Too few sockets in an old wooden house: where to start adding them

Why these houses have so few sockets to begin with

When these houses were built, a household ran a light bulb or two and perhaps a radio. Nobody planned for a kettle, a laptop charger, and a heater on the same wall, so one or two sockets per room was normal and adequate at the time.

Over the decades the wiring itself has often stayed much as it was: fabric-insulated cable, a fuse box with far fewer circuits than a modern flat, and sockets added piecemeal by whoever lived there before you. The shortage of sockets is really a symptom of a wiring layout that was never updated to match how the house is used now.

Surface trunking or opening the wall — which one fits your case

Surface-mounted trunking (a plastic or metal channel fixed along the skirting or up the wall) is the quicker and less disruptive option. It suits a single extra socket, a rented flat where you cannot alter the plaster, or a wall you are not planning to redecorate soon. No plaster comes off, and the job is usually finished in an hour or two.

Opening the wall to run cable inside it is tidier once finished and is the better choice if you are already redecorating, if you need several sockets in the same room, or if the existing cable behind the plaster is too old or too thin to extend safely. It takes longer and needs patching and repainting afterwards.

As a rule: one socket, wall left alone, favours trunking. A room being replastered anyway, or several sockets going in together, favours opening the wall while the surface is already disturbed.

Where to start: which rooms first

Not every room needs attention at once, and a sensible order saves money because an electrician working through one priority list costs less overall than four separate call-outs.

The kitchen usually comes first: kettle, fridge, hob extras, and small appliances all draw current in one small area, often from a single old circuit. The living room follows, where a television, router, and chargers tend to converge behind the sofa. A home office or bedroom with a desk is next if you work from home. Bathrooms and outbuildings come last, and often need specific fittings for damp locations rather than a simple extra socket.

The most common mistake: adding sockets without checking the circuit behind them

The mistake we see most often is a homeowner, or an electrician working socket by socket, adding one more outlet to an existing circuit without checking what else is already on it or how much current the cable behind the wall can actually carry.

In a 1930s house that circuit may already be feeding half the ground floor. One more socket rarely trips anything by itself, but it adds to a load that was never designed for today's appliances, and the fuse box may be older than the wiring itself. Before any socket goes in, it is worth asking an electrician to check the circuit it will sit on, not just the wall it will sit in.

When it makes more sense to rewire than to keep adding sockets one at a time

If you are on your third or fourth added socket, if the fuse box is original, or if the house still has some of its original fabric-insulated cable, adding one more outlet is a patch, not a fix. At that point a broader look at the circuits, and often a consumer unit replacement, tends to work out better than continuing socket by socket.

This does not have to mean rewiring the whole house in one go. It can mean planning it room by room, starting with the kitchen and living room, so the cost is spread out while each finished room is done properly rather than added to again in a year.

• Original fuse box or very old cable still in place
• Three or more sockets already added piecemeal over the years
• Fuses tripping when several appliances run together
• Planning a renovation anyway, so walls will be open regardless
• Buying or renting the house and unsure of its electrical history

What you can do yourself, and where to call in a specialist

Deciding where sockets should go, planning the room order, and fitting surface trunking neatly along a skirting are all things a careful homeowner can manage. Measuring, marking, and screwing down a length of trunking needs patience more than skill.

Anything involving the cable itself — extending a circuit, connecting a new socket, opening a wall to run wiring inside it, or touching the fuse box — is electrical work and should go to a qualified electrician. It is not a place to guess, given how old and how loaded some of these circuits already are.

We fit sockets from 35 € per job, take on general electrical work from 49 € an hour, and replace consumer units from 350 € per job, with a fixed quote given once we have seen the property or a description of it. Load-bearing walls and gas work are outside what we do, and any such job should go to the relevant specialist.