What it costs to replace a consumer unit in a flat

What the 350 € starting price includes

Consumer unit replacement starts from 350 € as a fixed quote, and that figure assumes a fairly straightforward job: a modern flat with a manageable number of circuits, reasonable access to the existing board, and no surprises behind the cover once it comes off. It covers a qualified electrician's time, the new enclosure, and standard components such as circuit breakers and a residual current device sized to the flat.

This starting price is for the labour and standard parts of swapping an old board for a new one of similar scope. It is not a ceiling and it is not what every flat will pay — it is the floor, quoted after we have seen photos or a description of the existing board and the flat's layout.

For smaller electrical jobs that are not a full consumer unit swap, work is billed hourly from 49 € per hour, with a minimum of one hour and 30-minute steps after that. A full board replacement is usually quoted as a fixed price once we know what we are dealing with, because too many variables affect the hours involved.

What pushes the price higher

The single biggest factor is the number of circuits. A 1960s or 1970s panel flat might have had four or five circuits when it was built — lighting, sockets, cooker, perhaps one more. Bringing that up to a modern standard with separate circuits for the bathroom, kitchen sockets, and dedicated ones for larger appliances adds breakers, wiring work, and time, all of which raise the quote above the starting figure.

Access matters too. If the existing board is behind a kitchen unit that needs to come out, or the wall around it is in poor condition and needs patching afterwards, that is extra time on top of the electrical work itself. A board that is easy to reach and leave tidy costs less than one buried behind furniture.

The condition of the meter and the mains cable feeding the flat is the other major variable. If the incoming cable is undersized, damaged, or simply too old to connect safely to a new board, replacing that run is additional work and additional material, and it can be the difference between a 350 € job and one closer to double that.

Shared stairwell boards and the housing association

In many Tallinn panel buildings the meters sit in a shared board in the stairwell rather than inside each flat, and that changes the job. Work on a shared board usually needs to be coordinated with the korteriühistu, both because it may involve briefly cutting power to more than one flat and because the board itself is common property, not something one owner can simply have altered.

This coordination does not necessarily raise the price of the electrical work itself, but it does add time to the schedule: the housing association needs notice, and sometimes a board meeting or a written agreement, before work on shared equipment can go ahead. It is worth raising this early rather than assuming the stairwell board is exactly like a private one inside a flat.

If your own flat's meter is inside the shared board but your internal wiring and in-flat consumer unit are entirely your own, the fixed quote can often be scoped to cover only the parts within your flat, with the shared board left untouched.

What is usually included in the quote, and what is not

A fixed quote for consumer unit replacement normally includes removing the old board, fitting the new enclosure and breakers, connecting the existing circuits, labelling them, and testing that everything works correctly before we leave. It also carries our 24 months' guarantee on the work itself.

What it usually does not include is patching and painting the wall around the new board if the old one was a different size or shape, replacing damaged circuit wiring found once the cover is off, or any work to the meter itself if that belongs to the network operator rather than to you. These are flagged as soon as they are found, and priced separately before we proceed.

• Included: removal of old board, new enclosure and breakers, reconnecting existing circuits
• Included: labelling of circuits and a functional test before completion
• Included: 24 months' guarantee on the work
• Usually extra: wall repair or repainting around a differently sized board
• Usually extra: replacing worn circuit wiring discovered during the job
• Usually extra: mains cable or meter work, if the incoming supply needs upgrading
• Materials bought by us carry a 10 % handling fee, or you can supply them yourself

When to replace the whole board rather than patch it

An old fuse-based board, or one where the breakers are undersized for the appliances now in use, is usually a case for full replacement rather than swapping one component at a time. Patching a board designed for a different era of electricity use — no dishwasher, no electric hob, one socket circuit for a whole flat — tends to just relocate the weak point rather than remove it.

It is a reasonable economy to patch a board if the fault is isolated, the rest of the installation is sound, and the flat's electrical load has not really changed. It becomes a false economy once you are adding circuits one at a time to a board that was never designed to take them, or working around a residual current device that keeps tripping under normal use.

If you are not sure which situation you are in, a description of the board's age, the number of circuits, and photos of the existing setup is usually enough for us to say whether hourly repair work or a full fixed-price replacement makes more sense.