Just Moved Into a Home in Poole? An Electrician’s Moving-In Electrical Checklist

Moving house is exhausting, and the electrics are usually the last thing anyone looks at. The survey said “no obvious defects”, the lights come on, the kettle boils, and that feels like enough. Then a few weeks in, a socket behind the sofa turns out to be dead, the shower trips the board, and you realise nobody has actually checked the wiring in years.

We work as electricians in Poole and the surrounding BH postcodes, and we see this pattern constantly. So here is the checklist we would run through in our own homes on moving-in day: what you can safely check yourself, what needs a qualified eye, and what to sort first.

Before you unpack: five things to check yourself

None of these involve touching fixed wiring. They are all look-don’t-touch checks.

1. Find the consumer unit (fuse board). Usually in a hallway cupboard, under the stairs or in the garage. Make sure you can get to it without moving furniture, and that the cover is on and intact.
2. Look for an RCD test button. Modern boards have one or more buttons marked “T” or “Test”. Press each one: the power should cut, and you reset the switch. If nothing happens, or there is no test button at all, note it down. Boards with old rewirable fuses and no RCD protection are common in Poole’s older housing stock in places like Oakdale, Hamworthy and Parkstone, and they need attention.
3. Check for any paperwork. Ask the seller, agent or landlord for an Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) or any installation certificates. An EICR less than five years old with a “Satisfactory” result tells you a lot. No paperwork at all tells you something too.
4. Walk round every socket and switch. You are looking for cracked faceplates, scorch marks, sockets that feel warm, loose fittings, and switches that do nothing. Plug a phone charger into each socket to find any dead ones.
5. Look outside. Garden sockets, shed power, outdoor lights and any EV charger should look weatherproof and properly fixed. Near the coast in Sandbanks, Lilliput and Canford Cliffs, salt air corrodes cheap external fittings quickly.

What only an electrician can tell you

The checks above catch the obvious. They do not tell you whether the earthing is adequate, whether cables are deteriorating inside the walls, or whether a previous owner’s DIY extension was wired properly. That is what a proper inspection is for.

Get an EICR if there isn’t a recent one

An EICR electrical safety certificate is a full inspection and test of the installation. The report grades any issues from C1 (danger present) down to C3 (improvement recommended), so you get a clear priority list rather than a vague “it’s fine”. For a home you have just bought with no history, it is the single most useful thing you can do. If you are renting, your landlord is legally required to have one and to give you a copy.

Ask about the consumer unit

If the board has no RCD protection, or is an older plastic type, an electrician can tell you whether it needs replacing now or can wait. A modern board with RCBOs on every circuit means one fault trips one circuit, not the whole house. It also means the shower or the cooker is less likely to keep taking the fridge freezer with it.

Have any obvious bodges looked at

Extension leads feeding permanent appliances, a socket spurred off a lighting circuit, junction boxes buried without access: we find these in Poole homes every week. Most are quick to put right, but by someone qualified, not left because “it’s always worked”.

Sort these in the first month

• Smoke and heat alarms. Test every alarm. If they are battery-only, more than ten years old, or missing from a landing or kitchen, get them upgraded to interlinked mains alarms.
• Bathroom electrics. Any socket, light or extractor fan in a bathroom needs to be the right type for its zone. If an old pull-cord switch is crumbling or a fan doesn’t run, mention it when you book anything else.
• Enough sockets in the right places. Rather than daisy-chaining extension leads, get a few extra double sockets added where you actually use them. It is cheaper than people expect and far safer.
• Plans for the future. If an EV charger, a heat pump, a hot tub or a home office is on the cards, tell the electrician when they inspect. Knowing the spare capacity in the supply and board saves you paying twice later.

What not to do

Please don’t take the cover off the consumer unit, open up sockets or “just check” a connection yourself. Even with the main switch off, parts of a board stay live. Most work on fixed wiring in England also needs to be done by a registered electrician or notified to Building Control, so a DIY fix can cause problems when you come to sell. Changing a bulb or a plug fuse is fine; anything with a screwdriver and a cable is a job for someone qualified.

A sensible order of priorities

If money is tight after a move: deal with anything actually dangerous first, then get an EICR so you know what you are dealing with, then smoke alarms and RCD protection. Everything else can be planned around that.

Dorset Electrical Solutions is NAPIT-registered and we work across Poole, Bournemouth, Ferndown and the rest of Dorset. If you have just moved in and would rather have a professional run through this checklist with you, get in touch and we will arrange a visit.