Wiring a New Home? 45 Electrical Decisions to Lock In Before the First Wall Is Chased

Almost every mistake in a house can be corrected later. Floors can be re-laid, plaster can be patched, paint can be redone. Electrical work doesn’t work that way. The conduits disappear into walls and slabs, and whatever went wrong goes into the wall with them.

“Electrical work is one job that can’t really be fixed later, and it puts your life at risk too.”

That’s how the source video opens, and it’s why this checklist exists. Below we’ve pulled out the points that actually change outcomes, grouped by stage of work, with the numbers you can hand straight to your electrician.

Before anyone picks up a chasing machine

• Hire for knowledge, not the lowest rate. A good electrician knows the current electricity rules and will tell you where each board should go, at what height, and where it shouldn’t go.
• Use ISI-marked materials from known brands. That means wires, switches, sockets, boxes, MCBs and conduits. Local unbranded wire often sells at roughly half the price, and that saving isn’t worth it.
• Get a wiring drawing with load distribution, or at the very least insist on an as-built layout at the end. Any future electrician will need to know where each pipe runs.
• Decide between concealed and open wiring upfront. Open wiring is cheaper but looks dated. Nearly all new work today is concealed.
• Fix leakage and seepage first. If a wall is damp, repair it and waterproof it before concealed wiring goes in. Damp walls and buried copper don’t mix. (Our guide on bathroom waterproofing done right covers the wet-area side of this.)
• Let new walls cure 10–15 days before chasing, so cutting doesn’t weaken fresh masonry.

Plan every point before you cut

This is where most homes go wrong. Decide the positions first: TV, Wi-Fi router, inverter, DTH, AC, CCTV, water motor and tank alarm. Then lay dedicated conduits for all of them. If you skip this, you end up with cables stapled along the skirting a year later.

Standard heights worth marking with chalk before cutting:

Item	Height from finished floor
Switchboards	~1.3 m (keep all at the same level)
Wall lights	~2.25 m
Ceiling fan blades	2.4 m minimum, 3 m maximum

Two small additions homeowners almost always forget:

• Extra sockets near windows, balconies and the entrance door for festival lighting.
• The main switchboard on the left-hand side as you enter through the main door.

Wall chasing: the rules that protect your masonry

• Keep horizontal chases to a minimum. They weaken walls far more than vertical ones.
• Keep vertical chases uniform, with reasonable spacing between them. The video suggests around 2 m apart where the layout allows.
• Chase width should not exceed 1 inch, and depth should not exceed 1.5 inches.
• Recess switch boxes and conduits 2–3 mm behind the wall face, so putty and paint finish flush.
• Before plastering over any chase, fix fibre mesh across it. Skip this and you’ll see hairline cracks tracing your wiring route within months.

On what happens when conduits sit proud of the plaster, the video puts it best:

“The painter will say it’s the electrician’s fault, the electrician will say it’s the painter’s fault, but the only money being wasted is yours.”

Conduits in the roof slab

• Use heavy-grade conduit (12–15 kg bundle) in slabs. Lighter pipes get crushed under labour walking during the pour. Aggregate then gets into them, and sometimes the slab has to be chased later to clear a blockage.
• Place fan boxes at the room centre, or directly over the bed if you’ve already fixed the furniture layout.
• Keep slab conduits, fan boxes and concealed light boxes to a minimum. Each one leaves a void in the concrete. If you’re planning a false ceiling, skip concealed lights in the slab entirely. They fit easily in the ceiling. (See how we plan this in POP or gypsum false ceiling.) For slab work generally, our post on pouring an RCC roof slab the right way is a good companion read.
• In false ceilings, run wiring through conduit. Don’t leave loose wire lying on the ceiling grid.

Boxes, the DB, MCBs and RCCBs

• GI (galvanised iron) boxes, recessed 2–3 mm and checked with a level. A phone spirit-level app works fine. A crooked box means a crooked switch plate forever.
• One room, one MCB. Separate circuits for bedrooms, kitchen, porch and bathrooms mean a fault trips one area, not the whole house.
• B-curve MCBs for general lighting and sockets. C-curve for AC, fridge and oven circuits, where motors and compressors draw a high starting current.
• A main isolator after the energy meter, then the MCB distribution board, then RCCB protection.
• Split the house into two lines from the DB: lighting/fan circuits and power circuits.
• Keep lighting sub-circuits to no more than 10 points or 800 W. Keep power sub-circuits to no more than 2 points or 3,000 W. Ideally, give each heavy power socket its own run.

Earthing is not optional. It’s often skipped on small jobs, and it’s what saves you from a shock when an appliance fails. The thick third pin on AC, fridge and washing machine sockets must actually connect to earth. Add an RCCB to catch earth-leakage faults. Bathrooms need one most.

Wire: grade, size, colour and joints

The video calls this its most important tip. Don’t just ask for “a brand”. Ask for FRLS (Fire Retardant Low Smoke) wire, not plain FR. In a fault, FRLS gives off far less smoke, and you usually smell trouble before it becomes a fire. That gives you time to trip the MCB. On a full-home order, the cost difference is small.

Sizing thumb rules (copper):

1. Lights and fans: 1–1.5 sq mm
2. 16A power sockets and geysers: 2.5 sq mm
3. Split AC up to 2 tonne: 4 sq mm preferred

Other points:

• Colour coding: red for phase, black for neutral, green or green-yellow for earth, following BIS practice.
• Switches must break the phase, never the neutral. Otherwise an appliance stays live while you’re repairing it.
• Avoid taped joints between points. The glue on tape softens with repeated heating, and a loose joint can cause a short circuit. Main feeders and AC, fridge, oven and washing machine lines should have zero joints.
• Don’t pack conduits full. Wires need room to be pulled out and replaced later. The video’s limit is 60% of the pipe’s area. Many engineers work tighter than that.
• Run two spare wires for a future inverter.

Bathrooms and finishing

Put bathroom light and fan switches outside the bathroom wherever possible. If they must go inside, which is common in renovations, use fully waterproof fittings and a dedicated RCCB on that circuit. Choose fire-rated switches and sockets from a brand that will still exist in ten years. If one fails, a mismatched replacement plate looks wrong on the wall. Fit switch plates last, after painting, so they don’t get paint on them.

Paying the electrician

Electricians usually charge per point. That rate normally covers chasing, piping, wiring, boxes, switches, MCB fitting and tape. Regulators and light fittings are charged separately. In old-house repair jobs, expect a full day’s charge even for two hours of work. When the job is done, collect the as-built layout and hold back about 10% for 7–10 days while you test everything.

How Vedh handles this in Aurangabad

On Vedh renovations and new-build fit-outs across Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, electrical is planned on paper first. That means point positions, circuit split, MCB grades and wire sizes, all fixed before a single chase is cut. Any damp wall gets waterproofed before conduits go in, because we don’t bury copper in wet masonry. You get FRLS wire, earthing on every heavy-load socket and RCCB protection as standard, plus an as-built layout at handover. The job is backed by our 40/40/20 payment terms and a 1-year free workmanship warranty. If you’re planning a rewire or a full-home renovation, WhatsApp Santosh on +91 92727 31023 or fill the form at /contact and we’ll walk your site with you.