I am buying a condo over 20 years of age. Do you suggest replacing the wiring of the whole unit? How much is the estimate price range for around 1200 sqf area with 2 bedrooms? Thanks guys.

Based on what I understand, the charging is based on the points, be it light or power socket. E.g. one light point is between RM 90 - RM140 (recent quotation I received). For 13A socket, RM 120 per point. 15A socket (for owen, washing machine, fridge), it is about RM 230 per point.

Have you checked the condition of the wiring?

I recently rebuild a new house. The wireman proposed 1.5m2 wire for the light. Out of curiosity, I checked my existing condo (which is 30 years old). The wire is much biger diameter. So, I think old propoerties used better quality materials. Of course, that also depends who was the developer.

yeah same for my old house, now i am hesitating to replace all my old wires as they have better quality.

It depends on whether the wiring is properly installed or hack jobs from kitcab people.
The latter, u better replace, they anyhow install cheap wires.

So since ur doing refresh works
I would suggest refresh the DB box and bringing it up to code, that is, in terms of RCDs and MCBs.
Brand wise.. only trust ABB or Hager in Msia for the best. Hager cost more but equally good as ABB; usually spec ABB.
Like 30mA mains (whole house) and individual 10mA RCDs (PER water heater).

MCBs very cheap like RM7/8 each for ABB.


U need to check what cable size used for the 15A socket.
If 2.5mm then there's no difference from 13A socket wiring.

Last time copper not that expensive, they don't cheat.
Be aware if you're not using best name brand cables (MCMA cartel like Mega Kabel/Fajar) or better ones like Caramay - everything else that's not in that price bracket are all substandard cables.

Get a wireman to inspect the insulation and bring up the DB box to code also.

Thanks for your advice.

Indeed a lot of electricians are cheating nowsaday. I fired the electrician that was in charge of my new house 3 weeks ago. For CCTV cables, he quoted me branded Cat6. But, his subcontractor (a group of Myanmar workers) used unbranded Cat5e. His argument was CCTV do not need Cat6, but the contract signed was Cat6! After getting a few electricians to view the light points, found out the Myanmar workers did not pull the earth wire. When my main con confronted this Chinese electrician, the answer is LED lights don't need earth.

So, better be careful and select a reliable electrician. Specify clearly that no further subcontracting is allowed.

can i use the light point wire to connect to a power socket and use the socket for cctv ?

your light point and socket point quotation is rather expensive :0

I agreed. Do you have anyone to refer? I just fired the electrician and want to find new one.

Paying top dollar should give good stuffs, but it seems that even paying top dollar also doesn't guarantee top notch services.

Mine is based in JB. Was quoted RM55/light point, Rm95/socket. Just for your reference.

anyone got good electrician for area around KL?

Wao, that is very good price. Do you know what type of cables they use? Mine is mega and concealed with PVC conduits. But, I do agree they are very expensive. Worse, the Chinese electrician further subcontracted to a group of Myanmar workers without any local to supervise. That is the reason I terminated their services.

1.5mm for lights.
2.5mm for power sockets.
4mm for water heater, air-conditioning or oven. Some water heaters must be connected straight to the MCB. No power socket, plug or switch in between.

where is your location Bro?

KL, a lot of electricians are quoting very high price.

if there is alot of point or work to do, lets say more than 20 units point, price can be reduce or nego.
Like 1 light point can be RM45 to RM55
1 power plug point of coz with looping will be RM65 to 95
If you insists everything have to pull for new wiring, than this can get very expensive

Yes, you are correct. My brother is building his house at Penang. That is the practice there too.

But, in KL, especially certain locations, the price are very expensive. Actually, I am engaging a main con to manage everything. The prices I mentioned in the thread are without his mark-up.

The lesson I learn is to avoid electricians that want to get the contracts and after that outsourced completely to foreign labour.

Bro, copper price has gone up more than 30% and you want the supply and installation price to remains the same?

Actually, my price was back in May 2021. The problem I face is the location. The moment they know the address, they have many reasons to raise the price.

Recently, I joined a facebook group (mainly for Mandarin users) and got a few electricians to quote me. The price per light point is only RM 65 - 75 per point and the 13A is only RM 100 per point for the current market price.

I am going to share the quality of the "Data Centre" electrician. He claimed that he has done several data centres. Contract signed is Cat6 wire. Get the foreign labour to lay Cat5e unbranded wire.

These are the quality of the "Data Centre" electrician, not mentioned the light, aircond and fan switches of my living room are put at car porch:

Pendant light point is placed next to the fan.


Cat5e was used despite the contract and pricing is Cat6. Argument is I don't need Cat6 for CCTV. But, price is the same.


Because I said I will use LED light, no Earth line for the points.


My requirement is concealed and this picture shows my bathroom. The network and 13A cables were put like this. Below the sinks. If he forgot to place the PVC conduit during casting of slab, he can hack. But, the electrician refused unless I paid VO price. Like this, can I do water proofing?


For a 60 sen joint that was broken - would you replace a new one or tore a piece of paper and cover the hole?


This post has been edited by ongss: Jul 29 2022, 08:52 PM

if you dun mind, maybe you can let us quote you for your new house...

wait.. what..
inside bathroom, cable go 'under' bathroom tiles ?

Check your PM. Thanks

Never see before, right? I have more than 5 parties (timber installers, plaster ceiling, electricians, and etc) came to my site and comment it was not safe. Anyone said it is not safe, to this data centre electrician, you are from North Korea.

RM90 per point for concealed. But, he wanted to charge me VO if I need to the PVC pipe to be inside the RC floor. All these contractors think that I am a water fish for their to slaughter.




This post has been edited by ongss: Aug 1 2022, 03:13 PM

Frankly speaking, where is the conduit on your ceiling, all hidden inside the ceiling?

Than on the conduit in your toilet floor, so when completed and you discover that the water proofing not working and may have to redo it, how that guy gonna hack your tiles, accidentally hack, conduit pecah or maybe kena short circuit...

For those light points, the conduits are in the RC slab. The conduits were installed when the construction workers build the mould for the RC slab. The electricians missed out the conduits for the power and network. The conduits on the floors were done by his subcontractors (mainly foreign labour that can speak Bahasa or English).

Why conduit inside RC slab...

No plaster ceiling. Don't intend to do so for a few reasons.

no problem conduit in cement/slab, as long properly installed and can pull cable thru it..
if botch job.. then bye2 to 'rewiring'..

I can feel the pain when I saw this. My condo was done by a group of foreigner as well while the so called AIO designer gave me a name list of Chinese name.
And I only found out lately after the full payment that all my ceiling fans' safety wire were not installed. They just slot the safety wire back into the plaster ceiling. I sent the photo to the ID lady and she blamed me that I didn't check it when handover and I was the only customer that complained their poor workmanship. So again it became my fault.

I really hate ppl that with no work ethic and integrity even she was graduated oversea from Australia and holding master degree. So there was nothing to do with high or low education. Just that you can hardly find one good ppl in KL.

Agreed not to have plaster ceiling if possible.

My ID insisted the plaster ceiling ( i think she was not confident with conceal work ) ; and later I found out the frame inside will make some noise with temperature exp when you turn on the ceiling fan. You can hear some "metal to metal" moving sounds. It's very obvious when you have a small room or lower ceiling at KL condo. May be not so obvious if high ceiling or landed house

I found out all safety wire not installed when trying to fix the ceiling fan "sound".

This post has been edited by kimteck: Aug 4 2022, 11:35 AM

I have invited several electricians came to inspect and re-quote. Most of them were terrified by the quality and even suggested me to bring in Suruhanjaya Tenaga or CIDB as the foreigners that did the wiring obviously did not have the P4 wireman qualification.

I have given my main con a dateline to settle this. Otherwise, I will upload the photo the FB groups to share the pains. https://www.facebook.com/groups/155815638381028/about has 121K members and another group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1465699686984899/about has 76K members.

The photo I showed were minimum, I have captured a lot others, e.g. wiring can be done the following:

No T-joint box was fitted


Bedrooms have the following PVC conduit on the floors, to be covered by the 50mm cement rendering. But, my timber installer needed to have 40mm gap between the PVC conduit and the nails. VO price will be applied if I request to hack and embed the conduit into the slab. Prices quoted were supposed to be concealed last year.


This post has been edited by ongss: Aug 4 2022, 11:53 AM

may be this is the channel if they are registered under CIDB.

https://cidb.spab.gov.my/eApps/system/index.do

Ya, I told my main con that he should go to CIDB.

My main con was hoping to get this Data Centre electrician to rework. I told him, if I ever see unauthorized subcon comes in to work again, I will make a police report for trepassing and I also treat the contract has been terminated by himself.

More photo to share:

wow... really? is the job they done..
im not a 'fan' of conduit running on 'floor'.. doesn't it suppoed to run on ceiling/under roof/anything above..

This post has been edited by zak3: Aug 5 2022, 04:57 PM

Amazed by the Data Centre electrician, right? His Myanmar subcontractor even placed the switches (light and fan) of the living room at the car porch.

Floor easy to grind the trench ma.
China all use floor.

I am amazed by his antics considering that yours is mainly brickwall and not RC walls. RC walls are a mess (hard work and the likes) to hack

I am fine with China method as long as my timber installer does not hit the conduit.

But, I guess the electrician thought I am a waterfish and his VO price can slaughter me.

Now that I have a little time to look thru.. the lack of T-joint means the cables are not mechanically protected.

Actually I posted to FB, many experienced contractors already commented. This Data Centre electrician subcontracted to the Myanmar workers and did not provide the necessary parts and tools.

In my house all the lighting points have 2 wires connected as one. What’s the reason behind this? Why didn’t the developer just use a higher gauge wire?

It is called looping and is meant to save cost.

For high-end bungalows, I have seen the owner opting for 1 MCD = 1 point. Meaning, if the house has 50 lights, that would be 50 MCBs! Expensive but some people are just willing to spend on safety.

Anyone have ideas on how to tidy up this unifi fibre cable? See image

The cable is quite tough itself.


Attached thumbnail(s)

You mean if one room has 4 lights, then there are 4 switches, one for each light? Sounds implausible that there are no looped light points at all.

Just curl it slowly. Don't bend it. After that, use a cable strap to secure it. U can buy those from Mr DIY or Daiso.

Its possible, just that its not cheap.... 4 MCB to each light all direct (no loop) to either 4 individual switch or to look neat to a single 4 gang switch.
Just that you have 4 MCB instead. Also each light need direct link to it in DB Box which mean more wiring needed. If DB box just outside the room then ok.. shorter run.. if bungalow where the DB Box is downstairs and the room upstairs think the length of the wires needed.

Think electrician remark on this will be "overkill"....

It's not about the gauge of the wire. It is about grouping the lights into logical sets. For example, a bathroom may have 2 lights, and one switch turns both ON, instead of an individual switch for each light.

Rooms are grouped logically also. For example one 10 A MCB may use a 1.5 mm² wire to feed the lights and the fan in one room. And the sockets in that room use another 16 A MCB, and the aircond another 16 A MCB. These 3 MCB are then grouped logically in the DB to reflect that room.

I agree it is possible, just implausible for lighting
If the poster had said the 13 A sockets were individual MCBs would be plausible, because I've done it for a small car workshop. They wanted each socket to be able to use high current tools/welding.
But individual lighting circuits?

This post has been edited by stormer.lyn: Oct 7 2022, 09:59 AM

careful with this optic cable.
dont sharp bend.. u'll end up with broken optic cable later.
just slowly curl to big round bundle.
cable tie or velcro tape it nicely and hang somewhere.

what colour the '2' cables?
if black, mostly Neutral looping. this is normal for lighting circuit and some sso (Switch Socket Outlet) circuit.
that looping goes to another end-point/lights/fans

Hahahaha, yeah... just that seldom have people will ask for this.. as this will be a specialty request.

Seen such arrangement before.. direct 5 "lighting" point to a room .. A Man Cave. An individual DB outside... everything direct... 7 units 13A powerpoint... to all corners plus Air Cond points. Whole DB Full already.

Room also custom built ... Man Cave.. for the owner hobby.... The content of the room is as expensive as a bangalow.

I dont think it is necessary la, but if you want, just do it, a lot of business building also never change.

Thank goodness now we only have to smart home to get all mood lighting!

Alexa, set movie mode for my room

this seems like outdoor fibre cable and yes is quite tough, it may has a kind of steel string attach together
usually reach our house FWS only, and then white indoor fibre which is easier to tidy up

but recent years, seems no longer provide FWS

How to get this done properly ? Call Unifi or electrician from our own pocket ?

I terminated the electrician and now new electrician is re-wiring everything. Everything seems to be good and the pricing is more reasonable.

All points are required to have an Earth. Whether it is used, or not, for the light fitting is not for the electrician to decide.

This post has been edited by stormer.lyn: Oct 18 2022, 07:54 PM

That's why I said normally. For lighting there are typically no terminals to connect earth to. So it's unused at the fitting end.

Again, you know if the fitting has an Earth terminal or not that you can say no need to run the Earth wire? ongss doesn't want a plaster ceiling, so it has to be a surface mounted LED fitting. From the images of the site, ongss has every right to be pissed off at the "electrician" for the shoddy, below par work.


You should be ashamed of yourself if you are anywhere close to the industry, and you should be demanding better service if you are the end user. Why are you trying to defend the sh!t work?

What else? You don't normally get into an accident, so no need to wear a seat belt?

If you can’t live in a world where everything’s not the way you want it to be, time to reflect on yourself and how you view the world…
Troll on bro… i aint got the time to waste energy on you

You are right that LED also required earth line. Before selecting the current electrician, there were around 7 electricians came to view. All of them refused to continue from what left behind and wanted to start all over again. As I awarded this piece of work to the main contractor, he was struggling not to find someone that will minimise his losses. All (including the current new one) concluded that the work is below par.

If anyone of you happen to award your electrical work to one called Mr Tan from Sungai Buloh, do message me to double check.

You have the wrong opinion, and instead of changing and becoming better, you choose to double down on the mistake. Ego much?

Troll on bro? Hahahaha, thanks for the laugh today! Me thinks you need to look up the meaning of "troll".
PS : Please don't reply since you aint got the time to waste energy on me.
Edit to add

This post has been edited by stormer.lyn: Oct 19 2022, 08:02 PM

I feel for you. Hope that things are getting better with the new electrician at work

Finger crossed.

The new electrician also subcontracted to another group of foreigners. But, at least he comes once a week to check. In terms of quality, of course, much better than previous one. Proper parts are in place for all the cables.

For those who are rebuilding the house, my advice is to engage an M&E consultant to prepare the drawing. It won't cost much but make life easier. I learn a big lesson by assuming the so-called Data Centre electrician could run the cables based on his experiences.

Hi, would you mind sharing the contact for your new electrician? I just bought over an old condo unit and need to rectify some of the wiring. I have called 2 electrical contractors and both sent foreign workers to perform the site visit which I am not comfortable. Appreciate the assistance. Thanks!

Actually, this is the modus operandi for most of the electricians. My current electrician is doing the same. Except, he gives instructions for the work in advance and come to site visit 2 - 3 times a week. So far, there were some errors spotted but they rectify for me.

If you unit is a condo located at Klang Valley, you probably can contact Phuah (+6018 3644086). This guy speaks Mandarin or Cantonese. He operates alone and drive a van with all parts. I could not use his service because I need someone to sign my Borang G. This guy does not have the relevant chargeman license. However, he did some work for me and managed to find the root cause. I thought my heater caused the trip. However, he managed to trace to my oven.

This post has been edited by ongss: Oct 26 2022, 09:40 PM

Thanks for the contact. Will check him out.