Lets talk about home re-wires.

Using an electrician to re-wire your home in Chippenham can be quite a big undertaking so before you assume you need a re-wire, here are a few signs that your electrical installation may be in need of a home re-wire. 

Frequent electrical issues
Old installations are usually FULL of joint boxes connecting wires together. The method for re-wiring your home is a lot different than it used to be. Back in the day electricians in Bath and West Wiltshire used to use joint boxes for their lighting circuits, over time the screws on the joint boxes can work their way loose which could stop part or all of your lights from working. If it's your ground floor lights it's often a complete guessing game as to where the joint boxes are and it's quite labour intensive lifting carpets and flooring to trace the cables. These days we always try to make our joints accessible where possible e.g. behind a switch or a socket. Where this isn't possible we have to use something called a 'maintenance free' joint. This means the connections won't come loose!

Outdated wiring
When electricians in Chippenham re-wired homes in the 70's, the regs didn't say that the cable for the lights needed an earth wire so in order to keep costs down, they used cable which didn't have an earth. If your lights don't have an earth wire then you should consider re-wiring the circuit to ensure a reliable earth is at every point on the circuit. 

Regular tripping of RCD's
An RCD is a a safety device that is designed to protect you in the event of an electric shock. Outdated electrical installations likely don't have RCD's installed. These days when an electrician re-wires your home they have to install RCD's to conform to the latest edition of the regulations however, sometimes a fuseboard may have been upgraded and the old wiring left in place. Over time electrical wiring will degrade and being to 'leak' current to earth. An RCD will detect this leak and when it's over the rated limit the RCD will trip. This will likely begin by being completely random and then happen more often over time as the cable degrades further.