How easy is it to move or add 13A sockets?

[Adsibob]

We have a couple of walls in the house that have been boarded up, but not yet plastered. There are a few 13A sockets in these walls where we either want to move the existing socket to a different location on that wall (moving by 1m or so) or we want to add an additional socket 40cm or 50cm above the existing socket. Are these sorts of changes fairly straightforward? 

[ProDave]

In a stud wall, yes.  You don't say construction method.  A lot harder in a block wall.

 

There are some constraints to do with safe zones.  e.g if you want to "move" a socket and the cables for that run down from above or up from the bottom, then moving it removes the accessory that creates the safe zone, so it might be easier to leave it where it is and add the required socket to one side as an addition.  New socket above should be simple.

 

Adding a new socket to the side usually involves drilling through a stud or 2 so you will likely have to partly unscrew and spring a board forward to drill through the stud(s).

[Alan Ambrose]

Usually fairly straight forward - but the pricing reflects how easy it is to get the cables from one place to the other. Sometimes it takes a few minutes to pull the cables behind some plasterboard, sometime an entire day to go a metre or so. So as ProDave said, it depends hugely on the construction.

[Adsibob]

Thanks guys. It's all stud wall stuff, and in most cases both sides of the stud wall are unplastered and accessible, so hopefully quite easy. Also, it will be the same electrician who installed the first and second fix (With second fix completed a year ago). He had very detailed drawings, which he was careful about annotating and organising, so I'm hopeful he's kept those annotated drawings which will help him remember where everything is.