Electrician in Al-Zahir, Makkah 0565564857 | Old-Home Rewiring and New Boards

Need an electrician in Al-Zahir for an older home whose wiring is tired? Fuse boards or old breakers nobody can identify, cables that run warm whenever another appliance goes in, sockets with no earth. Call or WhatsApp 0565564857. We take calls from Al-Zahir 24 hours a day and tell you the real arrival time before a technician leaves.

Al-Zahir is one of Makkah’s long-established districts, with old houses alongside apartment blocks and flats built at different times. One home may have recent wiring while the one next door still has what it was built with. What we do well at Gulf Al-Arab is bring that wiring up to date without tearing the house down around the family. The rest of our services are on the home electrician in Makkah page.

Signs your wiring has outlived itself

Not every old house needs a full rewire; some just need a new board and a few circuits. But if you recognise two or three of these, ask for a proper inspection before it turns into a midnight fault:

• A board with rewireable fuses, or rusty breakers with no markings at all.
• Two-pin sockets with no earth, or sockets that shift in the wall when you plug in.
• Brittle, cracked insulation that crumbles inside switch boxes.
• Lights that dim when the AC or washing machine starts.
• A faint hot smell from the board or certain switches after hours of use.
• Surface cables added along the walls over the years for each new appliance.
• No RCD at all, which is what we find in most homes that have never been updated.

In some very old houses a few points may still be on an older supply voltage. We find these by measuring and bring them into line during the work, rather than leaving a trap for the next appliance plugged in.

Replacing an old distribution board

The board is the heart of the house. Old ones were designed for lights, a fan and a fridge, not four AC units, heaters and an electric oven. Overworked old breakers either trip for no clear reason or, worse, fail to trip when they should.

What a modern board gives you

• A main switch that cuts the whole house in one move, somewhere the family knows.
• An RCD protecting circuits with water or lots of hand contact: bathrooms, kitchen, sockets.
• Separate breakers for each circuit, rated to its cable: lighting, sockets, AC, heaters, kitchen.
• Clear labels on every breaker so you know what you are switching off.
• Spare ways for circuits you add later, so the next AC unit does not mean another new board.

Changing it without leaving you in the dark for long

We prepare and lay out the new board before switching off, then move circuits across one at a time, identifying and testing each cable. Most homes have power back the same day. If we find a cable too damaged to reconnect, we isolate it and tell you rather than putting it back as it was. We also check that the total load suits the main breaker and what feeds it from the meter.

Rewiring an old home with minimal breaking

What scares owners most is demolition, dust and moving out. In many houses a rewire needs far less of that than people imagine, if it is planned properly.

Test before cable

We insulation-test every circuit to see which are sound and which are failing, and open sample boxes and conduits to check their state. That tells us whether you need a full rewire or just certain circuits plus the board.

New cable through old conduit

Where conduits in the walls are intact and clear, we pull the old cable out and draw new, correctly sized cable through with an earth. The wall is only opened at the boxes, saving most of the plastering and painting.

Slim trunking where there is no conduit

Some old houses never had conduit, or it has blocked over the years. There we use slim trunking in the wall colour, run along ceiling lines and corners so it nearly disappears, and keep chasing to places with no alternative, such as a run through a kitchen wall.

In stages, with you living there

We can work room by room or floor by floor, so the family stays and moves around us. At the end of each day the finished circuits are live and tested.

What we usually find, and what we do about it

Earthing: the protection you never see

An earth wire does not power anything, so it gets neglected. Yet it is the path fault current takes when a live wire touches a heater or washing machine casing, tripping the breaker instead of passing through whoever touches it. In many Al-Zahir homes we find three-pin sockets fitted with nothing connected to the earth pin. We test continuity from each point to the board, measure the earth electrode itself, and repair or add what is needed. The Saudi Building Code treats earthing as a core part of any installation, not an extra.

Older flats in Al-Zahir blocks: landlord or tenant?

In older blocks responsibilities overlap. The building’s main board, the floor boards and the stair and entrance lighting usually belong to the owner. The board inside the flat and everything after it is what the tenant lives with. When a tenant calls us we work on the flat, and if the problem comes from the floor board or the riser cable we explain that clearly so the owner can be told. Many owners have a flat rewired between tenants, which is the best time: the flat is empty, the work is quicker, and the new tenant moves in to tested wiring and a labelled board.

An extra floor on top of an old house

A floor or annex is often added years later and fed from the old board through one long cable, so the new floor’s AC units and heaters live on a line meant for two rooms. The right answer is a sub-board for that floor, fed from the main board by a properly sized cable on its own breaker, with its own breakers and RCD. The floor can then be isolated on its own, and a fault upstairs no longer takes down the whole house.

Everything else we do in Al-Zahir

Rewiring is not all we do here; the technician carries everyday kit too. Details are on the electrician in Makkah page.

Steps of a visit in Al-Zahir

1. Call or message 0565564857 with the rough age of the house and what worries you.
2. Send photos of the board and a few sockets and switches, or a video of the fault.
3. We book a time, the same day for faults where possible, and tell you when the electrician will arrive.
4. He tests with an insulation tester and thermal camera and gives you a clear picture: what is urgent, what can wait.
5. We agree the scope and price before anything starts, and the stages if the rewire is done in parts.
6. We do the work, test every circuit in front of you and hand over a labelled board.
7. You pay after the job is finished and tested. It carries a workmanship guarantee; ask the technician about its period.

What sets the cost of rewiring in Al-Zahir

No two old houses are in the same state, so we do not publish fixed prices. A house with sound conduit is rewired by pulling cable; one without needs trunking and some chasing. A large majlis chandelier can need a lift and days of assembly. So the electrician prices the job after seeing it, or photos and videos of it on WhatsApp, and you agree before work starts.

Photograph the board and a few points and send them on WhatsApp; we will give you an estimate before the visit, confirmed after testing.

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