⚡ Family-run · Reading, Berkshire
Electrician in Reading
Reliable electrical services you can trust, with quality workmanship, completed to the highest standards and fully tested and certified
Hi, we're Thurston First Electrical, a family-run electrical contractor based in Reading. We specialise in wiring the spaces people add to their homes, whether that's a garden office, a garage conversion, an extension or new lighting. From the initial quote through to testing and certification, we provide reliable, professional workmanship, clear communication and a service you can trust.
What you get
Four things we promise
Not a list of adjectives. Four things you can hold us to.
1
You'll know the price first
A written quote before anyone picks up a tool. If the job changes once the walls are open, we tell you what it means before we carry on — not afterwards on the invoice.
2
Same faces, start to finish
We're a family firm. The people who quote the job are the people who turn up and do it. No subcontractors you've never met, no being handed down the chain.
3
We leave it tidy
Sheets down, cables clipped straight, holes made good, and the mess goes out with us. Your house is a house, not a building site — we work like we know that.
4
Tested, certified, signed off
Every job gets tested properly and you get the paperwork to prove it. Where the regulations need it notified, we notify it. That certificate matters when you come to sell.
What we do
Our electrical services
A lot of our work is new space — rooms that didn't exist six months ago. But the small stuff's on the list too, and it's welcome.
Garden rooms
Armoured submain down the garden, board in the room, sockets, lighting and heating provision. Designed for the load you'll actually put on it.
Find out more →Garage conversions
Turning a garage into a room means rethinking the electrics completely. New circuits, proper lighting, heating and enough sockets for how you'll really use it.
Find out more →Extensions
First fix and second fix on new builds off the back or side of the house. We'll work to your builder's programme and get the certificate sorted at the end.
Find out more →Consumer unit upgrade
Swapping a tired old fuseboard for a modern board with RCBO protection on every circuit. Often needed anyway before you add a garden room or a conversion.
Find out more →Bespoke lighting installation
Lighting designed for the room rather than a spotlight every metre. Layers, circuits, dimming and switching worked out before we start cutting ceilings.
Find out more →Media wall lighting
Power, data and lighting built into the media wall so the cables disappear. Sockets where the TV and soundbar actually sit, not where they're easiest to run.
Find out more →Upgrading lighting
Old fittings out, efficient LED in. Better light, lower bills, and a chance to fix the switching that's annoyed you since you moved in.
Find out more →Faceplate uplifts
Yellowing plastic sockets and switches swapped for brushed steel, matt black or screwless white. Quick job, and it lifts a whole room.
Find out more →Small jobs
Extra socket, outside light, a circuit that keeps tripping. Small jobs are on this list on purpose — plenty of firms won't touch them. We will.
Find out more →
About us
Thurston First Electrical
A family firm working out of Coley Park, covering Reading and the villages around it.
👷
Run by Barry
Barry Thurston runs the business and works on the tools alongside the team. Ring the number on this page and you're talking to the people who'll be in your house — not a call centre taking a message.
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Certified and insured
Registered with NICEIC on the Domestic Installer scheme, and Barry holds an ECS card as a JIB-graded Installation Electrician. Covered by £5 million public liability insurance. All work carried out to BS 7671 and certificated on completion.
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Free quotes, no surprises
Quotes are free and there's no obligation. You get a written price, and that's the price. If something unexpected turns up behind the plaster, you hear about it from us before we carry on.
Planning a garden room, conversion or extension?
Get us in early. The electrics are far cheaper and far tidier to design in at the start than to retro-fit once the plasterboard's up. We'll come and look, talk it through, and send you a written price.
✔ Free written quotes
✔ Price agreed before we start
✔ Tested and certificated
NICEIC
Registered — Domestic Installer
£5m
Public liability insurance
Warranty-matched
Workmanship guarantee
100%
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Local knowledge
Why a local electrician matters in Reading
Reading isn't one kind of housing stock, it's about six. The Victorian terraces in Newtown and Katesgrove went up for the Huntley & Palmers workforce and they've been added to, split up and rewired in bits ever since. Head up to Caversham Heights and you're into Edwardian villas with high ceilings, deep voids and a fuseboard that's been in the cupboard under the stairs since the seventies. Come back down to Coley Park, Whitley Wood and Norcot and it's post-war estate housing, solid enough but built for a household that owned a kettle and a wireless. Then there's Lower Earley, Woodley and Winnersh — eighties and nineties estates where the wiring's sound but there are never enough sockets in the right places.
All of that changes how a job goes. A garage conversion in Tilehurst and a garage conversion in Sonning are the same job on paper and nothing like each other once you're in there. Older properties around Erleigh Road and Christchurch Road are often HMOs now, which brings its own requirements. Riverside places out at Purley-on-Thames and Pangbourne have their own quirks — outbuildings on long runs, garden supplies that were never designed for a home office with a heater in it. After a while on these houses you get a feel for what's behind the wall before you start cutting.
The other thing Reading has plenty of is new space. Shinfield, Spencer's Wood, Three Mile Cross and Arborfield have grown enormously, and across the whole town people are converting garages, building garden offices and extending off the back rather than moving. That's the bread and butter here. New space needs its own supply, its own protection and its own certificate, and it wants working out properly — how much load is really going on that submain, where the sockets go for how you'll actually use the room, whether the existing board can take it. Get that right at the start and it's straightforward. Get it wrong and someone's back with a chase saw in eighteen months.
Being based in Coley Park means we're ten minutes from most of the patch. That matters for the small stuff as much as the big — nobody's charging you for an hour of A33 traffic to come and fit an outside light. If you're on the edge of where we work, ring and ask.
Where we work
Areas we cover across Reading
Every area below has its own page. Click through for what we do there and the sort of properties we come across.
Reading
Reading Town Centre
Central Reading
East Reading (Cemetery Junction)
West Reading
Coley
Coley Park
Dee Park
Katesgrove
Newtown
Redlands
Whiteknights
University Area
Southcote
Norcot
Tilehurst
Calcot
Theale
Burghfield
Whitley
Whitley Wood
Green Park
Caversham
Caversham Heights
Lower Caversham
Emmer Green
Earley
Lower Earley
Woodley
Winnersh
Twyford
Charvil
Sonning
Shinfield
Spencer's Wood
Three Mile Cross
Arborfield
Purley-on-Thames
Pangbourne
Find Thurston First Electrical on Google
101 St. Saviours Road, Coley Park, Reading, Berkshire RG1 6EJ
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
Do you charge for quotes?
No. Quotes are free and there's no obligation. We'll come and look at the job, talk it through with you, and send a written price. If you'd rather go elsewhere after that, no hard feelings.
Are you registered electricians?
Yes. We're registered with NICEIC on the Domestic Installer scheme, which means our domestic work is certificated and notified to Building Control where the regulations require it. Barry also holds an ECS card as a JIB-graded Installation Electrician. All work is carried out to the BS 7671 wiring regulations.
Do you do the electrics for garden rooms, garage conversions and extensions?
That's a big part of what we do. New space needs its own supply, its own protection and its own certificate, and it needs designing before anyone starts chasing walls. We work out the load, run the submain, sort the sockets, lighting and heating provision, then test and certify the lot. We're happy to work alongside your builder or come in once the shell's up.
Do you take on small jobs?
Yes. Extra socket, a light that's stopped working, swapping tired old faceplates for something decent. Small jobs are on the list on purpose. Ring us and we'll get a date in the diary.
What is a consumer unit upgrade and do I need one?
The consumer unit is your fuseboard. Older boards, particularly the plastic ones with rewireable fuses, don't give you the protection a modern board does. A current board gives every circuit its own RCBO, so a fault trips out one circuit rather than plunging the whole house into darkness. If you're adding a garden room, a conversion or an EV point, the board often needs upgrading anyway to take the extra load.
What areas do you cover?
We're based in Coley Park and work right across Reading and out into the surrounding villages. Caversham, Tilehurst, Earley, Woodley, Whitley, Southcote, Shinfield, Twyford, Pangbourne, Theale, Winnersh and plenty more. If you're on the edge of the patch, ring and ask rather than assuming we won't come.
Are you insured?
Yes. We carry £5 million public liability insurance. We're happy to send the certificate over before we start if you or your builder need it for your records.
Do you guarantee your work?
Yes. Rather than putting a flat twelve months on our labour, we guarantee our workmanship for as long as the manufacturer's warranty runs on the parts and fittings we've installed. So the labour and the product are covered for the same period, instead of the labour running out first. If something needs looking at again, we come back and sort it.
What are your opening hours?
Monday to Friday, 8.00am to 5.00pm. If you ring outside those hours leave a message or drop us a line through the contact form and we'll come back to you.
Let's get a date in the diary
Whether it's a garden room that needs designing from scratch or an outside light that's given up, give us a shout. Free quote, no obligation.