Updated 30 July 2026
RAMS template for a domestic rewire
Twenty steps for phased work, occupied rooms, asbestos risk, testing and handover.
Method statement: domestic rewire sequence20 steps
- Get the scope in writing: every room, what stays, who is living there through the work, and who makes good afterwards.
- Count the contractors. If you are the only one, the householder's own CDM duties are yours. If you are in control of the site and he has appointed nobody, reg 7(2)(b) makes you the principal contractor, which is heavier still.
- Tell the client in writing what duties he holds, and draw up the construction phase plan before the site is set up.
- Agree welfare before first fix: which WC, which basin with hot water, soap, towels, and where drinking water comes from. The householder's own can count, but only once it is agreed and actually available.
- Ask the age of the house and for any asbestos survey. Pre-2000, treat textured coatings and the panels behind and beside the board as containing asbestos until an assessment says otherwise.
- Plan cable routes so those materials stay undisturbed. A route that has to go through one stops being your work and becomes a survey and a licensed removal.
- Survey the existing installation before you price it: earthing arrangement, main bonding, where the cut-out and meter sit, and whether the supply carries the new load.
- Raise anything the distributor owns early — a meter move, a cut-out fuse, an earthing arrangement that has to change. Their lead time sets your programme.
- Write the phase order down: which circuits go dead on which day, what stays live overnight, and which rooms the occupier cannot use.
- Give the occupier that plan on paper with dates, and ask what must keep working each evening: heating, hot water, a fridge, a stair light, a medical device.
- Fit battery smoke and heat alarms in the circulation route before the mains-interlinked system goes down, and leave them there every night it stays down.
- Isolate at the board, lock off, keep the only key, post a notice, and prove dead at the point of work. Warn the household that a socket which worked yesterday may now be fed from somewhere else.
- First fix: lift floors, notch and drill joists to the permitted zones, run cables in the prescribed safe zones or in earthed containment, and fit back boxes. Scan for buried cables and pipes before you chase or drill, and isolate anything the scan finds.
- Change the consumer unit and energise the new circuits one at a time, with the old board dead and its circuits either transferred or made safe in an enclosure.
- Second fix: fit and terminate the accessories, then the interlinked smoke and heat alarms, and take the temporary battery units away only once the new system is tested.
- Relabel the board the moment anything changes and keep the circuit chart with it. A half-rewired board is where the chart stops matching the house.
- Control the dust from chasing, drilling and lifting floors: sheet the route, use on-tool extraction, and keep everyone out of the room you are working in.
- Leave the house safe each night: temporary lighting, one labelled socket circuit, and every dead end terminated in an enclosure rather than taped back.
- Dead-test each new circuit before it is energised. The live tests that follow are work on a live conductor, so answer reg 14's three questions in writing first.
- Make good, then hand over the certificate, the circuit chart and either building control's completion certificate or your registered-person one, and walk the occupier round every room.
Paste into your own document and edit every line.
What does a reviewer check on a rewire?
| Question | What the provision says | Where |
|---|---|---|
| QuestionDoes CDM reach a householder's rewire? | What the provision saysYes. Reg 2 covers fixed electrical services. With one contractor, client duties transfer to that contractor; with more, to the principal contractor or an agreed principal designer. | WhereCDM 2015, regs 2 and 7(1) |
| QuestionWhose welfare facilities are they? | What the provision saysReg 15(11) covers welfare affecting a contractor or workers under their control. The occupier's facilities can satisfy Schedule 2 if they are available. | WhereCDM 2015, reg 15(11) and Sch 2 |
| QuestionDo the asbestos duties bind a sole trader? | What the provision saysYes. Reg 3(1) covers self-employed people. Reg 5 requires an assessment or, where doubt remains, assume asbestos is present and not chrysotile alone. | WhereCAR 2012, regs 3(1) and 5 |
| QuestionWhat covers a half-rewired board? | What the provision saysReg 12(1) requires suitable means of cutting off and isolation, including circuit identification where needed to prevent danger. | WhereEAWR 1989, reg 12 |
HSE says asbestos still kills around 5,000 workers each year. Notifiable in England: reg 12(6A)(a) is “the installation of a new circuit”, unless reg 12(6) takes it out for a registered person or a Schedule 3A certifier. CDM starts at reg 2.
Does the survey have to be yours?
Not always, and reg 5 does not demand one. CAR reg 3(1) makes a sole trader both employer and employee, and reg 3(3) extends it, so far as is reasonably practicable, to “any other person, whether at work or not”. Schedule 2 wants “clean hot and cold, or warm, water”.
What do these steps not cover?
Your hazards and controls. EAWR reg 14 is answered per circuit on the day. The Word file beside these steps is the general electrician RAMS. For the board-change phase, the £29 consumer unit RAMS is task-specific and editable.