electric certificate
- Duration, and whether it assumes the house is occupied or empty
Is a rewire covered by any grant?
There is no general grant for rewiring a house in Ireland. Rewiring can be covered indirectly where it forms part of a wider scheme, the Housing Aid for Older People scheme and the Housing Adaptation Grant both fund electrical work in qualifying circumstances, and the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant can cover it as part of a larger renovation. Eligibility is specific and it is worth checking properly rather than assuming: our guide to rewiring grants in Ireland covers what exists, and the grant checker will tell you in a couple of minutes which ones a property might qualify for.
Do you have to move out?
No, and most of our rewires are done with the family still living in the house. We work room by room and keep at least one circuit live overnight so the fridge, freezer and a set of lights stay on. Power goes down per circuit for a few hours at a time rather than whole-house for days. The exception is the day the board is changed over, which needs the main switch off for a morning.
The thing people underestimate is not the wiring, it is the dust. Chasing walls produces a lot of it. We sheet up, work in sections and tidy at the end of every day, but nobody can make chasing dust-free, and a quote that implies otherwise is worth a second look. Living in the house during a rewire goes through what the week actually looks like.
How to get an accurate number for your house
We test before we quote. Insulation resistance, earth continuity, earth-fault loop impedance and RCD trip times, circuit by circuit. It takes about twenty minutes and it is the difference between a recommendation and a guess. You get the readings, not just the verdict, including when they show the work is not needed.
From there you get a fixed-price written quote inside 48 hours, itemised line by line so you can stage the work or adjust the spec knowingly. J Cowman Electrical Contractors is Safe Electric registered under A6700, carries public liability cover up to €6.5M, and has been trading since 2021 with a crew of ten across Leinster and Waterford. Every job is certified to IS 10101 and the certificate is handed over the day the work finishes.
Common questions
How much does it cost to wire a new house in Ireland?
A new build is a different job from a rewire and usually costs less per point, because there is no strip-out, no chasing into finished walls and no making good, the electrician is working in open studwork and bare block before the plasterer arrives. Expect a first-fix and second-fix package on a typical new three-bed to land in a similar overall range to a rewire, but with the money going into circuits and spec rather than demolition and repair. The variables are different too: number of points, heat pump and EV provision, and how early the electrician is brought in. Getting one on board at design stage rather than after first-fix plumbing is the single biggest cost saver.
How much does it cost to connect electricity to a new build?
The ESB Networks connection is separate from your electrician's quote and is paid directly to ESB Networks, not to us. It is quoted per site based on distance to the nearest network and whether it is overhead or underground, so it varies widely and cannot be estimated from a house type. What we handle is everything from the meter inwards, plus the certification ESB Networks needs before they will energise the supply. Ask for both numbers early. People routinely budget for the wiring and get caught by the connection.
Is it cheaper to rewire a house room by room?
No. Doing it in stages costs more overall, because setup, testing and certification get repeated. What staging does is spread the cost, which is a genuine reason to do it if the alternative is not doing the work at all. The exception is a partial rewire, which is not the same thing: that is replacing the circuits that testing shows have failed and leaving sound ones in place, done in one visit and certified once. That is often the right job and it is cheaper for real reasons rather than by deferral.
Does a rewire add value to a house?
It rarely adds value the way a kitchen or an extension does. What it does is remove a reason for a buyer to negotiate down or for a sale to stall. A buyer's surveyor flagging an older installation, followed by a solicitor asking for an electrical certificate under a closing deadline, is a far more expensive problem than the work itself. Doing it calmly before listing is worth more than the invoice suggests.
How often should a house be rewired?
There is no fixed interval, and any figure quoted as one should be treated with suspicion. Cable does not expire on a schedule. It degrades according to type, load, heat and how it was installed. Rubber-insulated cable from before the 1960s has a genuinely finite life. PVC twin-and-earth from the 1990s does not, in any timeframe that matters to a homeowner. This is why we test rather than count decades.
Can I get a rewire quote without a site visit?
You can get an indicative range from photos and a description, and our estimator will give you one in about a minute. You cannot get a fixed price that way, because the things that move the number most (floor construction, wall type, board position, whether circuits actually pass testing) are not visible in a photograph. Anyone quoting a firm price sight-unseen is either padding it to cover the unknowns or planning to revise it later.