How much does it cost to rewire a Brisbane house in 2026? Full breakdown

The question I get asked before a quote, and sometimes instead of one: "How much does a full rewire cost?" The honest answer is that it depends enormously on the house. A 1960s slab-on-ground in Carindale is a completely different job to a 1940s highset Queenslander in Camp Hill or a lath-and-plaster postwar house in Bulimba. But I can give you the ranges, the drivers, and three real examples from 2025-2026 that should give you a working number.

The honest ballpark

For a full rewire of a typical 3-4 bedroom Brisbane house in 2026:

• Slab-on-ground, gyprock walls: $8,500-$14,000 for the rewire, plus $1,650-$2,400 for a new switchboard if required.
• Highset or lowset on stumps, accessible sub-floor: $10,000-$16,000 for the rewire plus switchboard.
• Queenslander or postwar weatherboard, tongue-and-groove or lath-and-plaster walls: $14,000-$25,000+ for the rewire plus switchboard.

Those ranges assume replacing all circuits in the home with modern TPS cabling, new powerpoints and light fittings (supplied by others unless specified), RCBOs on all circuits, smoke alarms, and a new switchboard. They also assume walls need to be accessed and patched.

Not every home needs a full rewire. More on that below.

What a rewire actually includes

When I quote a full rewire, the scope includes:

• Removing all existing wiring (or as much as practicable).
• Running new 2.5mm² TPS circuits for all power, 1.5mm² for lighting.
• Dedicated circuits for oven, cooktop, dishwasher, air conditioning, and any other fixed appliances.
• New switchboard with RCBOs on every circuit, surge protection device (SPD), and correct MEN earthing.
• New powerpoints and switch plates throughout (GPO supply included; fitting and plate supply typically quoted separately from the wiring scope).
• New hard-wired, interconnected, photoelectric smoke alarms in required locations.
• Certificate of Test on completion.
• Making good: where walls were opened, basic plasterboard patching is included. Painting is not.

What's not included in a rewire quote unless specified: data cabling (Cat6), antenna cabling, security system wiring, audio/visual systems. Those are quoted separately.

What drives the price up (or down)

Access is the biggest driver. A house where I can get cable from sub-floor to ceiling space without opening a single wall is fast. A double-brick slab-on-ground with no roof access and plastered ceilings is very slow.

Wall material matters enormously:

• Gyprock (plasterboard): Cheapest to patch. New holes can be cut, cable run, then patched with cornice cement or gyprock filler. Fast and relatively cheap.
• Fibre cement (hardiplank / fibrous cement sheet): Patchable but brittle. Cutting is dusty and the material cracks around fixings. More care required.
• Tongue-and-groove timber: Boards have to come off one at a time to access framing behind. Matching replacement boards are sometimes hard to source. Slower.
• Lath and plaster: The worst. The plaster is 50-80 years old, the lath is nailed tight to every stud, and cutting it produces clouds of fine lime dust. Old plaster does not patch invisibly. Some clients choose to fully replaster after a rewire, which adds cost but produces a better result.

Number of circuits adds to cost linearly. A 4-bedroom home with a separate study, theatre room, double garage, outdoor area, and pool will have more circuits than a 3-bedroom unit, even if they're the same square metres.

Ceiling height affects the lighting circuits. Highsets with 3.0-metre ceilings take longer to run lighting circuits than a standard 2.4-metre slab house.

Existing wiring condition. If the old wiring is aluminium, or cotton-covered rubber, the removal and remediation is more involved. If there's evidence of past DIY work with buried junction boxes and non-standard cabling, it all has to be found, documented, and properly remediated.

Three real Brisbane jobs

Job 1: Partial rewire, 1970s slab-on-ground, Carindale. 4-bedroom home, ceramic fuse box, no RCDs, a mix of aluminium and copper wiring from two different eras. The aluminium circuits to the kitchen and laundry were in poor condition. Owner was renovating the kitchen and laundry, so open-wall access was available in those areas. Scope: rewire kitchen, laundry, and garage circuits (12 circuits total), new switchboard with full RCD coverage, smoke alarms. Not a full rewire of the whole house, but the partial covered all the problem areas. Cost: $9,200 including switchboard.

Job 2: Full rewire, 1950s highset, Camp Hill. 3-bedroom highset on stumps with sub-floor access and a combination of cotton-rubber and tough-rubber wiring throughout. Accessible via sub-floor to most outlets. Gyprock ceilings, not original plaster. Reasonable access overall. Cost: $13,800 including new switchboard, 16 circuits, all new outlets, and smoke alarms.

Job 3: Full rewire, 1930s Queenslander, Bulimba. 4-bedroom Queenslander with original tongue-and-groove walls throughout, VIR wiring (rubber insulation, cotton outer, now brittle), no earthing conductors on any circuits, and a ceramic fuse box with hand-drawn wire labels from 1978. Owner was doing a sympathetic renovation and wanted the rewire done while the builder had partially opened the walls. Even so, some areas required careful board removal and replacement. Cost: $21,500 including new switchboard, 22 circuits, all new outlets, smoke alarms, and outdoor weatherproof circuits.

Where you can save money

A full rewire is not always necessary. If the existing wiring is copper, in good condition, and the main issue is missing RCDs or an old switchboard, a switchboard upgrade with an RCBO board may be all that's needed.

Timing a rewire with a renovation is the best way to control cost. When walls are open, cabling is cheap. Running cable after walls are closed is expensive. If you're planning a kitchen renovation, a bathroom renovation, or any project that opens walls, that's the right time to deal with old wiring in those areas.

Supplying your own fittings (powerpoints, switch plates, light fittings) is another way to control cost if you have specific preferences. I'm happy to install owner-supplied fittings; just confirm they meet Australian standards.

How I quote a rewire

I don't quote rewires blind. I inspect the property first, access the roof and sub-floor, look at the switchboard, and understand the wall construction before I put a number on anything. A flat-rate quote for a rewire without a site visit is either massively over-inflated (to cover unknowns) or going to be revised upward after the job starts.

What you get from me: a fixed-price quote after a site inspection, broken down by scope, with a clear description of what's included and what patching is covered. If the scope changes mid-job because something unexpected shows up (buried junction boxes, structural obstacles), I tell you before I charge for it.

If you're in Bulimba, Camp Hill, or Carindale and want a site inspection and rewire quote, ring 0411 054 811.

, John