F & A Electrical is an NICEIC-approved, Part P registered electrical contractor working across Highbury N5 — Highbury Fields, Highbury Crescent and Highbury Place, Aberdeen Park, Highbury New Park, Highbury Grange, Highbury Hill, Blackstock Road and the Drayton Park and Highbury Stadium Square side. We are based in Tottenham N15, which is fifteen to twenty-five minutes down the A503 and Blackstock Road depending on the hour, so Highbury is genuinely local work for us rather than a postcode on a list. Call 07407 627542 or 07500 721453, or email info@faelectrical.co.uk.
The work here splits cleanly in two: heritage terraces and villas with wiring that has been added to for seventy years, and a large stock of converted and purpose-built flats where the original installation is now old enough to be failing. Both need a different approach, and both are covered below with the prices we actually charge.
What we do in N5
- EICRs for landlords, agents, vendors and buyers — single lets, converted flats and licensed HMOs.
- Consumer unit and fuse board replacement, including the earthing and main bonding that usually has to go in alongside it.
- Full and partial rewires, including heritage work on listed terraces around Highbury Fields.
- Fault finding — tripping RCDs, intermittent lighting circuits, dead sockets, immersion heater failures.
- Sockets, lighting, switches and extractor fans, including lath-and-plaster ceilings where downlights are not always the right answer.
- EV charge point installation where there is off-street parking.
- Emergency lighting, fire alarm wiring and PAT testing for HMOs, blocks and the shops on Blackstock Road and Highbury Park.
Highbury electrician prices
Prices are labour and certification only, inclusive of VAT. Materials and accessories are itemised separately at cost, so you can see what you are paying for. Our minimum charge is £108 inc VAT — one hour at the standard rate of £90 per hour plus VAT — and nothing is priced below it.
| Job | Price (inc VAT) |
|---|---|
| Minimum charge / small works visit (one hour) | £108 |
| Standard labour thereafter | £90 per hour + VAT |
| EICR — studio or 1-bed flat | £140 |
| EICR — 2-bed flat or small terrace | £170 |
| EICR — 3-bed flat or terrace | £200 |
| EICR — 4-bed house | £250 |
| EICR — 5-bed+ house or large villa | £300–£400 |
| EICR — licensed HMO | £250–£500 |
| Commercial EICR — shop or office unit | from £220 |
| Consumer unit replacement, 6-way | £550 |
| Consumer unit replacement, 10-way | £650 |
| Consumer unit replacement, 12-way or more | £750 |
| Consumer unit + EICR, same visit | £690 |
| Earthing and main protective bonding upgrade alongside other work | £108 |
| Flat rewire | £2,200–£3,200 · £3,000–£4,500 · £4,200–£6,000 by size |
| House rewire | £2,800–£4,000 up to £9,500–£14,000 for a large villa |
| Partial rewire | £1,600–£3,000 |
| EV charge point | from £450 labour; charger unit itemised separately |
| PAT testing | ~£5 per appliance, minimum charge £108 |
| Out of hours — evenings, weekends, early access slots | £60 + VAT per half hour |
Fuller breakdowns are on EICR cost London 2026, fuse board replacement London and out-of-hours electrician cost.
What we actually find in Highbury wiring
Rewireable fuse boards in the Highbury Crescent and Highbury Place terraces. Porcelain or early Wylex units with rewireable carriers, no RCD protection on anything, and a main earth clamped to a lead water pipe that was replaced with plastic years ago. The board is the headline but the earthing arrangement is usually the real problem, and it is why a board swap on its own sometimes won’t produce a satisfactory report.
Value-engineered flat installations at Highbury Stadium Square. The old Arsenal ground was converted to flats around 2010, so those installations are now at the age where the cheap parts start going: downlight transformers, bathroom extract fans, and kitchen circuits nuisance-tripping on a shared RCD as appliance loads have grown. Moving to a board with one breaker per circuit fixes the tripping properly instead of masking it.
Basement and understair boards in the Aberdeen Park and Highbury New Park villas. Four storeys, a basement, usually a loft conversion, and thirty-odd circuits added over decades on top of a 60A or 80A main fuse. When a household adds an induction hob, an electric shower and a car charger, the supply becomes the limiting factor before the board does. Any increase in the incoming supply is UK Power Networks’ work, not ours, and it has to be applied for and booked — we will tell you that at the survey rather than after.
Original circuits still in the walls on the Highbury Quadrant Estate and around Riversdale Road. Much of the 1950s council stock here is leasehold now. Rubber or early PVC cable in the original runs, a single lighting circuit per floor, and no dedicated circuits for anything. Most jobs are a board upgrade plus a partial rewire of the circuits that are genuinely past it, done room by room as people refurbish.
Junction boxes above lath-and-plaster ceilings. Common in every Victorian property in N5. Buried, inaccessible and not always the sort you can safely leave in place — which is also why a ceiling full of downlights is not automatically an upgrade on an old ceiling. Worth deciding before the plasterer is booked, not after.
Heritage and conservation work around Highbury Fields
Highbury Crescent, Highbury Place and the streets facing Highbury Fields include listed and conservation-area property, and that changes how a rewire is done rather than whether it can be. Cable routes that are visible from a habitable room, surface conduit, and anything that affects cornicing, panelling or original joinery all need thinking about at the quoting stage. We run concealed cable where floorboards lift cleanly, use surface conduit where chasing the wall would do more harm than good, and we are straight about which rooms will need making good afterwards.
Where the property is listed, consent sits with the owner and the council, not with us — we can tell you what the installation needs and what it will look like, but we do not apply on your behalf. More detail on how this plays out elsewhere in Islington and across the borough generally.
Landlords, agents and HMOs in Highbury
Every private rented home in England needs an EICR at least every five years under the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, with a copy to existing tenants within 28 days and to new tenants before they move in. Any remedial work has to be done within 28 days of the report, or sooner if the report says so.
Licensed HMOs are inspected annually rather than five-yearly, and bring fire detection, emergency lighting and PAT testing with them. Islington operates HMO licensing and the thresholds and ward coverage have changed more than once, so check the council’s current scheme for your street before you assume what applies — the answer is not the same in two neighbouring wards. We cover the requirements on HMO EICR London and PAT testing London.
If you are a letting or managing agent instructing on a landlord’s behalf, the certificate names the landlord as client and the agent as the contact — see electrician for letting agents in London. For converted villas and purpose-built blocks, the communal installation belongs to the freeholder or the residents’ company, and a leaseholder cannot commission work on it: who signs off communal electrical work.
Shops and offices on Blackstock Road and Highbury Park
The parades on Blackstock Road, Highbury Park and around Highbury Barn are small-unit commercial — cafés, takeaways, barbers, estate agents, a few first-floor offices. Typical work is a commercial EICR for a lease or an insurer, remedial work on a board that has been added to by three previous tenants, extract and lighting changes at a fit-out, and emergency lighting where the escape route is internal. Commercial EICRs start at £220 and are priced on circuit count after we have seen the board. Out-of-hours access so you do not lose a trading day is £60 + VAT per half hour.
EV charging in Highbury
Highbury has more off-street parking than most of inner London — Aberdeen Park, Highbury New Park and parts of Highbury Grange have real driveways — which makes a straightforward charge point install realistic here in a way it is not in Dalston or Stoke Newington. Installation starts at £450 labour with the charger unit itemised separately.
Being straight about the limits: there is no lawful way to fit a wall point for a car parked on the street, and we will not run a cable across a public footway. Cross-pavement charging is a council scheme, not something an electrician can install privately, so that is a question for Islington rather than for us. In a block or an underground car park the supply belongs to the freeholder or management company, which means their permission and often a sub-meter before anything is installed. Where the property is in a conservation area there may also be a planning consideration: Article 4 directions and EV chargers.
Nearby areas we cover
We work the streets around Highbury Fields and Blackstock Road in N5 on the same pricing: Electrician Canonbury N1 · Electrician Holloway N7 · Electrician Finsbury Park N4 · Electrician Angel N1 · Electrician N1 · Electrician Tufnell Park N19 · Electrician Archway N19. The whole borough is covered on our Electrician Islington page, and everywhere we cover is listed on our London service areas page.
Highbury FAQ
My flat is in a listed Highbury Crescent terrace. Can you rewire it without wrecking the cornicing?
In most cases yes, but the method changes. We lift floorboards where they come up cleanly, run surface conduit on the runs where chasing a wall would damage original plaster, and we tell you up front which rooms will need a plasterer afterwards. A partial rewire that deals with the genuinely dangerous circuits and leaves sound ones alone is often the better answer on a listed terrace than a full strip-out.
I bought a Highbury Stadium Square flat and the seller’s EICR is from 2018. Do I need a new one?
If you are letting it, yes — the report has to be no more than five years old at the start of the tenancy, and a 2018 report is out of date. If you are living in it there is no legal requirement, though a lender or insurer sometimes asks. A 2-bed at Stadium Square is £170.
Will a new fuse board on its own make my EICR satisfactory?
Not always, and in the older Highbury terraces often not. If the main earth, the bonding to incoming services or a circuit’s cabling is the coded item, replacing the board changes nothing about it. We price the earthing and bonding at £108 when it is done alongside other work precisely because it so often has to be.
I have an HMO on Highbury Hill. What do I need for the licence?
An EICR dated within the last twelve months, a PAT report on the appliances you supply, fire detection certification appropriate to the size and layout, and emergency lighting certification where the escape route is internal. We can do the EICR, the PAT and the certification in one visit. Check the council’s current scheme for your street for the licensing thresholds themselves, because they change.
Can you come out in the evening or at a weekend?
Yes, and it is often the sensible option for a tenanted flat or a shop that cannot lose a trading day. Out-of-hours attendance is £60 + VAT per half hour on top of the standard rate. We will tell you honestly on the phone whether we can get to you in the window you need rather than taking the booking and leaving you waiting — see what out-of-hours work actually costs.
Do you work on the communal landings and risers in my block?
Yes, but only for the party who owns that installation — the freeholder, the residents’ management company or their managing agent. A leaseholder cannot instruct riser work on a shared supply, however reasonable the request. We check who the client is before we touch it.
Book an electrician in Highbury N5
Call 07407 627542 or 07500 721453, or email info@faelectrical.co.uk. Send a photo of the consumer unit, the EICR PDF or the part of the installation the work concerns and we can usually give you a price the same day. We are NICEIC approved, Part P registered, work to BS 7671 18th Edition and fully insured, and we are Checkatrade approved with a rating of 9.32 out of 10 from 242 reviews.
Other Islington pages: emergency electrician Islington, EICR Islington, fuse board replacement Islington. Background reading in our electrical guides.