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Wiring Buried in the Fabric of Your Home
When a house is built the wiring is pretty much embedded in the fabric of the construction. Just like the plumbing, the idea is to keep the wiring hidden because cables trailing all over the place look unsightly – and are potentially dangerous. That means that most of those cables will be buried in the plaster and running through cavities, where they can do the essential work of carrying electrical power to places in which it is needed, where it becomes available through sockets.
Getting at the wiring, then, is quite an undertaking, so no one gets their place rewired unless they really need to – if you’re not sure whether yours is one of those cases, our guide on how to know when to rewire your home can help you work that out. Rewiring your home may be a matter of bringing this one aspect of the building up to date – or it may be part of a much bigger program of work. Let’s look at the process.
Rewiring old Homes
Obviously, an old building is more likely to need rewiring than a relatively new one, and it is often done as part of a major renovation, when layers are being stripped off and replaced anyway – our renovation electrical checklist is worth a look if you’re planning that kind of project. This is good news for an electrical contractor, because it gives unhindered access where work would otherwise be difficult. For a general idea of how frequently homes need this work done, see our guide on how often a home should be rewired. If you’re dealing with a heritage property specifically, our piece on upgrading heritage homes without compromising character covers those extra considerations.
If an old property has new cabling on the surface of a wall, possibly boxed in by a white plastic cover, this was probably done as the neatest way of running power where it is needed without wrecking the wall. Nice try, but it really isn’t that tidy and sooner or later the householder will have to bite the bullet and get the rewiring done properly.
That leads to the age-old question: how expensive is this going to be?
Cost of Rewiring a Home
How much does it cost to rewire a house? Here we come to the age-old answer: it depends. How big is the place? How much work will be involved? The cost of the overall job must be separated from the electrical work. Electricians don’t rip old plaster off and put a lovely new finish on. That is someone else’s job, so when you get a quote for rewiring it may well be dependent on the electrician having good access to the routes the cables have to take. For a more detailed breakdown, see our 2026 guide to rewiring costs, or try our house rewiring cost calculator to get a figure tailored to your property.
Ballpark figures as of mid-2026: for a small apartment, rewiring may cost somewhere from $3,000 to $5,000, while a biggish house could be $20,000 or more. This cost may seem large but it’s just a part of the overall renovation job, which should ultimately be cheaper than buying a new property.
Why Consider Rewiring Your Home?
Top electrical contractors such as us at OnePojnt Sydney Electricians take on work in everything from private homes to commercial premises such as hotels, but all these projects have one thing on common: the world has moved on since the place was built and there are electrical and electronic devices now that weren’t even thought of when the building was constructed.
That means greater demands on the wiring in terms of capacity (what it can handle), increased numbers of sockets required and so on. Also, rooms are repurposed from time to time, extensions are built and safety standards are raised. OnePoint’s electricians are properly trained, licensed and certified and all work complies with Building Code of Australia (BCA) standards – you can read more about what’s changed recently in our guide to Australian electrical standards in 2026.
Thinking about rewiring your own place? Get in touch and we at One Point Sydney Electricians can talk you through the process.
