Renovation Electrical Upgrade Questions Checklist

Photograph the front of the consumer unit, including whatever labelling is visible, without opening it or removing anything at all.

Never open a consumer unit, socket, switch or junction box; everything inside belongs to a qualified electrical professional.

Note the style and material of the sockets and switches around the property, and flag any that look noticeably older than the rest.

Accessories are the most visible clue to how an installation has grown over time, and the mixture usually tells its own story.

Look into the roof space from the hatch with a torch and photograph any cabling lying on the surface, without touching or moving any of it.

Cable visible in a roof space often carries the clearest evidence of when parts of an installation were last worked on.

Record any socket, switch or fitting that is discoloured, cracked, warm to the touch or loose in the wall, and note exactly where it is.

Stop using anything discoloured, warm or loose and raise it with a qualified electrical professional promptly rather than waiting for the project.

Note how cables enter each room, whether clipped to the surface, run in trunking or disappearing into the plaster, and photograph the pattern.

Surface routing and buried routing suggest different histories, and the mixture across a property is worth capturing before decoration hides it.

Gather whatever paperwork you hold from previous electrical work, and state plainly where you hold none rather than leaving a silence.

An honest gap in the paperwork is far more useful to a professional than a vague reassurance that work was done properly.

Photograph every extension lead, adaptor and trailing socket exactly where it sits, before anybody tidies the property for a visit.

Extension leads are an honest map of the sockets that are missing, and they always vanish before a professional visit unless you record them.

Note which sockets are permanently occupied by something that never gets unplugged, and what each of those things is.

Permanently used outlets show where the household has settled, which is often different from where the original layout assumed.

Record which sockets sit behind furniture, inside a cupboard or under a fitted unit and cannot realistically be reached or used.

An unreachable socket counts for nothing in practice, and listing them corrects the impression that a room is already well served.

Walk each room and note where you would genuinely want power if the room worked properly, including at worktop, desk and bedside positions.

This is the part only you can supply, and it is far easier to think about calmly now than under pressure once cables are being run.

Note where the household charges devices, and whether that habit has drifted to a place with no socket anywhere near it.

Charging habits move over time and rarely match the original layout, which is a small thing that improves a room noticeably.

Record any appliance position likely to change during the renovation, because the power has to follow the appliance rather than stay put.

Appliance moves are agreed in a layout conversation and forgotten in the electrical one, leaving the supply in the old position.

Record how each room is lit now and where the light actually falls, compared with where you need it for reading, cooking or working.

A single central fitting lights the middle of a room and nothing else, which is usually the real complaint behind a request for more lighting.

Note which switches are in awkward positions, including any room you enter in the dark before reaching one.

Switch position is decided in seconds on site and then lived with for as long as you stay in the property, so it deserves a moment of thought beforehand.

Record where switching from more than one position already exists, and where you wish it did, particularly on stairs and long landings.

Adding switching later means running new cable through finished surfaces, which is exactly the disruption a renovation can avoid.

Note whether any ceiling appears lowered or overboarded, judging from cornices, door heights and hatches that no longer line up.

What lies inside a ceiling void, including cabling and insulation, must be established by a qualified professional before anything is fitted into it.

Write down which rooms need their lighting positions settled before plastering, and which can reasonably be left until later.

Some decisions are genuinely reversible and some are not, and knowing which is which stops you agonising over the wrong ones.

Record any existing recessed fitting and note what sits directly above it, whether that is a room, a roof space or an unknown void.

Recessed fittings raise questions about insulation, ventilation and separation between floors that only a qualified professional can answer.

Note where the incoming telephone or broadband service enters the property, and where the equipment for it currently sits.

The entry point is fixed and the equipment position usually is not, which is a useful distinction to have clear early on.

Record where an aerial or dish cable enters the building and how it is routed to each room that currently uses it.

These runs are typically informal, added over the years, and lost entirely once decoration covers the surface clips.

List the rooms where you would want a wired connection rather than relying on a wireless signal, and note why for each one.

Wired runs are trivial while floors are open and awkward afterwards, so the list is worth making before the work starts.

Note where a doorbell, entry system or camera is fitted, and where its supply and cabling appear to come from.

Entry equipment is usually connected in a way nobody remembers, and it is easily lost when a hallway is refinished.

Record where alarm sensors, sounders and any control panel are fitted, and whether the system is still in use or long abandoned.

Do not disturb, disconnect or reposition alarm equipment; raise it with whoever maintains the system or a qualified professional first.

Write down which of these runs would be simplest to install while floors and walls are already open for other reasons.

The open fabric stage is brief, and the runs that were not asked for during it are the ones nobody adds afterwards.

Note every outdoor socket, light and supply already present, including any that no longer work or have been disconnected.

Dead outdoor points still have cable somewhere, and knowing they exist is more useful than assuming there is nothing out there.

Trace as far as you can by eye where a supply to a garage, shed or outbuilding leaves the house, and photograph both ends.

Do not excavate, uncover or handle any buried or external cable; its route and condition are for a qualified professional to establish.

Record what the outbuilding supply is used for now, and what you would want it to serve once the renovation is complete.

An outbuilding that becomes a workshop or a home working space has quite different needs from one storing a lawnmower.

Note where outdoor lighting would genuinely be useful, such as at steps, gates, a bin store or a parking area.

Outdoor lighting is easiest to arrange while other external work is happening and awkward to add once surfaces are finished.

Record whether any outdoor supply is shared with a neighbouring property or appears to cross land you do not own.

Rights over land and shared connections are a legal subject in their own right; put a supply of this kind to a suitably qualified adviser before it is altered.

Note whether any paving, planting or landscaping is planned that would sit over the route an existing supply appears to take.

Burying an existing route under new hard surfacing is easy to avoid now and thoroughly awkward to undo afterwards.

Ask what would need to be cut into walls and ceilings in each room, and write the answer down room by room rather than in general terms.

A general reassurance about minimal disruption means nothing; a room by room answer is something you can hold people to.

Agree in writing who fills, plasters and redecorates after cables have been run, and to what standard of finish in each room.

A chase filled flush is not the same as a wall ready to decorate, and the distance between those two states is where the argument usually happens.

Note which rooms have finishes that could not realistically be replicated, such as an old cornice, a tiled surround or a papered wall, and flag them early.

Where a finish may contain older materials, ask a qualified professional what is involved before anything is cut, drilled or removed.

Record whether floors would need to come up for cable runs, and whether the existing covering could be relaid afterwards.

Boards lifted for cabling are rarely put back invisibly, and it is worth knowing which rooms will show that before the covering goes down again.

Ask whether surface routing is a reasonable option in any room where cutting into the fabric would be particularly destructive.

In some rooms a visible run is the lesser evil, and it is worth asking rather than assuming everything must be buried.

Note where furniture and belongings would have to be moved, and agree who is actually doing the moving and where things go.

Clearing rooms is a real task that nobody prices into their own head, and it delays work when it has not been arranged.

Ask what must be decided before cabling is installed, since a long list of positions becomes effectively fixed at that point.

First fix quietly freezes decisions that owners assume are still open, which is why so many are made in a rush.

Record the decisions you are not yet ready to make, and ask what the latest sensible moment is for settling each of them.

Knowing which choices can wait removes pressure from the ones that genuinely cannot.

Ask which other trades need to be finished ahead of the electrical work in each room, and which of them follow on immediately once it is done.

Order disputes between trades are usually about who makes good, and settling the order settles most of the argument.

Establish before the work starts which documents are expected to exist at the end of it, and who will be holding the original of each one.

Notification and record requirements for electrical work are set locally; ask a qualified electrical professional and the relevant authority what applies here.

Ask for a marked up plan showing where cables have been run, and keep it permanently with the property paperwork.

A record of cable routes proves its worth the first time somebody puts a drill into a wall long after everyone involved has forgotten what is behind it.

Record which parts of the installation have deliberately been left untouched, and note the reason given for leaving each one.

Untouched areas become invisible once the project ends, and the next owner or adviser has no way of knowing they were excluded.