Most people only ever see the number at the bottom of an electrical quote.
The detail above that number is where the useful information sits, and it is what tells you whether the quote is solid or a guess.
Here is how The Conduction Company prices an electrical job in Auckland, task by task, so you can read any quote you are handed.
The short answer. An electrical quote is built task by task. The Conduction Company works out the labour hours for each task, the materials that task needs, then adds site costs like travel, certification, and any subtrades, and a margin on top. Add those together and you have a fixed price for the scope quoted.
What does an electrician work out first?
Labour and materials. Those are the two biggest factors of any job.
The Conduction Company quotes per task rather than as one lump, so every task on the job gets its own labour estimate: how long an electrician, or an electrician and apprentice working together, will take to do that one thing on site. Two things produce that estimate:
Quoting the same tasks day after day since 2018, and going back through finished jobs to check how long recurring tasks actually took (back-costing). Repeat tasks get measured, not remembered.
"If you're quoting every single day for multiple years you develop a sixth sense for how long jobs are going to take." Jordan Statham, director of The Conduction Company, a registered electrician since 2014 and a registered electrical inspector.
Materials come next, and they are counted per task too. Take one new power outlet. The Conduction Company counts the outlet itself, the flush box or C-clip that goes in the wall, the cable to loop it back to the nearest existing outlet, and the RCBO or protection it needs in the switchboard. Do that for every task on the list, add the tasks together, and you have the bulk of the job.
What gets added on top of labour and materials?
Travel to site, certification, and any subtrades the job needs. Then a margin that covers the company's overheads and keeps it running. The Conduction Company treats all four as real costs, because a quote that leaves any of them out is not a real price.
Certification is the one clients are most often surprised by, and it is the one most quoting guides skip. In New Zealand there is no council permit for electrical work. The certificate is the step. Under the Electricity (Safety) Regulations 2010, a certificate of compliance must be issued for all general and high-risk prescribed electrical work (regulation 65(1)), and the work may not be treated as complete until that certificate is issued (regulations 65(3) and 65(4)). The person who completed the work must also issue an electrical safety certificate (regulation 74A(1)), and that is the document confirming the work meets the building code for the purposes of the Building Act 2004 (regulation 74A(5)).
So certification is not paperwork bolted on at the end. It is part of the job, it's a legal document that takes time for the team to put together and ensure it's correct, so it's added into the quoted cost.
If a quote you are holding never mentions certification, ask where it is.
Why does switchboard and mains work cost more than the parts suggest?
Because a second qualified person has to come and inspect it.
Mains work on an installation is high-risk prescribed electrical work under regulation 6A(2)(b) of the Electricity (Safety) Regulations 2010. All high-risk work of that kind must be inspected (regulation 70(1)), and the person who inspects it must prepare a written record of the inspection (regulation 72(1)).
That is another set of hands and usually a separate visit, and it has to be in the quote. Jordan Statham is registered both as an Electrician (E264206) and as an Electrical Inspector (I272615). Dual registration is unusual in the trade, and it means The Conduction Company can inspect in-house rather than hiring an expensive external contractor, which keeps costs down for our clients.
Does the age and layout of the house change the quote?
Yes, more than almost anything else. The Conduction Company has been inside thousands of Auckland homes and businesses, completing residential electrical work across Auckland , and the construction type tells you most of what you need to know before you walk in the door.
Show an experienced Auckland electrician a photo of a house and they can tell you roughly how hard it is going to be to get a cable through those walls.
The existing installation matters just as much, and usually in your favour. If your switchboard has already been upgraded, the cost comes down, because there is no new protection to add in the board.
The Conduction Company also looks at the cabling, the main earthing system, and the mains coming into the house while quoting. That is not a sales exercise. It is how you avoid a surprise charge halfway through the job when a priority part of the installation turns out to need replacing.
An Auckland job that looked simple, and wasn't
This is the case The Conduction Company watches for. A 1960s Auckland house that looks as though it was rewired sometime in the 2000s. The switchboard is modern. The cabling you can see is modern. The quote gets priced off exactly that.
Then the work starts, and the ceiling void and the underfloor space tell a different story. The previous electrician had replaced the switchboard and some of the cabling and left the rest. The original cabling was still up there and still under there, which nobody can find at quote stage without going up and under.
It is not common. In The Conduction Company's experience the visible installation tells the truth in the vast majority of Auckland homes. The exceptions are the same ones every time: homeowner work done incorrectly, a previous electrician who cut the job short, and old cabling that has quietly degraded where nobody looks.
Does the price change once the work starts?
Not for the scope you were quoted. A quote from The Conduction Company is a fixed price for the work described in it. If a task takes longer than the estimate, that is the company's problem and not yours, and the figure on your invoice is the figure on your quote.
"A quote is a quote; a fixed price, so even if we've underestimated and end up losing money in terms of labour, your price isn't going to change. That's the beauty of fixed-price quotes. It's certainty for our clients." Jordan Statham, The Conduction Company.
What does change is scope. If you ask for extra work once the team is on site, that work is priced separately and you approve it before it starts. Looking back through The Conduction Company's own invoiced rewires, every job where the final figure moved away from the quoted figure moved for one of two reasons: the client added work, or a safety problem was found in a part of the installation nobody could see at quote stage (rare cases). In both cases the additions were quoted on site, before anything changed. The quoted scope itself held.
How do you avoid surprises if you are on a fixed budget?
Pay for a proper look before the quote, not after. If you cannot go a dollar over a set number, The Conduction Company's recommendation is to book an investigation first rather than a straight quote.
An investigation is an hour to an hour and a half on site, and it is physical. Someone goes up into the ceiling space and under the floor, and tests the existing installation with a multifunction tester, the same gear The Conduction Company uses on electrical maintenance and servicing calls. The point is to find the hidden problems while they are still cheap to know about.
The payoff is a quote with no caveats in it. Once the installation has been checked properly, the number is the number, and it will not go above it.
Is electrical work priced per point or per task?
Both exist, and which one you are given tells you what kind of job you are on.
Per point pricing means a set price for each outlet, light, or switch, counted off a plan.
It suits large commercial work and fixed-price new builds, where an engineer supplies drawings and someone counts the fittings off them. That count is called a take-off. The Conduction Company uses an estimating contractor for per point work on commercial jobs.
Per task pricing means the job is broken into sections and each section carries one price. That is how The Conduction Company prices the bulk of its work in existing homes. Four new power outlets in a room are quoted as one set price for those four outlets, not as four separate point prices, because in an existing house the cost is driven by the route the cable has to take, not by the count of fittings.
How do you estimate the wiring for a house?
Circuit by circuit, then cable by cable. The load decides both.
How many outlets can go on one circuit?
There is no hard rule in the wiring standard setting a maximum number of outlets per circuit. What matters is the load. AS/NZS 3000 gives a guidance table that allocates a nominal 1 amp per 10 amp socket-outlet point in a home, and a double outlet counts as two points, so a typical 16 amp circuit works out at about eight doubles. That is a starting point and not a limit. As soon as The Conduction Company knows a specific appliance is going on a circuit, we count its real load instead.
What size cable does a power circuit need?
For general power outlets 2.5 mm2 is the usual starting point, and it is the minimum size AS/NZS 3000 sets for socket-outlet circuits.
The final size depends on how the cable is run, how many circuits are bunched together, how hot the space gets, and how far it has to travel. In a kitchen full of high-draw appliances The Conduction Company will often step up to 4 mm2 or split the load across two circuits.
What about an EV charger?
An EV charger gets its own dedicated circuit back to the switchboard. That is not a preference, it is what AS/NZS 3000 requires.
The circuit cannot supply anything else, it needs at least 32 amps of current-carrying capacity, an isolating switch adjacent to the charger, and its own 30 mA RCD.
AS/NZS 3000 asks for a Type B RCD, with one alternative on the common wall-box chargers: a Type A device paired with a residual direct current-detecting device, which many chargers carry built in. An ordinary Type AC device is not an option either way.
Cable size then comes down to two things: the length of the run back to the board, and the current the charger will draw.
How much does it cost to rewire a house in Auckland?
Size is the main driver. A rewire is quoted as one price for the whole house, built from what The Conduction Company knows about rewiring homes of that era and that size. Access is the second factor. An accessible ceiling void and an accessible underfloor space make a rewire straightforward. Ceiling access on its own makes it harder, and the price moves with that.
The estimate below is for a standard single-level three-bedroom Auckland home. The Conduction Company confirms final pricing after a property assessment.
The Conduction Company estimates $11,000 to $15,000 including GST to rewire a standard single-level three-bedroom Auckland home. Where your house lands inside that range comes down to one thing more than any other: whether the supply side needs doing as well.
What the job includes Where it sits in The Conduction Company's $11,000 to $15,000 estimate (including GST) A full rewire, plus a switchboard and meter board upgrade The lower part of the range The same, plus the supply side: a new point of entry and replacement mains The upper part of the range
That estimate comes from The Conduction Company's own pricing, confirmed against its quote records. It is an estimate for a typical house, not a quote for yours.
The supply side matters more in Auckland than people expect. On 1940s to 1960s housing stock the point of entry and the mains are often as old as the cabling behind the walls, and replacing the wiring while leaving those in place leaves the oldest part of the installation exactly where it was.
Larger homes and multi-level homes are quoted individually. The Conduction Company does not publish a range for those, because the variables (levels, access, cable routes, and how many circuits the house actually needs) move the number far enough that a published range would mislead more people than it helped.
We quote on facts, not guesses
What should you check on any electrical quote?
Here is what The Conduction Company would look for if it were reading someone else's quote for you.
Is it broken into tasks or sections? One lump sum with no breakdown tells you nothing about what you are buying, and nothing about what you could drop if you needed to save money.Does it include certification? The work is not legally complete in New Zealand until the certificate is issued, so a quote that never mentions it is not a complete price.Does it say whether GST is included? Two quotes are not comparable until you know. Every figure The Conduction Company publishes includes GST.If it touches the mains or the switchboard, does it allow for an inspection? Mains work is high-risk work and has to be inspected by a second person, which is time and cost that belongs in the quote.What happens if something unexpected turns up? A good quote answers that in writing, before you sign it.A quote that comes in well under the others is usually cheaper for a reason, and the reason is normally either something that was left out of it, or low-quality materials and workmanship.
Frequently asked questions
How do you quote for an electrical job?
Task by task. The Conduction Company estimates the labour hours for each task on the job, counts the materials that task needs, then adds travel to site, certification, and any subtrades, and a margin that covers overheads. Those tasks add up to one fixed price for the scope quoted. Pricing per task rather than as a single lump is what lets you see what you are actually buying.
How much does it cost to rewire a 3 bedroom house in NZ?
The Conduction Company estimates $11,000 to $15,000 including GST for a standard single-level three-bedroom Auckland home. A full rewire with a switchboard and meter board upgrade sits in the lower part of that range. Jobs where the supply side also needs doing, meaning a new point of entry and replacement mains, sit in the upper part, and older Auckland houses often need exactly that. The figure is an estimate from The Conduction Company's own pricing, confirmed against its quote records. Larger and multi-level homes are quoted individually after a site visit.
Is electrical work priced per point or per task?
Both, depending on the job. Per point pricing suits large commercial work and fixed-price new builds, where fittings are counted off an engineer's drawings in a take-off.
The Conduction Company prices the bulk of its work in existing homes per task instead, so four new outlets in a room are one set price rather than four point prices. In an existing house the cable route drives the cost, not the number of fittings.
Can an electrical quote change once the work has started?
Not for the scope that was quoted. A quote from The Conduction Company is a fixed price, so if a task runs longer than estimated the price you pay is unchanged. What does change is added scope: work you ask for once the team is on site is quoted separately and approved before it begins. A safety problem hidden inside the installation is the other exception, and it is documented and priced before anything is done about it.
Does an electrical quote include certification?
It should. Under the Electricity (Safety) Regulations 2010 a certificate of compliance must be issued for general and high-risk prescribed electrical work, and the work cannot be treated as complete until it is. An electrical safety certificate is also required from the person who did the work. The Conduction Company prices certification as a line in the quote, because it is time on the job rather than admin at the end.
Why do I need an inspector for a switchboard or mains upgrade?
Because the regulations say so. Mains work on an installation is classed as high-risk prescribed electrical work, it has to be inspected, and the inspector has to write a record of that inspection. That is a second qualified person and usually a separate visit, which is why this work costs more than the parts suggest. The Conduction Company includes it in the quote rather than adding it later.
Getting a quote from The Conduction Company
Tell us what you want done and where the property is, and The Conduction Company will either pop out to assess the site, or interview you over the phone about your issues and requirements, then use online images and data of your property to price the correct solution. You get a price broken into tasks, certification included, and a clear note of anything we could not see.
If you are working to a fixed budget, say so when you call and we will talk you through the investigation option first.
