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Plan on 20–30% more wire than the same house takes from new: a 5 marla that needs 21 coils new-built needs about 26 on a rewire. Then budget the one cost line a new build never carries — making good the plaster afterwards.
The uplift is not the house getting bigger. It is the cable following routes the building already has instead of routes an electrician would choose. On cost, ask any rewiring quote which of four scopes it covers — wire, wire plus fittings, plus labour, plus making good — because that, not the house, is what separates two quotes for the same job. The four drivers and the arithmetic are below.
Rewiring an existing house takes roughly 20–30% more conductor than wiring the same house from new, because the cable follows the routes the building already has rather than the routes an electrician would pick on a drawing. Four things drive it: conduit already too full or too tight to take a larger conductor, existing runs that end in the wrong place and get abandoned rather than reused, surface or skirting runs where a finished wall cannot be chased, and a distribution board that moves position and so lengthens every circuit measured from it. Treat 20–30% as a planning allowance to check against your own house, not a measured average.
| Driver | What it adds | Can you avoid it? |
|---|---|---|
| Conduit too full or too tight | A fresh chase and a fresh run beside the old one | Only where the pipe passes a draw wire and the new size still fits |
| Runs that end in the wrong place | The old length is abandoned, the new length is bought | No — the point positions moved with the furniture |
| Walls that cannot be chased | A longer route round in surface trunking or skirting | Partly, by chasing where the wall is due for replastering anyway |
| Board moved to a new position | Every circuit re-measured from the new centre | No, if the old board sat in a corner — and it usually did |
Work it on a published figure. A single-storey 5 marla house on 46 points takes about 21 coils new-built. At the bottom of the allowance that is 21 × 1.20 = 25.2 coils; at the top, 21 × 1.30 = 27.3. Order against 26 and confirm after the first two rooms are pulled, because those two rooms tell you which of the four drivers your house actually has. New-build quantities per plot size sit on the plot guides, and the circuit-by-circuit method behind them is on how much cable a house needs — this page carries only the uplift.
An old house is rarely rewired because the copper wore out. It is rewired because the load in the house is no longer the load the wire was chosen for. Lights, fans and a television is a different house from lights, fans, two air conditioners, a washing machine and an instant geyser — and the wire in the wall did not change when the appliances did.
| Strand code | True area | Sold as | Capacity | Voltage drop | What it can still carry |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3/.029 | 1.29 mm² | 1.5 mm² | 19.5 A | 29 mV/A/m | Lights and fans on a 6 A MCB — nothing else |
| 7/.029 | 3.0 mm² | 2.5–3 mm² | 27 A | 18 mV/A/m | Socket and kitchen circuits on 16 A |
| 7/.036 | 4.6 mm² | 4 mm² | 36 A | 11 mV/A/m | An AC or geyser point on its own 20–25 A MCB |
| 7/.044 | 6.9 mm² | 6 mm² | 46 A | 7.3 mV/A/m | Main earth conductor, short submains |
| 7/.052 | 9.6 mm² | 10 mm² | 63 A | 4.4 mV/A/m | The run from the meter to the board |
Take the commonest reason a house ends up rewired: an AC point spurred off a socket circuit that was run in 3/.029. A 1.5 ton unit draws 1500–1800 W typically, which is 6.8–8.2 A at 220 V — read the figure off your own rating plate. Two things fail at once. The cable is rated 19.5 A clipped direct at 30°C, so it sits below a 20 A MCB before any derating for conduit, bunching or a Lahore summer; the protection would outlive the cable. And over an 18 m run the drop is 29 × 8.2 × 18 ÷ 1000 = 4.28 V, against a final-circuit budget of about 3.3 V — half of 3% of 220 V, the other half already spent between the meter and the board. The same run on 4 mm² drops 11 × 8.2 × 18 ÷ 1000 = 1.62 V and carries 36 A. That is the rewire argument in one circuit. The full selection chart is on single-phase cable size, the AC circuit is worked through on cable for a 1.5 ton AC, and your own run length goes into the voltage drop calculator.
Reusing the conduit is the single biggest saving available on this job, and it is also the thing most often assumed rather than tested. Test it before you price the job.
A partial rewire — new board, new socket circuits, new appliance circuits, old lighting left alone — is defensible in exactly one situation: the existing lighting circuits carry an earth conductor at every point, the conduit is sound, and the lighting stays on its 6 A MCB with nothing else added to it. Then the money goes where the load went, and the lights keep working.
It is not defensible where the old circuits are two-wire with no protective conductor. A circuit with no earth has nowhere for a fault on an appliance body to go, so the metal stays live until somebody touches it. A residual current device on the new board reduces the consequence; it does not create an earth, and no cable size substitutes for one. Where the earth is missing, the circuit is rewired, not patched — and if that is true of the lighting circuits, the partial rewire has become a full one. Have the existing installation inspected and that fork decided by a licensed electrician before you buy any wire.
A new-build wiring quote has three scopes hiding inside it. A rewiring quote has four, and the fourth is the one that surprises people: making good. A new build closes its chases under plaster that has not been applied yet. A rewire cuts chases into finished, painted walls, and those walls then have to be finished and painted again.
| Scope | What is in it | Who supplies it |
|---|---|---|
| A. Wire and cable only | The uplifted coil list, the earth conductor, and the meter-to-board run if it is being replaced | Pilone Cables, factory-direct |
| B. A plus fittings | Conduit, back boxes, switches, sockets, the new board with its MCBs and RCD, earth electrode | Electrical store |
| C. B plus labour | Stripping out the old wiring, chasing, laying conduit, pulling, terminating, testing | Your electrician or contractor |
| D. C plus making good | Filling chases, replastering, skirting and floor repair, repainting the affected walls | Mason and painter, often a separate trade again |
Two quotes for the same job can be several times apart and both be honest, because one stopped at C and the other included D. Ask which line a number covers before you compare it with another number. Scope A is the only one we price, and we price it at the day's copper rate, because copper is what moves it — a quote from last month is a different number this month. Per-point and per-square-foot labour rates, and how a rewire's labour differs from a new build's, sit on cable installation cost.
An empty house is rewired in the order a new build is. An occupied one is not, because the family needs light tonight. The sequence that keeps the house running also explains part of the 20–30% uplift: for a while, two sets of wiring exist at once.
Count the points that exist, mark the points you want, and trace which circuit feeds what before anything is disconnected. Agree the new board position now — it is what every circuit length is measured from.
New conduit and new wire go in beside the old while the house still runs on the old board. Nothing is disconnected yet, and nobody spends a week without power.
Supply off, new board fitted and labelled, new circuits terminated, earth electrode connected, everything tested, then energised. This is the only day the house is dark.
The old wire comes out of the walls, the chases are filled, replastered and painted. This is scope D, it is a mason's work rather than an electrician's, and it is the stage most quotes go quiet about.
Order the wire at stage 1, once the points are counted and the routes are agreed — not before, because until then any quantity is a guess. If you are wiring from bare brick instead, the order of work is different and is set out on wiring for a new house.
The bulk of the coil list. Seven copper strands to a 3.0 mm² conductor, PVC insulated to 450/750 V, drawn on the Pilone line in Lahore for the socket and kitchen circuits that carry the load an old house gained.
Prices track the daily copper rate. Send the uplifted coil list and your city for today's factory rate on the whole lot.
The rest of the list: 3/.029 single core copper cable for lights and fans, 4mm single core copper cable for the AC and geyser circuits the old house did not have, 6mm single core copper cable for the main earth, and 10mm 2 core cable where the meter-to-board run is replaced too.
We draw the copper in Lahore and sell it at the day's rate — no dealer margin. Send the coil list and your city once the points are counted: Punjab in 1–2 days, rest of Pakistan in 2–4.