Renovating: the electrical decisions that have to happen before the linings go on

The window

Renovation is the only time the inside of your walls is available. While the frame is exposed, an extra circuit is a length of cable and twenty minutes. Once the linings are on, the same circuit means cutting, patching, painting and a room out of use.

That ratio is the single most useful thing to understand about renovation wiring, and it explains every recommendation below. The cost is not in the cable. It is in the access.

Decide these before the linings

• How many power points, and where. Count what you think you need, then add to it. Kitchens and bedside tables are where everybody under-counts, and a bench with two points on it will be a bench with a power board on it.
• Where the lights go, and how they are grouped. Which switch controls what is a decision made now, and living with a bad one is a daily annoyance for as long as you own the house.
• Data cabling. Runs to the living areas, to the front door, and to wherever the modem will sit. See the smart home article for what to ask for. None of it requires you to own a smart device today.
• Ceiling fans. Every fan needs a point and a control, and adding one to a finished ceiling is a far bigger job than it looks.
• Outdoor points and lighting. The barbecue, the deck, the garden, the shed. These are the ones people remember once the garden is finished.
• The hot water system and where it lives.
• Whether the switchboard can carry the house you are building.

The switchboard question, which people leave too late

A renovation adds load. More rooms, more cooling, a bigger kitchen, sometimes a pool. The board that ran the original house was sized for the original house.

It is also the moment to replace fuses or plug-in circuit breakers with proper protection, because the board is being worked on anyway. A house with no safety switch has no earth leakage protection for anyone in it, and the difference in cost between doing that during a renovation and doing it as a separate job later is substantial.

Ask for it to be assessed at the start of the job rather than at the end. A switchboard upgrade discovered late is the classic renovation budget surprise.

What you find when you open an older house

Houses along this coast have usually been altered more than once, and the wiring shows it. Salt air is hard on terminations, older cable insulation becomes brittle, and previous work is often undocumented.

So an honest renovation quote includes the possibility of finding something. A good electrician will tell you what they can and cannot see before they start, and will say plainly when the sensible answer is to rewire a section rather than extend what is there. Once a renovation reaches most of the rooms, a clean start is frequently cheaper than tracing and testing decades of alterations.

Over-cater, within reason

The rule that serves people best is to plan for the house in ten years rather than the house on moving day. Children get older, work comes home, a shed gets built, an electric car turns up in the driveway.

Spare capacity in the switchboard, a spare conduit or two, and more points than you think you need. All cheap now. None of them cheap later. The extra power point is the one nobody comes back and complains about.

Getting the electrician in early

Book the electrical walkthrough when the plans are drawn, not when the frame is up. Decisions that reach the drawing are free; decisions that reach the site are variations.

BH Electrics does renovation wiring and full rewires alongside builders and other trades. If you are at the planning stage, that is the right time to ring.