Every custom home and commercial build-out lives or dies on decisions made before the first wall goes up, and new construction electrical is where most of those decisions sit. Service size, panel location, circuit counts, low-voltage pathways and lighting control infrastructure all get locked in during design and rough-in. Get them right and the project moves cleanly from framing to final inspection. Get them wrong and you pay for it in change orders, failed inspections and walls that get opened twice. This guide walks architects, general contractors and owners through the planning process, the construction timeline and how to select an electrical contractor who coordinates well with the rest of the project team.

What You'll Find in This Guide

If this is the work you are planning, start with New Construction Electrical.

Designing the New Construction Electrical System Before Framing Starts

The electrical scope on a new build starts long before anyone pulls wire. In practice, the best outcomes come from a design-build process where the electrical contractor sits at the table with the architect and GC during schematic design. That early seat matters because electrical decisions ripple through the structural, mechanical and interior design work.

Consider the service itself. A load calculation determines whether the home needs a 200A service or a 400A service, and that answer depends on choices other trades make. For example, heat pump HVAC, an induction range, a steam shower, one or two Level 2 EV chargers and a standby generator each add demand. Add them up late in design and you may discover the planned 200A service falls short. Discover it early and the utility coordination, meter location and panel schedule all fall into place on schedule. A Span smart panel or a conventional panel with well-planned subpanels also changes how circuits get grouped, so that decision belongs in design, not in the field.

Electrical Plan Review for Architects and Designers

Architects benefit from a formal electrical plan review before documents go out to bid. A good review checks the lighting plan against the control strategy, confirms panel and equipment locations work with the floor plan, and flags code issues before the plan checker does. It also catches the quiet conflicts, such as a recessed fixture layout that collides with HVAC trunks or a panel placed where the interior designer planned millwork.

Pre-Wiring for Smart Home and Low-Voltage Systems

Pre-wiring for smart home systems deserves the same rigor as line voltage. Lutron lighting control, motorized shades, Control4 or Josh AI automation, distributed audio and a media room each carry specific wiring requirements: keypad backboxes, shade power and communication runs, network drops, speaker locations and conduit for future pulls. Because these systems depend on infrastructure buried in the walls, the pre-wire plan has to exist before rough-in, not after drywall. With this in mind, many architects now treat the automation wiring plan as a design deliverable alongside the electrical plan, so both documents reference the same fixture schedule and the same control intent.

From Rough-In to Final Inspection: Sequencing the Electrical Scope

Once construction starts, the electrical contractor's job becomes a scheduling exercise as much as a technical one. Your GC builds the timeline, and the electrician has to hit a series of windows inside it. Miss one and you stall the trades behind you.

Temporary power usually comes first, so other trades can run tools on site. Next comes the rough-in phase, after framing and usually alongside plumbing and HVAC. This is when boxes get set, home runs get pulled, and the low-voltage backbone goes in. A disciplined electrical rough-in checklist covers box heights and locations against the architectural elevations, circuit home runs against the panel schedule, nail plates where wiring passes close to framing edges, and every automation, shade and speaker wire verified against the pre-wire plan. Additionally, this is the moment to photograph every wall before insulation. Those photos save hours later when a trim carpenter needs to know exactly where a wire sits.

Why Inspections Carry Real Weight

Inspections punctuate the sequence. The rough electrical inspection happens before insulation and drywall, so any correction at that stage is cheap. The same correction after drywall means demolition. Additionally, the service inspection and utility release follow, and the final inspection closes out the permit once devices, fixtures and panels are complete and labeled. These checkpoints exist for good reason. According to the National Fire Protection Association, wiring and related equipment accounted for 68 percent of home fires caused by electrical distribution and lighting equipment from 2015 to 2019. Workmanship hidden inside walls is exactly what the rough inspection exists to verify.

Coordinating With the GC Timeline

Coordination with the GC runs through all of it. The electrician needs framing complete before rough-in, needs the HVAC and plumbing layout to avoid conflicts, and needs cabinet and countertop decisions finalized before trim-out. As a result, the most valuable thing an electrical contractor brings to a weekly site meeting is honesty about lead times. Switchgear, Lutron panels, Span panels and Generac generators all carry procurement timelines, so ordering decisions belong months ahead of the install date, not weeks.

How to Hire an Electrician for a New Build

Selecting the contractor is the decision that shapes everything above, and specifiers feel this most. An architect or GC who brings the wrong electrician onto a high-end project inherits coordination problems for the next twelve to eighteen months.

Start with licensing. In California, electrical work at this scale requires a C-10 license, and you can verify any contractor's standing through the Contractors State License Board. Ask for proof of insurance and confirm the firm has run projects at your scale, because a contractor comfortable with production tract work may struggle with a 400A estate that carries two hundred lighting loads and a rack room.

Then ask the question that separates firms on automation-heavy projects: who programs the control system? On many builds, one company wires the house and a separate integrator installs and programs the Control4, Josh AI or Lutron system. That split works, but it creates a seam. When a keypad misbehaves, each firm can point at the other. However, when a single C-10 contractor handles both the line-voltage installation and the system programming, the seam disappears. One firm owns the wire, the panel, the keypad and the scene behind it. For specifiers, that means one submittal package, one point of accountability and one name on the RFI.

What Drives New Construction Electrical Cost

Owners often ask about new construction electrical cost per square foot, and the honest answer is that square footage is a weak predictor. The real drivers are service size, fixture and circuit counts, the lighting control scope, the automation and AV package, generator and EV infrastructure, and the finish level of the devices themselves. For instance, two homes of identical size can carry very different electrical budgets if one runs standard switching and the other runs a whole-home Lutron system with motorized shades and a dedicated theater. To put it simply, ask any bidder to break the price into those scopes so you can compare proposals line by line rather than as a single number.

Finally, weigh communication. Ask how the contractor documents changes, how often they attend OAC meetings, and who on their team talks to the inspector. On a long build, those habits matter as much as the craft.

Ready to Get Started?

We design, install and program new construction electrical systems for custom homes and commercial spaces across Los Angeles, working design-build with architects and GCs from plan review through final inspection, with automation, Lutron lighting control, Generac standby power and EV charging handled by the same C-10 firm (CSLB C-10 #1048529). If you are planning a new build or a full renovation, call us Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 16:00, or send a project request. We will review your plans and talk through the electrical and automation scope with your team.