The average cost to fit an extra double plug socket in an existing ring main is £130, including materials.
Finding it annoying that there aren't enough plug sockets in your home or that they seem to be in the wrong position? New electrical appliances have changed the way we use our rooms and how we layout our furniture. Whether it's a wall mounted television in the living room or USB charge points for your smartphone in the bedroom, installing extra plug sockets might be the most convenient and safest option to supply your electrical needs.
How much plug sockets cost to install depends on a number of factors, including;
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Your location in the UK, electricians in the South East tend to be more expensive.
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The price of the plug sockets and additional wiring and connectors (are you including plug sockets with USB connectors?).
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The complexity of the installation, including the number of sockets and dealing with the additional load on the consumer unit.
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Access for the electrician to lay the new wiring circuits and sockets.
Cost to fit a new plug socket near you
Fitting a plug socket takes 2 hours and the average hourly rate of an electrician in the UK is £34 per hour excluding VAT and any call out charge.
The biggest cost of fitting a new plug socket is hiring an electrician to do it for you and depending on where you live in the UK will have a bearing on how much it's going to cost. London and the South East tends to be more expensive but areas where electricians are difficult to get hold of can also be costly. Travelling to and from your property is an additional expense so expect to pay for that time too.
Fitting a new double plug socket in a room will take about 1 to 2 hours to complete depending on access which we will discuss below. If you want more sockets you will need to pay more but at a lower cost, so if you are not sure how many sockets you need, getting an extra socket fitted in a room might save you money at a later date.
Changing plug sockets in a room to upgrade existing sockets is a straight forward job and you might not need the help of an electrician. But as with all the electrical circuits and appliances in your property it is a good idea to either make sure you are wiring the sockets correctly or getting a qualified electrician with NICEIC or NAPIT accreditation to do it for you. You also need to make sure you are validating your home insurance policy and fitting new electrical circuits to your home as an unqualified DIY electrician is probably not going to do that.
Cost and types of plug sockets
A plug socket can cost for £2 to £60
Low cost plastic plug sockets with switches can cost from as little as £2 bought in packs from places like Screwfix. At the other end of the market are 2-gang (double) USB brushed metal sockets and smart plug sockets that connect with Alexa, Google Home and Apple HomeKit.
USB 2-gang sockets with switches can be picked up for as little as £7 in a brushed steel finish, so it is worth discussing with your electrician what options are available. There are many brands available and an electrician will have their preferred manufacturer based on reliability and ease of use. Example brands are Schneider, British General, MK and Screwfix own brand LAP. Brands like Schneider cost up to £40 for a double socket with USB.
If you have a smart home or are thinking about making your home's electrical appliances smart ready, there are switches and plug sockets you can now control with your smartphone or your virtual assistant like Alexa and Apple HomeKit. British General have a low cost £11 smart plug socket on the market but you can pay up to £60 for a Lightwave or £35 for Energenie model.
There are other types of plug sockets available with multiple USB connectors, used as WIFI extenders in a home or RCD sockets that trip out on overload. There are main styles, including brushed metal, chrome, brass and industrial box type installations. Whatever you choose it is a good idea to discuss with the electrician before you buy because they probably know quite a bit about plug sockets and they might be able to get a trade discount that they can pass on to you.
Bathroom plug sockets
Bathroom plug sockets must be located more than 3 metres from the edge of the bath or shower, which is why most bathrooms don’t have standard plug sockets in them. The exception is specially designed shaver sockets that you can charge electric toothbrushes or shavers with, but these must still be no closer than 600mm from the edge of the bath or shower.
The cost to install a plug socket in a bathroom should still be around the same as in any other room.
How to fit a new plug socket in a room
The complexity of fitting a new wall plug depends on whether the ring main needs extending and whether or not that task will be straightforward. For example, your electrical installation and consumer unit might be old and need replacing before any additional sockets can be added. An electrician might be able to give you an estimate over the phone based on a description of the job, but for a proper quote they will need to inspect your property to check if your walls are solid or studded and if there is access through the skirting or floorboards. They might have to do that on the day of the job due to the time and expense of visiting you for a relatively small job.
Connecting to the ring main means that no additional wiring is required to lead back to the consumer unit, which will make the job quicker and cheaper. The electrician can take power from a plug socket already wired in the room and add new wiring to extend to the new plug socket(s) so it becomes part of the ring. This is generally an easy task but the walls will require filling and decoration especially if the electrician needs to chase a solid wall to get the cables through. The electrician will not paint and decorate your room after the job so that will need to be done by yourself or a local painter and decorator.
Access to fit a new double plug socket
Electrical wiring is laid in the walls and under the floorboards. Running electric cable in tight access areas without damaging the walls is ideal but not normally possible. The wall will require some work after the electrician has finished. They might fill the holes that they have left but this is not always done and you need to check the quote to see if they will “make good” the walls as part of the fee. If the electrician can get access to the wiring from below the floorboards you will not have to pay too much to repair the wall afterwards.
So there are different ways to run cable and each method depends on how the wiring was installed previously and if there is floorboard access. The electrician might run through what they are going to do to fit the socket so that you know exactly what damage to the walls and skirting might be. They don’t want you to be unhappy with their work especially if you don’t understand there will be some remedial decoration afterwards which will cost extra money.
Running cable through floorboards
Running cables through the floor by lifting floorboards is a good way to get enough access to install a plug socket. If you have a concrete floor there will be conduits pre-installed that you can use if there is enough room. For wooden floors attaching the underfloor wiring to the joist is a common method and drilling through the joist to feed the wiring. Modern laminate flooring makes access under the floorboards difficult so running cable through the walls is the alternative.
Running cable through the walls
For solid walls “chasing” or chiselling out a grove in the wall to fit an additional double plug socket using the ring main is the common practice. Then a plastic conduit is used to house the wiring which is connected to the sockets and then plastered into the wall.
For studded walls that are built with timber and plasterboard, sections of the wall are cut out between the new and old plug sockets at points that allow for the cables to be fed through the wall cavity. Then the cut outs are screwed or nailed back into the wall and filled (either by you or the electrician)