What Electrical Work Does a Kitchen Renovation Need?

Byron Knight, Licensed Electrical Contractor

QLD Lic. 1511406 · 20+ years’ experience · Gold Coast & SEQ · Updated August 2026

Kitchen renovations go over budget on electrical more than almost any other trade, and it’s rarely because the work was expensive. It’s because the scope wasn’t understood at quoting stage — a new cooktop turns out to need a new circuit, the circuit turns out to need switchboard space, and the switchboard turns out to be forty years old.

Here’s what the job actually involves, in the order it happens.

Your electrician attends twice

The single most useful thing to understand before you plan anything, because it drives your whole schedule.

Dedicated circuits: what needs its own

A dedicated circuit means nothing else shares it. High-draw appliances need this so that running several at once doesn’t overload a shared circuit.

Exact circuit sizes are calculated by your electrician from the appliance ratings and the installation conditions. Which brings up something worth knowing before you panic about an induction cooktop.

An induction cooktop doesn’t automatically mean a rewire

This one gets overstated a lot, and it costs people sales on appliances they’d have been fine with.

Circuits are sized on calculated maximum demand, not simply on an appliance’s nameplate rating. For domestic cooking appliances AS/NZS 3000 recognises a diversity allowance, because you never run every zone at full power simultaneously — one element on high and a couple on low is the realistic pattern.

Practically, that means a cooktop’s nameplate rating doesn’t translate directly into a circuit size. A cooktop advertised at 7.4 kW doesn’t necessarily require a circuit rated for 7.4 kW continuous. Your electrician calculates the actual figure.

It’s still very likely to need its own dedicated circuit. But “dedicated circuit” and “expensive rewire” aren’t the same thing, and the difference is worth establishing before you rule out the appliance you actually want.

The isolation switch — and exactly what it applies to

Clause 4.7.1 of AS/NZS 3000:2018 requires a circuit for a fixed or stationary cooking appliance with an open cooking surface incorporating electric heating to have a switch mounted near the appliance, in a visible and readily accessible position, and marked to identify what it controls.

The wording matters, because it doesn’t apply to everything in your kitchen:

It’s a small item with an outsized effect on your kitchen design, because it has to be visible and readily accessible. On a renovation with a tiled splashback and full-height cabinetry, finding a compliant, unobtrusive position is a design decision, not an afterthought. Raise it with your electrician and cabinetmaker at planning stage rather than discovering it once the splashback is on.

The exclusion zone around the cooktop

Added in the 2018 edition and routinely missed at design stage. Clause 4.7.3 establishes an exclusion zone around a cooktop — 150 mm horizontally, with the vertical extent determined by the kitchen layout — in which socket outlets and light switches cannot be installed. The Housing Industry Association’s summary of the 2018 changes sets it out alongside the other amendments that affect residential work.

It was introduced so electric cooktops carry the same protection as the equivalent gas standard already required. For your renovation it’s a direct constraint on where benchtop power points can go, which is why outlet positions have to be resolved against the final cabinetry and cooktop position rather than pencilled in afterwards. Our switch, outlet and accessory installation service covers getting those positions right the first time.

The rule that catches renovators out

Adding or altering a circuit triggers a requirement that circuit have RCD protection. So a kitchen renovation that adds new circuits brings those circuits up to current standard, whether or not the rest of the house has that protection.

Note this includes fixed equipment, not just power points — cooktops, ovens and hot water are all captured. Adding a socket outlet to an existing circuit triggers it as well.

That’s usually straightforward, and safety switch and RCD installation is part of the scope on most renovations. Where it becomes a bigger conversation is if the switchboard has no spare capacity or is old enough that adding compliant protection isn’t practical. Our guide on RCDs versus RCBOs covers why per-circuit protection is worth specifying while the board is open anyway.

When the switchboard becomes part of the job

The most common source of unexpected cost. A kitchen typically adds two to four new circuits, and the board has to physically accommodate them and safely supply them.

• No spare ways. A full board needs replacing or extending before anything else proceeds.
• Ceramic fuses or no RCDs. A board that predates current standards generally needs replacing rather than adding to.
• Limited supply capacity. New high-draw circuits on top of existing load may exceed what the main switch supports.
• Existing tripping. If breakers already trip under normal use, adding a kitchen’s worth of load won’t improve it.

A switchboard inspection before you sign the kitchen contract — not after demolition — is the single most valuable thing you can do to avoid a mid-renovation surprise. Our switchboard upgrade cost guide covers what that work involves if it’s needed.

What Gold Coast and SEQ homes throw up specifically

The standard is national. What varies is the house it’s being applied to — and the southern Gold Coast has four fairly distinct housing types, each with its own predictable problem.

Older timber homes

A raised Queenslander gives good subfloor access, which sounds like an advantage and often is. The catch is what we find once the old kitchen comes out — wiring that predates the current standard, sometimes with degraded insulation, feeding a board with no spare ways. That turns a straightforward kitchen circuit into a switchboard conversation, which is precisely why the board wants assessing before the contract is signed rather than after.

Slab homes

The opposite problem. No subfloor means every cable route runs through the ceiling, and a lot of the Gold Coast’s 70s and 80s stock has low-pitch or partially inaccessible roof space. It’s rarely a blocker, but it changes the labour involved in getting a cable to an island bench — worth knowing before you commit to an island with power in it.

Beachside corrosion

Boards within a few kilometres of the beach age faster than their build date suggests. Salt-laden air accelerates corrosion at terminations, and a corroded termination carries more resistance, which means more heat. On a coastal kitchen renovation we’d always inspect the board’s terminations rather than assume its age tells the story.

Supply capacity

If a renovation pushes the property beyond what its existing connection supports, that becomes a network matter rather than something solved inside your switchboard. Everything from Coolangatta north sits in the Energex distribution area, and an altered connection is applied for through them by your electrical contractor. It’s uncommon on a kitchen alone, but it’s the one item with a lead time measured in weeks rather than days — so it’s worth ruling in or out early.

Lighting

Kitchen lighting falls under lighting upgrades, repairs and replacements, and usually needs three layers — each with different rough-in implications:

Kitchens usually need three layers, and each has different rough-in implications:

• General. Ceiling lighting across the room. If you’re replacing old halogen downlights, worth reading our guide on halogen versus LED downlights — the retrofit has fire-safety implications beyond the power bill.
• Task. Under-cabinet lighting over benches and the sink. Needs cable roughed in to cabinet positions, so it depends on the cabinetry plan being final.
• Feature. Pendants over an island. The cable position has to match the island’s final location precisely — one of the most common items that needs correcting when a layout shifts late.

Dimmer compatibility is worth confirming at the same time. LED fittings need LED-compatible dimmers, and pairing them with an old leading-edge dimmer produces flicker and buzz.

Power points: plan for more

The most common regret we hear afterwards. Older kitchens were designed around a kettle and a toaster; current ones run air fryers, coffee machines, blenders, and a phone charging permanently somewhere.

Worth considering at rough-in:

• Outlets spread along the benchtop rather than clustered at one end
• Island bench outlets, if you have an island — retrofitting these later is genuinely difficult
• An appliance nook or coffee station outlet if that’s how you use the space
• USB outlets where phones actually get charged
• Outlets inside a pantry if you keep appliances there

Adding an outlet at rough-in is a marginal cost, and outlet and accessory installation is quoted as part of the same job. Adding one afterwards means opening a wall or a tiled splashback — and it has to respect the cooktop exclusion zone above, which sometimes rules out the position you wanted.

Apartments and strata

Extra constraints worth establishing early:

• Body corporate approval is generally required for renovation work
• Switchboard capacity may be limited by the building’s supply, not just your unit’s
• Adding high-load circuits can involve shared risers, which is a scheme-level question
• Whether infrastructure is lot or common property affects who’s responsible — see our guide on body corporate versus unit owner responsibilities

We work with committees and managers regularly through our strata and body corporate electrical service, which usually makes the approval side quicker than it otherwise would be.

What you should receive at the end

1. A Certificate of Testing and Compliance — your electrician must provide this, you shouldn’t have to ask.
2. A switchboard with the new circuits clearly and accurately labelled.
3. Confirmation that every new circuit has appropriate RCD protection.
4. Every appliance connected, tested, and working before final payment.

Keep the certificate. It matters at sale, at insurance claim time, and for whoever works on the kitchen next. And since none of this work is legal to do yourself — see our guide on what you can legally do yourself in QLD — the certificate is also the record that it was done properly.

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