Appliance installation and connection

Retailers will deliver an appliance and, for some, plug it in. What they will not do is any work on your fixed wiring — because that's electrical installation work, and it requires a licensed electrician.

That catches people out most often with cooking appliances. An induction cooktop typically needs its own dedicated high-current circuit, and most kitchens don't have one, because the ceramic cooktop it's replacing drew far less. The appliance arrives, the delivery team leaves it on the floor, and the kitchen is out of action until an electrician can get there.

If you're buying a new cooking appliance, the useful thing to do is check the circuit before the delivery date. Send us a photo of your switchboard and the appliance specification and we'll tell you in a few minutes whether you have a problem.

If several appliances are going in at once, do them in one visit. The attendance is the fixed cost, so a kitchen with an oven, induction cooktop, rangehood and dishwasher is substantially cheaper done together than as four separate call-outs — and it means the circuits get planned as a set rather than squeezed in one at a time until the board runs out of room.

The other thing worth doing at renovation stage is deciding your circuits before the plasterer arrives. Adding a dedicated circuit through an open wall is trivial. Adding it through a finished, tiled kitchen is not.