Electrical work in Dénia, Jávea and surroundings

How we rewire a home

We start with a simple schematic: which circuits the home needs and what load will hang off each one. Kitchen, oven, washing machine and dishwasher do not share a circuit with the living-room sockets; the air conditioning and the heat pump get their own. With that clear, we size the consumer unit and the cable for each run, and not the other way round.

Then comes the strip-out. We remove the old installation completely, including what is sometimes left hidden in suspended ceilings and behind skirting boards. An old cable spliced onto a new one is a point of failure that shows up two years later, so we do not do it.

The routing depends on the renovation. In brick walls we cut chases with a wall chaser and dust extraction, fit flexible conduit and junction boxes, and make good with plaster or tile adhesive depending on the substrate. When the home has a plasterboard ceiling, the main cabling runs above it in conduit and only the drops come down to each fitting. That means fewer chases, less dust and easier extension in the future.

Switches and sockets go in at the end, once the painting is done, all at the same height and plumb. Before closing the board we check continuity and earth on every circuit and test that every RCD and MCB trips where it should.

Materials and solutions we recommend

• Copper cable sized for each use: 1.5 mm² for lighting, 2.5 mm² for sockets, 6 mm² for the hob and oven, and independent circuits for air conditioning and the heat pump. Oversizing does no harm; undersizing makes the cable run hot.
• A consumer unit with spare space. A board filled to the brim has to be redone when the EV charger or a second air-conditioning unit comes along. We leave spare modules.
• RCDs by zone instead of a single one: if the bathroom trips, the fridge does not go dark.
• LED lighting with the tone chosen for each room: warm in bedrooms and living room, neutral in the kitchen and work areas, dimmable in bathrooms. In the bathroom renovation in Gandía the mirror switches between warm and cool light with a touch, and it is one of the things the client appreciates most.
• Surge protection in the board where the area suffers from power cuts or storms, common in urbanisations around Jávea and Dénia with overhead lines.

If the budget is tight, we prioritise what you cannot see: consumer unit, cabling and circuits. Switches, sockets and light fittings can be upgraded later without opening anything up.

Common mistakes we avoid

1. Reusing deteriorated boxes and conduit to save on chasing. A crushed conduit or one full of plaster will not take new cable and ends up as a botch job with surface-mounted wiring.
2. A single circuit for the whole kitchen. Oven, induction hob and dishwasher together trip the protection or, worse, the protection holds and the cable heats up.
3. Forgetting the earth in older flats where there never was one. Without an earth, the RCD does not protect the way it should.
4. Sockets where they were, not where they are needed. With the wall open it costs the same to put them in the right place: bedheads, island, work area, terrace.
5. Closing up without testing. Every circuit is checked before it is covered; finding a fault once the wall is painted costs three times as much.

Indicative timescales

• Extending a consumer unit with two or three new circuits: 1 or 2 days.
• Bathroom or kitchen electrics as part of their renovation: 2 or 3 days split between the chasing phase and the finishing phase.
• Full installation for an 80 to 100 m² flat during a complete renovation: between 5 and 8 days of actual work, interleaved with building work and plasterboard.
• Two-storey house or villa: from two weeks, depending on floor area and number of circuits.

Timings are coordinated with the other trades. What we do not do is close up walls with the electrics half finished to gain a day.

Electrical work for homes in Dénia, Jávea and Gandía

Many 1970s and 80s flats in Dénia and Gandía still have 3 kW installations designed for a washing machine and a television. Today they are living alongside an induction hob, ducted air conditioning and an electric water heater, and the result is a board that trips every summer. Renewing the installation as part of a renovation solves the problem at the root and avoids emergency patch-ups.

In holiday apartments near the beach, the salt air corrodes terminals, sockets and outdoor boxes. We recommend fittings with good contacts, weatherproof boxes on terraces and checking the board when the property has been closed up for months.

In villas around Jávea, Moraira or Benissa it is common to have to feed a heat-pump unit on the roof, irrigation pumps and a guest house from a single board. There, it matters to calculate voltage drop on long runs and choose the cable size accordingly.

If you live abroad and the renovation goes ahead without you, we send you photos of the chases and the consumer unit before anything is covered, so you can see where everything sits. Whenever you want to talk about your installation, write to us and we will arrange a no-obligation visit.