Light & Technology · 9 min read
Electrical Planning for the Home: Why the Socket Comes Before the Sofa
An extension lead snakes behind your sofa to the reading lamp. A multi-way adaptor for coffee machine, toaster and kettle sits on the worktop, and at night your phone lies charging on the floor beside the bed. None of this is dramatic. All of it could have been avoided. Now picture the opposite: you sit down on the sofa, the lamp clicks on from the wall by the door, the worktop is clear, and the phone charges in a drawer by your pillow, with not one visible cable.
As an example, take the B. family: two adults, a child, an Altbau apartment (the pre-1945 Viennese apartment building) in Landstrasse that was already renovated once a few years ago. Back then the electrician put sockets where they are customarily put: one per wall, at standard height, a switch beside every door.
Contents
- What electrical planning for a home covers
- Why the furniture plan comes before the electrical plan
- Planning sockets in the kitchen and living room
- Room by room: a checklist
- Heights, distances and safety
- Conduits, network and the future
- The wall walk-through: the most important appointment
- When in the process the electrical planning is settled
- Frequently asked questions
- What happens next
What electrical planning for a home covers
Electrical planning determines where power, light and data arrive in an apartment and how they are switched. This includes sockets, switches, light outlets, connections for appliances, network and aerial cables, conduits for later expansion and the division into circuits.
The result is an electrical plan: a floor plan with symbols, height specifications and switching groups, which the electrical engineer works from. The more precise this plan, the less has to be improvised on site.
The technical execution is the responsibility of a licensed electrical engineer in accordance with the applicable Austrian regulations. Our task is to clarify beforehand what is needed in daily life and where. These two roles complement each other, and only together do they produce an installation that fits.
A socket in the wrong place is not a technical problem. It is a planning problem you look at for twenty years.
What doing nothing costs. An installation that follows the standard instead of your day costs you in small ways every time you use the room. You rearrange furniture to reach a socket, you tread on cables, and you give up the lamp you wanted in the corner. Fixing it afterwards means chasing walls, plastering and painting in a finished home. Deciding it once, on paper, is far gentler. So what comes first?
Why the furniture plan comes before the electrical plan
The most common mistake in electrical planning is the wrong order. First the cables are laid, then someone thinks about where the furniture goes. The result: the socket disappears behind the wardrobe, the light switch ends up behind the open door, and the sofa has no power.
We reverse the order. First a furniture plan is drawn up showing where each larger piece of furniture stands. Then we go through the day: where do people read, work, charge, cook, dry their hair? The electrical plan almost writes itself from these situations.
For the B. family this meant: the sofa now stands free in the room, so it needs a floor socket for reading lamp and charger. The bed gets sockets and switches on both sides, the dining table a connection for a pendant exactly above the centre of the table. How to organise a living room without a fixed direction of view is described in the article Furnishing a living room without letting the television rule the space. What do the busiest rooms need?
Planning sockets in the kitchen and living room
Kitchen and living room are the rooms with the greatest demand and the most frequent mistakes.
Kitchen
In the kitchen, the worktop decides. Sockets belong where appliances are actually used: beside the coffee machine, by the kettle, at the preparation area. On a cooking island you need at least one easily reached connection, for instance at the side or as a pop-up socket in the worktop. What else to bear in mind with islands is described in the article Planning a cooking island.
Large appliances need their own connections and circuits: hob, oven, steam oven, dishwasher, refrigerator. Hobs are generally supplied through a separate connection, often three-phase. Which appliances you really need is clarified in the article Kitchen appliances. Only once this list is settled can the kitchen's electrical plan be drawn up.
One detail that brings a great deal of calm: an appliance cabinet with built-in sockets, in which coffee machine, toaster and food processor can stay put. The worktop stays free, and the multi-way adaptor disappears.
Living room
In the living room, the positions of sofa, armchairs, media unit and floor lamps count. A socket should be within reach beside every seat, ideally without a cable across the room. For the television or projector we plan conduits so that cables stay invisible and later devices can be added.
Anyone who works with several light sources in the evening needs switchable sockets. Floor and table lamps can then be switched on from a wall button at the door instead of one by one. How light is planned in layers is explained in the article Lighting design for the home. And the other rooms?
Room by room: a checklist
From many projects a list has emerged that we go through in every electrical plan:
- Hallway: switch by the entrance, light at the mirror, socket for a cordless vacuum or robot vacuum, charging station for phones and keys, possibly an intercom. More in the article Arriving: the entrance hall.
- Living room: sockets at every seat, floor socket for a free-standing sofa, media connections with conduit, switchable sockets for lamps.
- Dining room: light outlet above the centre of the table, socket for a hotplate or table lamp.
- Kitchen: sockets at all work areas, separate circuits for large appliances, connection in the island, appliance cabinet with power, light under wall cabinets.
- Bedroom: sockets and switches on both sides of the bed, reading light, orientation light. See The bedroom as a place of rest.
- Dressing room: lighting inside the wardrobe, socket for a garment steamer or mirror.
- Bathroom: socket in or beside the mirror cabinet for toothbrush and razor, connection for hairdryer, heated towel rail, mirror lighting.
- Workplace: several sockets, network connection, light without glare. See Home office in the apartment.
- Outdoors: socket and light on the balcony or terrace; with houses, possibly provision for a charging station or outdoor kitchen.
This list is not a standard that we work through but a conversation guide. Not every family needs everything, and some need something that is on no list. At what height does everything go?
Heights, distances and safety
Alongside where, how high counts. Some guide values, to be adapted in each case:
| Location | Usual height | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Sockets in living areas | About 30 cm above the floor | Adjust for skirting boards and furniture |
| Sockets above the worktop | About 15 to 20 cm above the worktop | Depends on splashback and tiling |
| Light switches | About 105 cm above the floor | Lower for accessibility, about 85 cm |
| Sockets at the bed | Slightly above mattress height | Easy to reach from lying down |
| Sockets at the desk | Above the desktop or in a cable duct | No crawling under the desk |
In the bathroom there are protected zones around the shower and bathtub in which sockets and switches are not permitted or only to a limited extent. The electrical engineer sets the exact zoning in accordance with the regulations. For us this means: the position of shower, bath and washbasin must be settled before the electrics are planned.
In Altbau apartments one often finds old cables without an earth conductor, missing residual-current circuit breakers or overloaded circuits. Whether renewal is necessary is for the electrical engineer to judge. In a full renovation we almost always recommend renewing the installation completely, because the walls are open anyway. And what about tomorrow?
Conduits, network and the future
Good electrical planning thinks beyond moving in. What is not needed today may matter in five years: an additional luminaire, a network connection in the child's room, a screen on the wall, a control for blinds.
Conduits are the cheapest insurance for this. An empty tube in the wall costs little during a renovation. Pulling a cable through later is then easy; without a tube it means chasing, plastering and painting.
The same applies to the network. Even if a lot runs over Wi-Fi, cables to the workplace, television and central access points are more stable and faster. How control and networking can be sensibly planned is described in the article Smart home you do not see.
An empty conduit is the only cable you never regret.
How do you make sure that every socket sits where you need it?
The wall walk-through: the most important appointment
Between plan and execution we hold an appointment that is often underestimated: the wall walk-through. Before any chasing is done, we go through the shell of the apartment with you and the electrical engineer and mark every socket, every switch and every light outlet directly on the wall.
This is how electrical planning works with us:
- Discuss daily life. Who does what, where and when? Which appliances are there, which are coming?
- Fix the furniture plan. All larger furniture and built-ins get their place.
- Draw the electrical plan. Sockets, switches, outlets, connections, conduits and circuits on the floor plan.
- Cross-check with kitchen, bathroom and built-ins. The plans of kitchen, bathroom and joinery must fit the electrical plan to the centimetre.
- Wall walk-through on site. Positions are marked on the wall and checked together.
- Execution and inspection. After cabling and before plastering we check the positions once more.
- Hand over documentation. You receive a plan showing where cables run.
At the B. family's wall walk-through we played through the day once: 6:30 coffee, 7:15 brushing teeth, 8:00 grabbing keys and phone. In the process four sockets were added and two dropped. The electrician wrote everything on the wall in chalk. Later the family sat on the finished sofa, a lamp lit from a single wall button, no cable across the floor. At Richard Atelier we always ask first how you want to live, and one contact person keeps the plans of kitchen, bathroom and joinery in step with the electrics, with the built-ins made by our own workshop Tischlerkultur, a Viennese tradition since 1935.
When in the process the electrical planning is settled
In a renovation, the electrical installation is one of the early trades, after demolition and before screed, plaster and tiles. This means that all decisions affecting the electrics must be made beforehand. Kitchen, bathroom, built-in wardrobes, lighting design and furnishing need a binding status at that point.
That sounds like a lot of lead time, and it is. But this is precisely where the benefit of an overall concept shows, in which design, planning and execution come from one coordinated team. How the overall process is distributed over time is described in the article The realistic schedule of an apartment renovation. Which kitchen mistakes only become apparent after moving in is shown in the article Twelve mistakes in kitchen planning.
The cost of an electrical installation depends on scope, existing structure and specification. A reliable price only emerges on the basis of a concrete plan. As a principle: an additional socket in the planning costs little, one added afterwards costs much more.
Frequently asked questions
When should electrical planning be done?
As early as possible, at the latest before the electrical installation begins in a renovation. Furniture plan, kitchen, bathroom and lighting design should be settled by then. Later changes are possible but more expensive and often visible.
How many sockets does a living room need?
There is no fixed number; what counts are seats, luminaires and appliances. Power should be within reach beside every seat, plus connections for media and switchable sockets for lamps. Better one socket too many than an extension lead.
At what height are sockets fitted in the kitchen?
Above the worktop usually about 15 to 20 centimetres above the surface, adapted to the splashback and appliances. Below the worktop lie the connections for dishwasher, refrigerator and oven. The exact positions come from the kitchen plan.
Does the electrics have to be completely renewed in an Altbau?
Not always, but it is often sensible. Old cables without an earth conductor or residual-current protection no longer meet today's standard. Whether and to what extent renewal is required is for a licensed electrical engineer to judge.
What is a wall walk-through?
In a wall walk-through, all the planned sockets, switches and light outlets are marked directly on the wall before any chasing. Client, planner and electrical engineer check the positions together in the room. That way mistakes can be corrected before they vanish into the wall.
Are conduits worthwhile?
Yes, almost always. A conduit costs little during a renovation and later allows cables to be pulled through without chasing. Conduits are especially sensible in media areas, work areas and at windows.
