Kitchen extension first & second fix – Guildford

The Brief

A family in Guildford were adding a large open-plan kitchen-diner to the back of their 1980s semi and their builder needed an electrician who could work to a programme, not just turn up when free. The existing fusebox was already full, and the new room brought serious load: induction hob, double oven, underfloor heating, downlights and a run of sockets. They’d been let down once already by a sparky who missed the plastering window on a previous job, so timing was the real anxiety.

What we did

We visited before a single cable went in and walked the room with the owners, marking every socket, switch and light position in pencil on the blockwork — the ten minutes that prevents the classic “can we move that socket” break-out later. At first fix, with the walls open, we ran all nine circuits back toward the board, including dedicated supplies for the hob, oven and underfloor heating, and set the back-boxes. The existing consumer unit couldn’t take the extra load, so we upgraded it to a larger 18th-edition board with proper protection for the new circuits. We hit the plasterer’s date exactly. At second fix we fitted and connected everything, then tested and certified the lot for building control sign-off. The builder’s programme never slipped for us.