How Long Do Electrical Installation Works Take — A Real Family Home Project Timeline

"How long will the electrical work actually take?"

This is the question I hear at virtually every first meeting — usually while standing in muddy boots on a bare plot where a house is yet to be built. People are paying mortgages, renting in the meantime, and every single day matters. I completely understand.

But my answer usually catches them off guard. I can never give a single number like "three weeks" and leave it at that. Why? Because electrical installation work isn't a job that starts on Monday and finishes on Friday. We are the first trade to arrive on a construction site, and the last to leave. It's a living process that depends entirely on the building phases, drying times for materials, and — most importantly — daily coordination with other trades: bricklayers, plasterers, and tilers.

To show you exactly how long electrical installations take, I'll walk you through a real, everyday construction site. This was a modern two-storey house with a floor area of 160 square metres (approximately 1,720 sq ft) that we recently completed. Throughout this article, I'll show you how residential electrical installation works in practice — phase by phase, with real timelines and on-site situations.

First Steps: Planning and Client Consultation

Everything begins while the walls are still just lines on paper. We sit down with the floor plans and go through each room. You tell me where you're planning the TV, where the internet router will go, and I ask whether you have a finished kitchen design.

• How long in practice: 1 to 2 days of meetings, marking up floor plans, and preparing the quote.
• What speeds things up or slows them down: Having a clear interior design project ready dramatically speeds things up. On the other hand, too much indecision on site and "eyeballing" outlet positions delays the start — and later leads to rework on already-built walls.

House Foundations: Lightning Protection and Grounding

As soon as the excavators dig the foundations and builders begin tying the rebar (steel reinforcement in concrete), we arrive on site. In this phase, we lay a galvanised strip along the bottom of the excavation. This is the foundation earth electrode — a metal strip that will later serve as the grounding system for the entire building and protection against lightning strikes. There's not much complexity here, but the timing has to be perfect.

• How long in practice: 1 working day.
• What speeds things up or slows them down: We depend entirely on the main builder here. If they forget to call us before pouring concrete over the reinforcement cage, it creates a massive problem requiring retroactive digging that delays everything. That's why we always proactively stay in touch with the site foreman.

Rough-In Electrical Installation: Conduit and Cable Runs

This is the most demanding and noisiest phase, and the overall timeline hinges on one crucial factor — coordination with the builders. The phase splits into two parts.

Conduit Installation Before Concrete Pours

When the formwork is being prepared for the concrete slab between the ground floor and first floor (and later the final roof slab), we jump in before the concrete mixer arrives. Our job is to run conduits — corrugated plastic pipes through which we'll later pull electrical cables — directly across the reinforcement.

Coordinating with the builder during concrete slab preparation is critical for seamless execution and faster project delivery. If we get the conduits into the formwork on time, the concrete covers them and we avoid hours of laborious chasing (cutting channels) through hardened ceilings. The work is faster, the site is cleaner, and the structural integrity of the house is preserved.

• How long in practice: 1 to 2 working days per concrete slab.
• What speeds things up or slows them down: A good lighting plan accelerates everything. If we know the exact position of the chandelier above the kitchen island, we place the conduit precisely at that spot.

Wall Chasing and Cable Pulling

The house is finally under roof, and the exterior and partition brick walls are built. You host a barbecue to celebrate, and we move in with the heavy tools. First, we spray-mark socket and switch positions on the bricks. Then comes wall chasing — cutting channels into the masonry and plastering in round junction boxes. After that, it's cabling time: pulling hundreds of metres of wire through the conduits and chased channels.

• How long in practice: For our 160 m² two-storey house, a crew of three needs 7 to 10 working days.
• What speeds things up or slows them down: This is where last-minute changes most commonly occur. You walk into a room, the space is finally taking shape, and you say: "Actually, let's put the wardrobe on this wall and the bed over there." We understand and it's not a problem to accommodate — but be aware that we need to abandon the old wiring and chase new channels into the brick. This creates additional work and extends this phase by a day or two.

The Brain of Your Home: Building the Distribution Board

All those metres of cable we've been pulling throughout the house converge at a single point — the main distribution board. It's literally the brain of your home. We carefully arrange and connect circuit breakers and RCD devices (residual current devices that cut power in a fraction of a second, saving lives if they detect a fault or leakage). This is precise engineering work where every wire must have its designated position.

• How long in practice: 2 to 3 working days for wiring and thorough connection verification.
• What speeds things up or slows them down: Neatly labelled cables during the rough-in phase dramatically speed up the board assembly.

The Long Wait: Construction Pauses for Plastering and Screeding

This is where the total electrical installation timeline stretches into months. Once the board is connected and cables are protruding from the walls, we pack up our tools and leave the site. You won't see us for weeks…

Now the plasterers move in, applying render to the walls (covering our wires and levelling the surface). After them come the plumbers, underfloor heating is installed, and finally the screed (the finishing concrete layer on the floor) is poured. At this stage the house is full of moisture and needs to dry naturally. We cannot mount sensitive sockets and switches on damp walls.

• How long in practice: For us electricians, this is a site pause lasting 2 to 4 months, depending on the season, weather conditions, and drying speed of the materials.

When the Building Site Becomes a Home: Finish Mounting

After months of waiting, the floors are laid and the walls are painted white. We return to a clean site. Finish mounting follows: we install socket mechanisms into the wall, connect switches, fit thermostats and decorative frames, and mount chandeliers and recessed lighting. This is the phase clients look forward to most — the house finally takes its finished shape.

• How long in practice: 3 to 5 working days.
• What speeds things up or slows them down: Finish mounting is most commonly delayed by waiting for other trades. For example, a kitchen delivery is late so we can't install the LED strip above the worktop. Another typical scenario is ordering designer fixtures online without clear instructions and with complicated mounting brackets — installation of a single piece can take over an hour instead of 15 minutes. That's why I always advise ordering your lighting early and checking with us whether it's compatible with what we've installed in the ceiling. Or better yet — let us install whatever is compatible with your chosen fixture. ;)

Safety First: Final Testing and Commissioning

When the last bulb is screwed in, the job still isn't done. Electricity doesn't forgive mistakes, and safety is our top priority. Before handing over the house, we conduct final testing. Using specialised instruments, we measure insulation resistance (to check if any cable was damaged inside the wall), verify grounding quality, and test how quickly the RCD devices trip. When the instruments confirm everything is in perfect order, we energise the house at full power and issue a compliance certificate — the proof of installation safety you need for your building inspection.

• How long in practice: 1 to 2 working days.
• What speeds things up or slows them down: If another tradesperson (such as a drywall installer) accidentally drove a screw through one of our cables in the wall, our instruments will detect it. We then have to locate and repair the fault, which can take extra time.

Common Mistakes That Unnecessarily Push Back Deadlines

Over years of work, I've seen it all. Every project has its own quirks, and small decisions often have a bigger impact than you'd expect at the start. That's exactly why we're here — to help you avoid unnecessary delays with our tailored approach and experience.

1. No kitchen plan — The kitchen is the most densely wired room. If we install wiring by guesswork and a month later you change the layout in the kitchen showroom, moving the oven and sink, we'll have to chase channels into freshly plastered walls all over again. Have your kitchen design finalised before electrical work begins.
2. Forgetting the outdoor areas — Everyone thinks about the living room but forgets the intercom, pathway lighting, or gate motor. We need to run outdoor cables out of the house before the facade insulation goes up — otherwise we'll have to drill through the finished render later.
3. "Smart home" as an afterthought — Systems controlled via your phone require completely different wiring than a standard installation. This must be decided before work begins, not after the cables are already set in concrete.

The Real Picture: Total Time Spent on Site

When you add up all these phases, you'll see that on this 160 m² two-storey house we effectively worked about 18 to 25 working days. Those are the days when we were physically drilling, pulling cables, and connecting equipment.

However, how long does electrical installation take from the moment we buried the grounding strip in the foundations to switching on the first ceiling light in the living room? In practice, the entire process stretched to nearly eight months due to all the building phases.

That's the only honest truth from a real construction site. Your project won't be delayed because we pull cables slowly — the timeline is dictated by drying times and work coordination. So here's my most concrete advice as an experienced professional: plan ahead. Clearly define where you want each piece of furniture before our drills start working on the bricks. Communicate openly with all trades on site and connect us with each other. Good planning and trade coordination are the only recipe for electrical installation work that's executed flawlessly — and a move-in that happens right on schedule, stress-free.

Planning a build or renovation? Browse our services or contact us — we'll happily review your project and help make sure the electrical work runs smoothly from day one.