SCOPE
This decides how the house looks more than anything else
Lighting is a heading of its own with us, because it does more than anything else to decide how a house looks — and it is the thing most often skipped. The electrical infrastructure, meanwhile, goes inside the wall: how many sockets each room gets and which light goes where is written down at the design stage.
Adding light later means opening the wall again.
WHAT’S INCLUDED
What we do under this heading
All of the following sit inside the same contract. You can take an item out if you want to — but taking it out is your decision, not a limit on what we can do.
Electrical infrastructure
- Renewing the distribution board and the wiring
- Socket and switch layout
- Earthing
- Internet infrastructure
- Television
- Intercom
- Camera and alarm wiring
- Smart-home system
- Roof solar panels
- EV charging point
Lighting
- A room-by-room lighting plan
- Recessed downlights
- Concealed cove lighting
- Under-worktop lighting
- In-cupboard lighting
- Stair lighting
- Chandeliers and pendants
- Wall lights and table lamps
- Garden and pool lighting
- Façade lighting
- Dimming and scene control
WORTH NOTING
Where the work gets difficult on this item
We say these things at the quotation stage, not afterwards. We don’t like surprises.
- The smart-home decision is made at the design stage. The wiring goes inside the wall; once it is closed there is no going back. Wireless solutions added afterwards don’t do the same job.
- The colour of the light is planned too. How many kelvin in each room, how much light on which surface — changing that once you are standing in the room means changing the fittings. We solve the plan on paper first.
- Lead times on imported fittings are long. The selection is locked at the end of the design stage; on imported fittings the lead time can run to 6–12 weeks. More often than not, this item sets the handover date.
- The board and the earthing are not negotiable. On most projects the old distribution board has to be replaced. We don’t propose a cheap solution on this item; insurance and personal safety depend on it directly.
THE DECISION CALENDAR
Which decision you make, and when
Every line becomes an annex to the contract. If a date slips, the work behind it slips too.
- Design stageSocket, switch and lighting planThe smart-home and scene decisions are locked at this stage.
- End of designChoosing the fittingsImported fittings take 6–12 weeks; the order is placed here.
- Shell workWiring and the boardIt is checked against the plan before the wall is closed.
- Finishing workFitting the luminaires and setting the scenesDimming and scenes are set together at handover.
At handover we walk through how the systems work together: which switch does what, and how the scenes change. That training is part of the handover file.
Let’s talk about the Electrics and Lighting item.
The survey commits you to nothing. We come to the property, take measurements, and talk about what can be done under this heading.