Planning sockets and burn sites

Hello,
I took about 2-3 months for my electrical planning.
At first, I thought it wouldn’t be so difficult to place the few sockets, light switches, network sockets, and heat sources.
The more I read, the more difficult it became.
In my opinion, you should deal with it thoroughly and also take enough time, just like with the floor plan.

As nordanney already wrote, the planning is very individual.
It depends on the floor plan and your own needs.

I got myself an easy-to-use CAD program for the electrical planning, and first, I furnished the house exactly 1:1 with it. Only then did I start the planning.
The positions of the furniture in the room should already fit (height-depth-width).
Just as an example:
You want to have 1-2 pendant lights over the bedside tables in the bedroom.
To make sure the lights later hang correctly over the bedside tables, you should already pay attention to a few points.
- What are the bed frame dimensions?
- What are the bedside table dimensions? (width and depth)
In most cases, there is a window on the left or right side of the bed.
If you want to hang curtains, do not forget that they need about 15cm of space. This means that the room center in this case (if you want to place the bed in the middle) is between the curtains and the opposite wall.

So I furnished room by room and tried to pay attention to all the little details.
I would not generally place sockets in every corner but would carefully imagine every scenario where something will stand and then place the sockets accordingly.
In the end, you can still play it safe and put double sockets in the corners.

For the lighting planning, I would divide the lighting into 3 groups if possible:
- General lighting
- Work and functional lighting
- Decorative lighting

A few rough bullet points on electrical planning:

Light sources;
- Pay attention to beam angle
- Keep color temperatures as uniform as possible. No mixed light
- CRI value best over 90
- dimmable / not dimmable
- Work areas should be brighter (300-500 lux)
- Living areas rather cozy

Lamps;
- direct lighting
- indirect lighting
- direct/indirect lighting
- Large light source = diffuse, soft light
- small light source = directed, hard, direct light

Lighting planning;
- For general lighting, note that the lamp does not necessarily have to hang in the center of the room but depending on how the furniture is arranged. For example, if there are tall cabinets on one wall, the center of the room shifts. So do not measure the center from wall to wall but from the tall cabinet to the wall.
- Mirror lighting
- Niche and decorative lighting
- Picture lighting
- Stair lighting
- In the office and children’s rooms, create an additional diffuse and glare-free work lighting over the desks.
- In the kitchen, bright lighting over work areas
- Island lighting in the kitchen
- The pendant lights above the dining table should hang about 60-70 cm above the table. Choose the beam angle so the lights don’t glare.
- In the living room, instead of one lamp in the middle of the room, maybe plan the lamp above the coffee table.
- In the garage, the light sources are better distributed if they are not installed above the cars but in the aisles between the cars
- Additional lighting at the beds in the children’s rooms
- Additional front mirror lighting (keyword theater lighting)
- Christmas lighting on the windows
- Floor and pendant lamps in the living room as cozy lighting

Outside;
- Christmas lighting
- Driveway lighting
- Floor lighting on the terrace
- Terrace lighting
- Decorative lighting outside (e.g., bushes, fences, etc.)

Audio;
- Home cinema
- possibly built-in speakers (e.g., in the bathroom, dining room, or kitchen)

Network:
As already mentioned, definitely plan at least one double socket per room.
- Depending on the floor plan, 1-2 access points per floor and one for the terrace
- possibly Cat for video surveillance

Sockets;
- Remember USB sockets. You do not necessarily have to place many sockets next to the bed in the bedrooms. Sometimes one with 2x USB outputs may be enough. We will put USB sockets in the important areas for us.
- Hide sockets behind the low board in the living room and lead cables via flush-mounted channels to the TV.
- Sockets above work tables
- Sockets in the window reveals
- Sockets at the kitchen island
- Switchable sockets
- Sockets in the attic
- Outdoor sockets around the house
- Socket for electric grill

Others;
- Power cables for weather stations
- Power cables for rain and wind sensors (e.g., for blinds or garden irrigation)
- Power cables for garden irrigation
- Power cables for garden house
- Power cables for awning control
- Solar cables
- Power cables for bathtub with whirlpool
- Power cables for automatic toilets
- Power cables for IR heater in the bathroom
- Preparation for e-car station
- Power cables for toilet odor extraction

I hope the information helps you a bit with your planning.

I have one access point on the ceiling upstairs, which covers everything perfectly. Even on the ground floor, the signal is better than the FritzBox that is in the utility room on the ground floor. Ok, this is not a big house.

In the utility room, there is a small network cabinet with a switch, and the 5 double CAT sockets come together there plus the cable from the access point. Done.

OK,
There are great tips here, some I’ve never heard of, but on the other hand some things are partly unnecessary.
I have your planned house roughly in mind, so here are a few compact tips:
In the utility room, 6 sockets can be useful. You charge batteries here, may have a second fridge, our 4 sockets are all occupied. They would be good at work height near a shelf. In the kitchen/in your kitchen you have no space to leave all your free-standing appliances plugged in. Therefore, many sockets will be taken up by built-in appliances anyway. Then two each left and right of the stove and one in the corner for the coffee machine.
Living room: you can do a lot with a multi-socket extension at the TV. At least one, better two left and right of the sofa (charging phone, floor lamps, sewing machine, other electrical devices...) In the dining area many like to have two wall lights on a sideboard. Those would be wall outlets.
I would move those sockets planned in every room below the light switch somewhere else. They are for the vacuum cleaner and can be in the hallway.
I was told to distribute the sockets in all room corners. Later you can upgrade them yourself to double sockets.
For the garden and garage, an outside cable is enough, you can retrofit yourself later.
Is an outdoor light at the front and on the terrace included? A socket on the terrace would be useful.
In the bedroom we like the two-way switch from door and bed to a socket behind the bed where small reading lamps are plugged in left and right, basically a night light for falling asleep.
Oh yes, LAN in every room, that's the way it is these days.
Whether you need a double outlet here, a color-changing light on every stair step, an LED strip everywhere or a triple socket every meter, 5 outdoor lights individually adjustable on every ridge side, or 4 sockets for every work meter in the kitchen, that is rare and should be considered if you don’t want to throw money away.

Ps if you want to get a cordless vacuum, i.e. a robot, think about floor height too.

I have one access point on the ceiling upstairs, which covers everything really well. Even on the ground floor, the signal is better than the FritzBox that is located in the utility room on the ground floor. Ok, it's not a big house.

In the utility room there is a small network cabinet with a switch and the 5 double CAT sockets come together there plus the line from the access point. Done.

Got lucky, saved money. Unfortunately, this is an individual opinion/experience and neither representative nor applicable to other houses. Whether one access point upstairs is sufficient for an entire house depends on many factors.

By the way, Cat cables can be used for much more than "just" networking. You can also transmit video and audio over them if you want to deal with multiroom audio and/or multiroom video. It's pretty nice when you no longer have mountains of electronics in the living room and can use the space for other purposes.

Lucky, money saved. Unfortunately, this is an individual opinion/experience and neither representative nor applicable to other houses. Whether an access point on the upper floor is sufficient for an entire house depends on many factors. By the way, Cat cables can be used for much more than "just" networking. You can also transmit video and audio over them if you want to deal with multiroom audio and/or multiroom video. It’s pretty nice when you no longer have piles of electronics in the living room and can use the space for other purposes.

I am aiming for a similar basic solution, which is absolutely sufficient for us because I know our needs and user behavior. We do not use cameras, presence detectors, or complex audio/TV solutions; it will be more or less a "copy" of what we currently have here. Music comes via streaming service through WiFi speakers, and TV is located in fixed places. Nevertheless, it is interesting to read what some would do differently or why. I think that was intended by as an individual opinion on my specific question about it, as all other opinions are usually personal viewpoints as well. For my needs, this opinion is helpful. What you subsequently describe and what others do the same, I can then see for myself whether that applies. Of course, every home builder must check everything for their individual situation regarding benefits and technical functionality.

Regarding Wifi/CAT, it may be worth mentioning that WLAN still works very well at the moment. This might change in the future if two more children join and four 4k streams are supposed to run simultaneously (let alone 8k). Presumably, the Wifi performance will increase in step with the demand, but whether one wants to take the risk has to be assessed individually. I would therefore not recommend CAT everywhere as a requirement, but where stationary use is definitely foreseeable, I would use it: office, TV area, children's room. This way, you can get the major consumers off the wireless network without the costs immediately skyrocketing.