Before You Buy Your Home in Swinton | Electrical Checks

Buying a house in Swinton? Start by looking up the hill

Swinton gives house buyers a clue that most towns do not. It is built on a hillside, and as a rule the older houses are at the top and the newer ones are at the bottom.

I’m Mat Orton from MP Electrical. I have been an electrician for 25+ years, and Swinton is five miles up the road from Rotherham, so it is well inside our patch.

How Swinton became a place people move to

In January 1968 Swinton lost its railway station. For over twenty years there was no train.

Then the pits went in the 1980s, and the work moved to the offices and units at Manvers. In 1991 the station came back, with trains to Sheffield and Doncaster. Swinton turned from a town where people worked into a town people travel from, and new houses have gone up lower down the hill ever since.

So buyers here are looking at everything from houses that were standing long before the station shut to ones finished in the last few years.

Why the 1960s matter to an electrician

Wiring changed around then. Before it, cable was insulated with rubber and lighting was often wired with no earth. A house built before that, and never rewired, can still have both.

That is why I ask how old a house is before I ask anything else.

What the hill tells me, and what it does not

Near the top, I expect an older house. Near the bottom, something newer.

That is a starting point and nothing more. It tells me how old the walls are. It does not tell me whether anyone has rewired inside them since.

My older house questions

What is the cable made of? If it is rubber, it has had its day. Rubber goes brittle and breaks up, and you only see it when a switch or a fitting comes off the wall.

Do the lighting circuits have an earth? Older ones often do not. That is a concern as soon as there is a metal light or switch on them.

Are the gas and water pipes joined to the earthing at the fuseboard? In plenty of older houses I open up, that was never done.

Why you cannot check this yourself

Everything I have just listed is behind plaster, under floors or inside the fuseboard. A viewing shows you none of it. The surveyor will look at the roof and the damp, but the surveyor does not test the electrics.

Have it tested before you are committed

I recommend a full EICR on any house you are buying. I test the wiring, the fuseboard and the earthing and write up what I find in plain English.

I do not guess the outcome first. And because the seller still owns the house, they need to agree to me coming in. The estate agent can usually arrange that.

What Swinton buyers ask me

Nobody has touched the house in decades. Is that bad? Not always. It can mean nobody has bodged it either. It does mean everything in it is as old as it looks, so have it tested.

We are buying a new build near the bottom. Do we need this? A new build is a different story. The wiring is new. Ask the builder for the electrical certificate, and ring us when you want the sockets and lights the builder did not put in.

Do you come out as far as Swinton? Yes. We cover Swinton.

Is a small job worth ringing about? Yes. We do any size of job.

Before you ring

Check our Google reviews. There are 330+ five star ones and we have done over 1000 jobs. MP Electrical is NAPIT registered.

Helpful Guides for Homebuyers

• Do I Need a New Fuse Board? 7 Signs It’s Time to Upgrade
• Signs Your House Needs Rewiring
• Old Fuse Box vs Modern Consumer Unit
• Electrical Jobs You Should Never DIY
• UK Electrical Safety Rules Every Homeowner Should Know

Areas We Cover Near Swinton

MP Electrical helps homebuyers in Swinton and across Mexborough, Wath upon Dearne, Rawmarsh, Conisbrough and Rotherham.

Page last updated: 4 October 2026