Planning electrical points, room by room, before the plaster

Points are inexpensive before plaster and disproportionately expensive after, because adding one later means a chase, a patch and a repaint of a finished wall. The hour spent walking the layout with an electrical plan repays itself many times.

Walk each room and place yourself in it rather than reading the plan from above. Which side of the bed takes a phone charger, where the vacuum plugs in on that corridor, whether the study lamp is left or right of the chair, where the router lives and whether it needs to be visible.

The commonly regretted omissions are consistent: no point behind the TV at height, one point where the kitchen wanted four, nothing near the dining table for a hotplate, no point in the balcony, and switches for the bedroom lights only at the door rather than also at the bed.

Ask for the point count on the drawing and count it yourself against the quote. A quote priced for eleven points against a drawing showing nineteen is not a cheaper quote; it is a variation waiting to be raised once the walls are open.

A quote priced for eleven points against a drawing showing nineteen is a variation, not a discount.