Electrical works in Dubai, tested before the walls close
Rewiring, distribution boards, new circuits, lighting and dimming, data and TV points — set out against your furniture plan and certified before anything is covered.
What electrical work in Dubai involves
Electrical work on a Dubai renovation covers rewiring, distribution board upgrades, new circuits, socket and switch relocation, lighting circuits and dimming, data and TV points, and smart switching. An apartment rewire runs AED 18,000 to 45,000 and a board upgrade AED 3,500 to 12,000. Work is carried out to DEWA-compliant standards, tested and certified before ceilings and walls are closed, and any DEWA application is prepared and lodged by us.
Electrical is the trade where the consequences of cutting corners are least visible and most serious. A socket in the wrong place is an annoyance. An undersized circuit, a missing RCD or a poor termination behind a wall is a different category of problem.
It is also the trade where demand has changed fastest. An apartment wired fifteen years ago was designed around a gas hob, a modest kitchen and a handful of devices. Today the same property is asked to carry an induction hob, a combination oven, a dishwasher, a washer-dryer, high-spec AV and increasingly an EV charger downstairs.
So the first thing we do is open the board and work out what the supply can actually take. That hour determines whether the rest of the design is realistic, and whether a DEWA application needs to start now rather than in six weeks.
CertifiedTested before closing up
The electrical scope on a renovation
Most renovations need some of this. Full rewires are less common than people expect — usually the board and selected circuits are the real requirement.
Distribution board upgrade. Older boards frequently lack spare ways, RCD protection on all circuits, or the capacity for what is now being asked of them. Replacing the board is often the single highest-value electrical intervention in an older Dubai apartment, and it is cheap relative to a full rewire.
Rewiring, full or partial. A full rewire is justified where the installation is genuinely old, where insulation has degraded, or where the layout change is so extensive that most circuits are being disturbed anyway. Often the honest answer is a partial rewire — new circuits to the kitchen and wet areas, existing lighting circuits retained and tested — and we will say so.
Sockets, switches and data. Positioned against the furniture layout rather than the old one. We mark every position on the wall in pencil and walk it with you, because standing in the room and seeing where a socket will be is worth more than any drawing.
Lighting circuits and control. Separate circuits so a room has an evening setting rather than one switch. Dimming specified to the driver and the fitting, because a dimmer that does not match its load hums, flickers at the low end, or shortens lamp life.
Smart switching. Where you want it, wired so that it still works as ordinary switching if the system is ever removed or fails. Smart installations that cannot be operated manually are a liability rather than a feature.
The part of electrical work you actually see
Position against furniture, not the ceiling grid. Downlights spaced evenly across a ceiling light the floor and put your own shadow on whatever you are doing. They belong over the front edge of a worktop, in front of a wardrobe rather than above it, and washing a feature wall rather than dropping onto it.
Fewer fittings, better placed. The default Dubai apartment has too many downlights at too high an output, which flattens a room and makes it feel like an office. A smaller number on dimmers, with cove or profile lighting doing the ambient work, reads considerably more expensive and costs less in fittings.
One colour temperature per space. Mixing 3000K and 4000K in the same room is the most common and most visible lighting error we are asked to correct. Warm throughout living areas, cooler only where task work genuinely demands it.
Layer it and circuit it properly. General, task and accent on separate circuits, with dimming where it earns its place. This costs almost nothing at first fix and is effectively impossible to add once the ceiling is closed and painted.
Concealed lighting deserves particular care. LED strip in a cove or shadow gap has to be continuous, at consistent distance from the surface it washes, and with its driver somewhere reachable. Strip installed hard against a wall shows every diode as a separate scallop; set back correctly it reads as a single band of light. And a driver buried permanently in a ceiling void is a future ceiling repair waiting to happen.
What a proper electrical installation includes
These are not optional extras and they should appear on any quotation you are comparing.
RCD protection on all final circuits. Older Dubai boards frequently protect only some circuits, or use a single RCD that trips the whole property when anything faults. Separate protection per group means a fault in one area does not put the entire apartment in darkness.
Correct cable sizing and protection. Cable sized to the load and the run length, with the breaker matched to the cable rather than to the appliance. Getting this backwards is the most serious error we find in existing installations.
Proper earthing and bonding. Including supplementary bonding in wet areas. It is invisible, it is cheap, and it is the thing that matters most when something else goes wrong.
Terminations made properly. Correctly stripped, correctly torqued, in accessible enclosures. Loose terminations heat up, and heat in a junction box inside a wall is how electrical fires start.
Testing and certification before closing. Continuity, insulation resistance, polarity, earth fault loop impedance and RCD operation, recorded and issued to you. A contractor who will not provide test results has told you something important.
Two to three weeks of site work
Survey and load calculation
Board opened, spare ways and RCD arrangement recorded, existing circuits traced, then a load calculation against what you actually intend to run. If a DEWA application is needed it starts here, not later.
Mark out and walk it
Every socket, switch, data point and light position marked on the wall in pencil against the furniture plan. You walk the property and move anything that is wrong — free at this stage, expensive after plastering.
First fix
Chasing, containment and cabling, back boxes set to line and level, circuits run to the board. Coordinated with the ducts and drainage in the void rather than threaded through whatever gaps remain.
Test and certify
Insulation resistance, continuity, polarity, loop impedance and RCD operation tested and recorded before anything is covered. Results issued to you.
Second fix and commissioning
Accessories and fittings installed after decoration, boards labelled properly, dimming tested through its range, and the circuit schedule handed over with the certificates.
Electrical prices in Dubai
Electrical work is priced by point and by circuit rather than by area, because the cost is in the cabling and the making good rather than the accessory.
| Scope | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Full apartment rewire, 2 bedroom | AED 18,000 – 32,000 | Including chasing and making good |
| Full apartment rewire, 3–4 bedroom | AED 28,000 – 45,000 | Circuit count and chasing extent |
| Villa rewire | AED 55,000 – 160,000+ | Scale and whether supply is upgraded |
| Distribution board replacement | AED 3,500 – 12,000 | Higher where a DEWA application is required |
| New socket or switch point | AED 280 – 650 each | Including chasing, cabling and making good |
| New lighting point | AED 250 – 550 each | Excluding the fitting itself |
| Data or TV point | AED 320 – 700 each | Cat6 terminated and tested |
| Dimming circuit | AED 650 – 1,800 | Driver-matched to the fittings |
| LED cove or profile lighting | AED 220 – 480 / linear m | Supplied and installed with driver access |
| EV charger installation | AED 3,500 – 9,000 | Subject to supply capacity and DEWA approval |
The most common reason an electrical quotation is revised upward mid-job is a supply or board capacity issue found after work started. Insist that the board is opened and assessed before you sign anything — it takes an hour and it is the one check that protects the whole budget.
Decide these before first fix
Each of these is free to change while walls are open and costly once they are skimmed and painted.
Where the bed actually goes. Bedside sockets and switches belong either side of the bed at the right height, with USB outlets if you use them. This is the single most common retrofit request we get, and it exists because the layout was decided after the electrics.
What the TV wall will carry. Power and data behind the screen, a route for cables to the equipment position, and ventilation if the equipment sits in a closed unit. Adding this later means either surface trunking or opening the wall.
Kitchen appliance positions, exactly. Each appliance needs a dedicated supply in a specific position, and switched spurs need to be accessible without pulling out the appliance. Changing an oven from gas to electric after first fix means a new circuit.
Whether you will ever want an EV charger. Running a cable to the parking position while the property is open costs very little. Doing it as a standalone job later costs several times more and may need a supply upgrade.
Outdoor power and lighting. Terraces, balconies and gardens need weatherproof accessories on RCD-protected circuits. Worth including even if the landscaping is a later phase, because the cable route is the expensive part.
Internet entry point and router position. Where the service enters and where the router sits determines the whole data layout. Putting the router in a cupboard with no ventilation or in a corner of the property is the origin of most home wifi complaints.
What we find in Dubai apartments built before 2010
A large share of our electrical work is in properties fifteen to twenty-five years old. The same handful of issues comes up almost every time.
Boards with no spare ways. Every circuit already used, so adding anything means either a new board or doubling up on an existing circuit. Doubling up is how kitchen circuits end up overloaded, and it is what a cheap quotation will quietly do.
Partial RCD protection. Common in older installations — some circuits protected, others not, or a single RCD covering everything so that one fault kills the whole property. Splitting protection across circuit groups is inexpensive and materially safer.
Kitchen circuits designed for a different decade. A single ring intended for a gas hob and a small fridge, now asked to carry an induction hob, a dishwasher, an oven and a washer-dryer. This is the most frequent genuine capacity problem we find.
Junction boxes buried in walls. Joints made inside a wall with no access, sometimes taped rather than enclosed. These are the terminations that heat up, and they are only found when a wall comes down — which is one of the arguments for doing electrical work during a renovation rather than after.
Cable degraded by heat. In ceiling voids and risers that run hot, insulation ages faster than it would elsewhere. Insulation resistance testing tells you this in ten minutes, which is why we test before recommending rather than guessing from the property’s age.
No supplementary bonding in wet areas. Frequently absent in older installations, cheap to add while a bathroom is stripped, and not worth leaving out.
None of these mean a property is dangerous today. They do mean that a renovation is the right moment to correct them, because the walls and ceilings are already open and the cost of doing it then is a fraction of doing it later.
Offices, retail and fit-out packages
Commercial electrical work is specified to standards and inspected against them. The difference from residential is density, documentation and downtime.
Density drives the cost. Two offices of the same size can differ enormously on services purely through the number of power and data outlets, the lighting level required at desk height and the glare rating for screen work. Offices are designed to a lux target rather than to a pleasing pattern, then the pattern is made to work within it.
Containment and flexibility. Floor boxes, perimeter trunking and ceiling containment sized for future change, because a commercial floor gets reconfigured. Building to a repeatable module means adding ten desks in two years is straightforward rather than a rewire.
Emergency lighting and fire systems. Escape route lighting, illuminated signage and any alteration to detection coverage fall under Civil Defence, and the positions are set by rules rather than preference. We coordinate the ceiling around compliant positions and lodge the submission.
Out of hours. Offices and retail are worked at night and over weekends where the landlord permits, so nobody loses a trading day. Everything is cleared and safe before opening.
Documentation. Shop drawings, material submittals, method statements, insurance certificates and full test records. Landlords and consultants require these before mobilisation and at handover, and we produce them as part of the package.
Electrical works in Dubai
How much does it cost to rewire an apartment in Dubai?
AED 18,000 to 32,000 for a two-bedroom and AED 28,000 to 45,000 for a three or four-bedroom, including chasing and making good. Villas run AED 55,000 upward depending on size and whether the supply is upgraded.
Do I need a full rewire?
Often not. Where the installation is sound, the honest answer is usually a new distribution board plus new circuits to the kitchen and wet areas, with existing lighting circuits tested and retained. We test before recommending, and we will tell you when a full rewire genuinely is justified.
Do I need DEWA approval?
Only where the supply itself changes — a load increase, meter change or work on the incoming side of the board. Work downstream on an existing supply usually does not, though replacing the board often does. We assess it at survey and lodge the application where needed.
Can my supply take an induction hob and an EV charger?
That is exactly the question to answer before designing anything. Many older Dubai apartments cannot without a load increase. We open the board, calculate it against your intended appliances, and tell you whether a DEWA application is required.
Will you provide test certificates?
Yes, as standard. Insulation resistance, continuity, polarity, earth fault loop impedance and RCD operation, tested before closing up and issued to you with a labelled circuit schedule.
Why do my lights flicker on the dimmer?
Almost always a dimmer that does not match the driver or the load. LED dimming needs the dimmer selected against the specific fitting, and a trailing-edge dimmer on the wrong driver will hum, flicker at the low end or shorten lamp life.
Can you install smart switching?
Yes, wired so that everything still works as ordinary switching if the system is removed or fails. A smart installation that cannot be operated manually is a liability, and we will not build one that way.
Can you work while I am living in the property?
Yes, room by room, with power isolated only to the area being worked on. We will tell you in advance which days require a full isolation and for how long.
Get an electrical survey
We will open the board, assess the capacity and the protection, and tell you honestly whether you need a rewire or just the right circuits — then quote it point by point.
