Rewire and central heating

[Steve Davis]

I'm doing up an old Victorian terraced house to rent out and, bearing that in mind (the renting bit), what would be the preferred method of rewiring? I intend to have an upstairs ring, downstairs ring, upstairs lights, downstairs lights, kitchen on it's own ring and an electric shower, so that's six circuits. There's no garage or garden, just a very small back yard so is there anything else I should consider?

I intend to put in an integrated electric oven and gas hob so should the oven be on it's own circuit as well?

And if I go for a split-load CU with RCD (which is I believe, at least good practice, if not mandatory these days?), which circuits should be protected by the RCD?

I also intend to install gas central heating and the first thing that came into my head was a combi-boiler but a couple of people I've spoken to say that their combi's take absolutely ages to fill a bath, so any suggestions for good powerful boilers that don't suffer from that, or any other solutions?

Money is limited and I'm trying to find a happy medium in that I don't want (nor can I afford) to put in the best or most expensive things because of the risk of bad tenants wrecking things, but it has to be good enough for people to want to rent it and live there - you can probably tell this will be the first time I've ever rented a property out :o)

TIA

Steve.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I'm assuming you have a TN or TN-C-S system with earth provided by electricity supplier. If you have a TT system with own earth rod, the answers would be different.

Have a second non-RCD protected circuit in the kitchen, and use this for the electric oven (providing it is intended to plug in to a 13A socket, many are nowadays) and the fridge and freezer and central heating. Position the sockets on this circuit so they are not accessible for general use (e.g. behind the appliances or at the back of an adjacent cupboard). You could label them too, something like "Not RCD protected -- no portable appliances".

If you are having a hot water cylinder and immersion heater, that should have a dedicated circuit.

You may need a dedicated smoke detector circuit, depending what type of smoke detectors you fit.

I would suggest all socket outlets, except for your special non-RCD circuit. In a rented house where people might mess with things, I might be tempted to put the shower in the RCD side too.

That could also be a mains water flow rate issue, but I'll let others make suggestions here.

One further thing you might consider, probably not significant enough by itself to sway you, but add it to the decision making process is that a combi that goes wrong in a rented house is likely to land you with an emergency callout bill. If you have an alternate backup way of heating the water such as an immersion heater and a couple of electric convector heaters available, this can tide the occupants over for a few days until you can get a non-emergency plumber to come in and fix it.

I'm not sure why you are including an electric shower. If you are installing a new heating system anyway, you should use that for the shower whether it be a combi or a hot water cylinder system.

[Steve Davis]

Yes, that's correct - earth supplied by electric company.

The old copper cylinder and it's cupboard were in a decrepit state so I've had to get rid of them anyway and I didn't intend to replace them, instead just relying on the combi to provide hot water as necessary, but your point below about emergency call-out charges and having an alternative for the tenant should anything go wrong with the combi make sense.

The council don't require mains smoke detectors unless the house is being split up for multiple occupation. If renting to a single tenant or a single family, ordinary battery-operated ones will do, which I find really strange. However, I wouldn't feel happy with that and I intend to fit better ones anyway. I'm going to fit a burglar alarm and I know that some of them accept inputs from smoke detectors - would anyone recommend smoke detectors and combined burglar/fire alarm control panel, or is it better to go with mains-operated, independent smoke detectors?

Very good point Andrew, and one I shall consider carefully.

Hmm... not sure myself now, really. I'll most likely take your advice on that too.

Cheers Andrew, lots of food for thought there :o)

Steve.

[Owain]

It would be worth going through the HMO regulations and looking towards compliance. The Scottish HMO regs apply to houses with more than two 'multiple occupants' - so a 3-bed semi with 3 students in would be HMO. The English regs aren't as rigorous *yet* but I think will be heading in the same direction.

It will be considerably easier to demonstrate British Standards compliance with mains-operated smoke detectors than with a combined fire/intruder system. Detectors should be interlinked.

If you get a burglar alarm ensure that it has proper facilities to prevent tenants changing the master code, and have provisions in your tenancy agreement about the tenants registering keyholders with the local police and that if you are a named keyholder you will charge the tenants a fee for every call-out.

And if the emergency callout plumber can't fix on the first visit, you could be picking up hotel bills for your tenants until the parts arrive.

Owain

[Jeff]

Bearing in mind the above 2 points a couple of people I have spoken to with regards to combi's have said "if you get one then make sure you have an electric shower " Yes a combi shower would be better and cheaper to run (you won't be paying the bill) but you have no backup if the combi breaks.... you can boil a kettle for washing etc and use a fan heater for heating but without the electric shower you are going to get that emergency callout.

btw I thought it was mandatory to have the electric shower protected by an RCD

Regards Jeff

[Steve Davis]

Thanks Owain, good points. As I said in my OP, this is the first time I've ever had a property to rent out so all comments, thoughts and information gratefully received :o)

Steve.

[Steve Davis]

Cheers Jeff - also very good points

Steve.