I'm in the process of getting my whole lighting system rewired (part of major refurbishment). I want to use structured wiring with a system such as Lutron or Evolution. I thought that although, there were obviously additional costs with these systems, the actual cost of wiring the system was cheaper under structured wiring (am sure i read it somewhere). My electrician is saying it is much more expensive to do structured wiring. Can anyone advise if this is true or not.
Thanks in advance.

[Johnny Thunder]

The last house I installed X10, used nearly 500 metres of cable. It would
probably have taken around 250 metres wired in conventional Radial loop-in
configuration.

[rssteve]

its not the cost of cable mate, its the labour. If he has not done this cabling before its going to take him longer as he will need to learn and double check everything once he has done it.

[neilball]

Take aother look at Rako. They have just launched a new dimmer deisgned to sit in the back of a single gang back box, wires up to the exisiting switch wires does not need a neutral) and talks to the keypad via RF. Seems ideal for projects that are wired conventionally - in your case your sparky could run the wires as he always did and you can get your whole-house lighting.

If that seems to difficult for him then consider Hevar - lighting keypads can be run over twin and earth so all he has to do is wire each radially, no "funny" low votlage cables involved at all.