Electrical Points Checklist for a New Indian Home
People spend weeks choosing tiles and hand the wiring to whoever the contractor brought. It is the wrong way round: the tiles can be changed, and almost nothing behind the plaster can.
Three decisions at first fix do most of the work: a neutral conductor into every switch box, back boxes 50 to 60 mm deep instead of the usual 25 to 45 mm, and spare conduit with a data backbone. None of them is expensive while the walls are open. All of them mean breaking and re-plastering afterwards.
Everything else on this page is ordinary good electrical practice. That is deliberate. This is not a list of gadgets to buy, and you do not need to have decided anything about automation to use it. It is the checklist that makes a home pleasant to live in, and the same checklist happens to leave every option open later.
The order matters more than the content. Each item has a moment after which it stops being a decision and starts being a demolition job, and those moments are set by the builder's programme rather than by you. Those deadlines are laid out at the end.
Why is the neutral wire the decision that matters most?
Because a conventional Indian switch box does not have one, and it is the single hardest thing on this list to add afterwards.
Here is how most Indian homes are wired. The phase, the live conductor, is dropped from the ceiling down to the switch. The switch breaks it and sends switched-live back up to the light. The neutral never comes down at all: it runs straight from the junction to the fixture. So the switch box contains live and switched-live, an earth if you are lucky, and no neutral.
That works perfectly for a plain switch, which only has to interrupt a wire. It stops working the moment anything in that box needs to stay powered while the light is off. Any control with a radio in it, or a timer, or a sensor, needs a small amount of standby power, and standby power needs a return path.
The instruction to give your electrician is one sentence, and it is worth reading out rather than paraphrasing:
"Run a neutral conductor into every switch box and gang box in the house, not just to the fittings. I want live, neutral and earth available at every board. Loop the neutral through during first fix, not after."
Wiring in India is governed by the Bureau of Indian Standards, whose code of practice for electrical wiring installations is the reference your electrician should be working to, and enforced through the Central Electricity Authority safety regulations. Neither forbids the conventional switch loop. Bringing the neutral down is a practice decision, which is exactly why it gets skipped unless you ask.
Does every smart system actually need that neutral?
No, and it is worth understanding why before someone tells you your home cannot be automated without rewiring. It depends entirely on where a system puts its intelligence, and there are two answers.
Intelligence behind the switch. A retrofit relay module sits inside the switch box, behind the plate, and switches the circuit. This is the architecture the neutral question is really about. With no neutral, the module has to draw its standby current through the lamp itself, and on an LED, which is a few watts with a sensitive driver, that trickle causes the problems people complain about: a faint glow when the light is supposedly off, flicker, a fixture that strobes as a capacitor charges and discharges, or a lamp below a certain wattage that simply will not behave. The usual fix is a bypass capacitor spliced across the fitting, which is one more part that can hum.
Intelligence at the fitting. The other approach puts a driver inside each light fitting rather than behind the switch. This is how an AHA system works, and it matters here for one specific reason: the neutral is already at the fitting in conventional Indian wiring. It always was. The keypad that replaces your switch plate then uses the wiring already in the wall. That is why the system retrofits into a finished flat without rewiring or wall breaking, and it is a genuinely different constraint from the one the neutral debate assumes.
So why ask for the neutral at all? Because you do not know today which system you will choose in five years, and the neutral costs a few rupees of wire now against a chased wall later. Ask for it because it removes a constraint, not because you are committing to anything.
The second silent killer is back box depth. Common concealed boxes are 25 mm, sometimes as little as 20, and a four-module box is often around 45 mm. A retrofit control module is roughly 20 to 25 mm deep on its own, before wire loops and before any clearance for heat. Specify 50 to 60 mm deep metal back boxes anywhere you might want a control later, and ask for one or two spare modules in every plate, so something can be added without replacing the plate. Module length, not depth, is often the tighter constraint, which is the argument for the larger box rather than just the deeper one.
How many electrical points does each room need?
Treat these as minimums for a mid-size Indian home and over-provision by twenty to thirty per cent. The most common regret in a finished home is not a missing gadget, it is a permanent dependence on extension boards.
| Room | Points to specify | Worth adding while the walls are open |
|---|---|---|
| Living room | 3 to 4 light points, 1 to 2 fan points, 4 to 6 six-amp sockets clustered at the seating and TV, 1 to 2 sixteen-amp, one AC point, a router point | Ceiling, cove and decorative lights on separate switches. A curtain motor point above each window. Data to the TV unit and to a ceiling access point |
| Master bedroom | 2 light points plus reading lights, one fan, a switchboard each side of the bed with sockets for charging, a TV point, one AC point | Two-way switching on the main light. Curtain motor point. Neutral at the fan point. AC on its own MCB |
| Other bedrooms | As above, usually one AC, three to four sockets each side of the bed, a socket cluster at the study position | Conduit for a sensor at the door. Data drop at the desk |
| Kitchen | Ceiling and under-cabinet lights, a chimney point, and a dedicated sixteen-amp socket for each major appliance. Counter sockets sit six to eight inches above the granite | Never share the chimney and the microwave. A gas leak detector point. A sensor conduit for the utility corner |
| Bathrooms | Light outside the door, a high geyser point, exhaust fan, shaver socket. Keep everything well clear of the water | Geyser on its own circuit. A ceiling conduit for a presence sensor, which is the one sensor type that needs phase and neutral |
| Entrance and foyer | Main door light, a socket, doorbell | Power and data at the door for a video door phone, and the same at the gate. Conduit for a smart lock even though most run on batteries |
| Balcony and terrace | One to three weatherproof sockets and a light, in weather-resistant fittings | A camera point with data. Water tank sensor cable run back to the controller position |
| Staircase and passages | Two-way or multi-way lighting | Sensor conduit. Under no circumstances gang the whole passage onto one switch |
| Utility and parking | Washing machine on a sixteen-amp socket with its own MCB, dryer point, light. Weatherproof light and socket at the porch | A dedicated heavy circuit and conduit run to the parking bay for an electric vehicle charger |
What height should switches and sockets sit at?
These are the figures Indian practice generally settles on, measured from finished floor level. Worth being honest about their status: they are widely followed design practice rather than hard code minimums, and sources differ by an inch or two. Confirm them against your own furniture layout before the plasterer arrives, because that is when they stop being adjustable.
- General switchboards: 1200 to 1350 mm.
- General power sockets: 300 to 450 mm, low enough to disappear behind furniture.
- Bedside boards: 700 to 750 mm, aligned with the top of the side table rather than to a standard.
- TV unit points: 900 to 1000 mm, behind the console.
- Kitchen counter sockets: 1000 to 1100 mm, which is six to eight inches above a standard counter.
- AC points: 2000 to 2400 mm, beside the indoor unit.
- Geyser and washing machine points: 2000 to 2100 mm.
Two of these are worth arguing about with whoever drew the layout. Bedside boards get placed at generic switch height constantly, which puts them behind the headboard and out of reach of the person in bed. And kitchen counter sockets get set from the floor rather than from the counter, so they end up either buried behind the backsplash or awkwardly high.
Light fitting heights are a different question, and are covered properly in our guide to living room lighting design, along with where each fixture actually goes.
How much load should you sanction, and how should the board be split?
Sanction deliberate headroom rather than today's requirement. Indian domestic supply is single phase at 230 volts, and the sanctioned load is the maximum your distribution company has approved. The loads that catch people out are all ones added after moving in: a second and third air conditioner, an induction hob, and an electric vehicle charger. A charger on its own draws heavily and for hours, and can push a modest single-phase connection over its limit by itself.
Enhancing a sanction later is paperwork, and sometimes a service cable and meter change. Deciding the ceiling once, at the start, is the cheaper path. If an EV and three or more air conditioners are plausible within a few years, that is the conversation to have about three phase, now rather than later.
On the board itself, the principle is separation:
- Split into logical circuits, each on its own correctly sized breaker and cable: lighting, general sockets, kitchen, each air conditioner, the geyser, and any other heavy appliance. A high load appliance always gets its own circuit.
- Fit residual current protection. A 30 mA device is what protects people rather than equipment, and it matters most in the kitchen, bathrooms and anywhere outdoors.
- Size the cable to the load, not to the price list. Running lighting cable to a geyser or an air conditioner is a fire risk, and it is the corner most commonly cut.
- Leave twenty to thirty per cent spare ways in the board. Future circuits are certain: an EV point, another air conditioner, an energy monitor. Spare ways cost almost nothing at the time and are awkward to add.
- Ask for labelling and test readings in writing at handover, including the residual current device test. This is normal and reasonable to expect.
Separated circuits are also the foundation for any per-circuit control or metering later, but the reason to do it is that it is correct. India's Bureau of Energy Efficiency star ratings are the right way to compare the appliances that will sit on those circuits.
What about the network, the layer nobody plans?
This is the part that gets left to whoever installs the broadband, which is how the router ends up in a meter cupboard in a corner of the flat.
Anything wireless in the home has to work through reinforced concrete slabs and brick walls, which are considerably less forgiving than the drywall most equipment is specified against. That is a planning problem, not a product problem, and it is solved at first fix:
- Put the router centrally, not in the corner cupboard the cable happens to enter.
- Run data cable back to a single point from each place you might want a ceiling access point, rather than chaining them. One cable per location, all returning to the same cupboard.
- Plan a ventilated niche for the router, the switch, any recorder and any hubs, with power and airflow. A cupboard with no ventilation cooks equipment.
- Data to the TV unit, the work desk and the main door. The door is for the video door phone and is the one people forget.
- Cap spare conduits in ceilings and walls, and leave a pull string in each. This is what makes a future change a pull rather than a chase.
Worth knowing for context: an AHA system runs on Zigbee 3.0, on its own mesh rather than on your Wi-Fi, and processes its automations on a hub inside the home, so lighting, curtains, locks and scenes keep working through an internet outage. That reduces how much rides on the network, but it does not remove the case for planning it. Cameras, the door phone and anything streaming still want cable.
What is cheap now and expensive later?
Every item here is a small addition at first fix and a visible cable or a chased wall afterwards.
- A curtain motor point above every window. The most commonly missed point in Indian homes. Motorised curtains need a small power point at pelmet height, on the correct side for the motor head, and almost nothing in a normal Indian flat is wired up there. Mark it on the drawing against the window number. For sizing, a standard motor covers a run up to about 15 feet and 80 kg of fabric, so a bay or a double-height window is a different specification and worth flagging early.
- Power and data at the main door and at the gate for a video door phone, at roughly chest height outside and a comfortable viewing height inside.
- Outdoor-rated data to each camera position, run back to wherever the recorder will live. There is no cable to conceal later.
- Sensor conduits in the false ceiling at the passage, staircase, utility and bathrooms. Worth knowing which type you are planning for: a presence sensor, the kind that holds a light on while you are still rather than only when you move, needs phase and neutral. A plain motion sensor is battery powered and needs nothing.
- A gas leak detector point in the kitchen.
- Water tank and sump sensor cable run from the tank to wherever the controller will sit.
- A dedicated heavy circuit and conduit to the parking bay for an EV charger, even if the car is years away. The cable run is the cheap part.
- Accessible driver positions. Any concealed lighting has a driver somewhere, and drivers fail before LEDs do. Put them where a hand can reach them rather than sealed permanently inside the ceiling. Our false ceiling and cove lighting guide covers how many a run needs and where they go.
What about fans and dimmable lights?
Two specification decisions that are easy to get wrong and annoying to live with.
Fans
An Indian ceiling fan traditionally runs on a wall regulator that varies the speed of an induction motor. You cannot wire an ordinary on-off control to that and expect clean speed control. A BLDC fan is a different machine: its motor is commutated electronically and its speed is set in software, which is why it is the type that can genuinely be controlled rather than just switched.
That distinction is a hardware constraint, not a preference. AHA's own RF controllers are specifically for BLDC fans and not for standard induction ones, and the efficiency gap is the reason the choice is worth making anyway: up to 60 to 65 per cent less power draw, and quieter. If you intend to control fans at all, specify BLDC and run a neutral to the fan point.
Dimmable lighting
The thing to know at buying time is that "LED" and "dimmable" are separate claims. An inexpensive non-dimmable driver cannot be dimmed at all, and forcing it produces flicker, buzzing, a lamp that will not start, or a short life. Ask for drivers explicitly specified as dimmable, with a stated minimum load, and treat the dimmer, the driver and the lamp as a matched set rather than three independent purchases.
Why cheap dimming misbehaves at low brightness, which is exactly where mood lighting lives, is covered in our guide to mood lighting ideas.
When does each decision stop being reversible?
This is the part to put on the wall. Every row has a moment after which the change is no longer a decision, it is breaking and making good.
| Stage | What has to be finished | Point of no return |
|---|---|---|
| Before the slab | Ceiling conduits, deep junction boxes, any pipe that has to sit inside the slab for lights, fans and sensors | The pour. Nothing in a slab is negotiable afterwards |
| First fix, before plastering | Every concealed conduit, all back boxes at the right depth, the neutral run to each switch box, circuit routing, data conduit, curtain, AC and EV runs | Plastering. This is the master deadline. Almost everything on this page sits behind it |
| Before the false ceiling closes | Data cable to access point and camera positions, driver locations with access to them, sensor points, any speaker or AV conduit | Boarding. After this it is a hatch or a cut |
| Before paint and tiling | Switch and socket heights confirmed against the real furniture layout, plates test fitted | The first coat. Moving a box afterwards means patching and repainting a wall |
| Before handover | Board labelled, residual current device tested, insulation and continuity readings handed over in writing | The contractor leaving site |
If automation is on the table at all, the useful thing to know is that its sequencing sits inside these same windows. Drivers go in after the false ceiling, keypads after the first coat of paint, and curtain tracks last, on a dust-free site. Which is another way of saying the decision to leave the option open is made much earlier than the decision to take it.
What should you actually ask your electrician?
Ten questions. Read them out rather than paraphrasing, because the specifics are the point.
- Will you run a neutral into every switch box and gang box, not just to the fittings?
- Are you using 50 to 60 mm deep metal back boxes, and can you leave one or two spare modules in each plate?
- Is there an earth at every switch box and every socket?
- How many circuits, and are lighting, sockets, kitchen, each air conditioner and the geyser on separate breakers?
- Is there a 30 mA residual current device, and how many spare ways are left in the board?
- Are you leaving spare conduit capacity, with a pull string, for future wiring?
- Can you run data cable to the TV unit, the work desk, the main door and one or two ceiling positions?
- Is there power and data at the main door for a video door phone, and a dedicated circuit run to the parking bay?
- Is there a curtain motor power point above each window, on the correct side?
- What cable size are you using per circuit, and will you give me the insulation and continuity readings in writing?
A good electrician will have opinions about several of these and may push back on one or two with a real reason. That is a useful conversation. Silence or a flat yes to all ten, with nothing written down, is the answer to worry about.
Six things people believe that cost them money
- "Wiring is the contractor's job." It is hidden infrastructure that decides daily convenience for the life of the home, and it is the one trade nobody reviews because nobody can see it.
- "I will make it smart later, wirelessly." Partly true, and it depends on the three things at the top of this page. With a neutral, a deep box and spare conduit, later is genuinely easy. Without them, later means a wall.
- "One big breaker is enough." Ganging lights, sockets and heavy appliances onto a few circuits causes nuisance tripping, makes fault finding miserable, and forecloses any per-circuit control.
- "Thinner cable is fine, it saves money." On a geyser or an air conditioner it is a fire risk. This is the cut that is never worth it.
- "Earthing is optional." It is what stands between a fault and a person.
- "We will fix the point positions after construction." Positions have to follow the furniture layout, and the furniture layout has to exist before plastering. Doing it the other way round is how bedside boards end up behind headboards.
Where AHA fits, and where it does not
Worth being explicit, because this industry blurs it. AHA does not do the electrical work and does not install. AHA designs the control system, specifies what each circuit has to do, supplies the drivers and controls, configures them and commissions the scenes. Your own electrician installs, mounts and wires, and a licensed electrician remains responsible for the design being compliant with the standards and your local rules. Nothing on this page replaces that.
Two things follow from the architecture described earlier. The system is wireless, so a driver sits inside each existing light fitting and keypads replace existing switch plates using the wiring already in the wall, which is why it retrofits into a finished flat rather than needing a fit-out. And AHA is deliberately not a lighting company: you choose your own fixtures from any vendor.
The honest advice for someone at first fix is therefore narrower than it looks. You do not need to decide anything about automation now. You need a neutral, deeper boxes, separated circuits and spare conduit, all of which are simply a good electrical installation. If you do want the conversation early, bringing an electrical plan to it is what makes the sizing accurate, and the best moment is before the fit-out rather than after. Our design and commissioning services page covers what that involves, and our guide for new Mumbai homeowners covers the rest of the sequence.
On budget, if the question is already in your head: our room by room cost breakdown gives real figures for a Mumbai flat. None of it changes the checklist above, which is worth doing either way.
Questions people ask us next
What is the most important electrical decision in a new Indian home?
Running a neutral conductor into every switch box, not just to the light fittings. Conventional Indian switch wiring drops only the phase to the switch and sends the neutral straight to the fixture, so the box has live and switched-live but no neutral. Adding it at first fix costs a few rupees of wire per box. Adding it later means opening the wall.
Why do smart switches need a neutral wire?
A module that sits behind the switch contains a radio and a controller that must stay powered even when the light is off, and that standby power needs a return path. Without a neutral it has to draw a small current through the lamp itself, which is what makes LED fittings glow faintly, flicker, or refuse to start below a minimum wattage.
Does every smart home system need a neutral at the switch box?
No, and it is worth knowing before anyone tells you your home cannot be automated. It depends where the system puts its intelligence. A system built around modules behind the switch needs a neutral there. An AHA system puts a driver inside each light fitting, where the neutral already is in conventional Indian wiring, and its keypads replace existing switch plates using the wiring already in the wall. That is why it retrofits into finished homes with no rewiring.
How deep should back boxes be in a new home?
Specify 50 to 60 mm deep metal back boxes anywhere you might automate later. Common concealed boxes are only 25 to 45 mm, and a retrofit module is roughly 20 to 25 mm deep before wire loops and heat clearance. Ask for one or two spare modules in each plate too, so a control can be added without changing the plate.
What height should switches and sockets be in an Indian home?
Widely followed practice puts general switchboards at roughly 1200 to 1350 mm from finished floor level, general sockets at 300 to 450 mm, bedside boards at 700 to 750 mm, kitchen counter sockets at 1000 to 1100 mm, and AC points at 2000 to 2400 mm. These are design practice rather than hard code minimums, so confirm them against your own furniture layout before plastering.
When is it too late to change the electrical plan?
Four points of no return. The slab pour fixes ceiling conduits. Plastering fixes every concealed conduit, back box and neutral run, and is the master deadline. The false ceiling closing fixes data cabling, driver positions and sensor points. Paint and tiling fix switch and socket heights.
How much load should a new home sanction?
Sanction deliberate headroom rather than today's need. Air conditioners, an induction hob and an EV charger are the loads that catch people out, and a charger alone can push a modest single-phase connection over its limit. Enhancing later is paperwork and possibly a service cable and meter change, so decide the ceiling once, at the start.
Should a new home have a curtain motor point above every window?
Yes, and it is the most commonly missed point in Indian homes. Motorised curtains need a small power point at pelmet height on the correct side for the motor head, and almost no Indian home has one up there. A standard motor covers a run up to about 15 feet and 80 kg, so bays and double-height windows need flagging early.
Does AHA do the electrical work?
No. AHA designs the control system, specifies what each circuit has to do, supplies the drivers and controls, configures them and commissions the scenes. Your own electrician installs, mounts and wires the hardware, and a licensed electrician remains responsible for the design being compliant.
None of this requires you to decide anything about automation. A neutral at every switch box, boxes deep enough to hold something, separated circuits and a spare conduit with a pull string are simply a good electrical installation, and they would be worth asking for even if smart homes did not exist.
What they buy you is optionality. The house stays easy to change, which is the only thing you can really design for at this stage, because nobody knows what they will want from a home in ten years.
Book a free consultation →If you have an electrical drawing in front of you, bring it to either experience centre, Santacruz West or Lower Parel. For what comes next, see our living room lighting design guide and the AHA design and commissioning services page.
