Setting Up a New Flat in Delhi NCR: The Order to Do Things

Step one: walk the empty flat with a floor plan and a marker

Before you book anybody, spend an hour in the empty flat deciding where things will actually go. Almost every later regret — the socket behind the sofa, the fan off-centre over the bed, no point for the washing machine — traces back to this hour not happening.

• Draw each room and mark the furniture. Bed, wardrobe, sofa, TV, dining table, study desk, fridge, washing machine. Rough is fine. The point is to know which walls will be blocked.
• Then mark every electrical point you will want. Bedside sockets on both sides, a point behind the TV, kitchen appliance points, a washing machine point, the geyser, the AC in each room, charging points where you will actually sit, and lights and fans where the furniture puts them.
• Photograph everything before any work begins. Every wall, both bathrooms, the kitchen, the balcony, and the meter readings. If you are renting, this record is what settles a deposit conversation later — our security deposit guide explains why.
• Check the society rules before you book a trade. Permitted work hours, whether Sundays and festival days are barred, which lift carries material and debris, and how debris must leave. Our guide on what a society or RWA maintains covers where to ask and what else is worth knowing.
• Get quotes for the whole list at once, not job by job. A single visit covering eight small jobs is a different conversation from eight separate call-outs, and quotes for a written list are comparable in a way that quotes for a vague plan are not. See our guide on hiring a professional without being overcharged.

Step two: electrical work, because it is the messiest and the least revisitable

Electrical work comes first among the trades, for one reason: it involves cutting into walls. Anything that cuts a wall must happen before anything that finishes a wall.

What to have an electrician look at and do while the flat is empty:

• The distribution board. Have it inspected. You want properly rated, clearly labelled MCBs and an RCCB — the earth-leakage device that protects people, which many older Delhi flats simply do not have. Our MCB and distribution board guide explains the difference and why it matters most in bathrooms and kitchens. Look only; never open, probe or test anything inside a board yourself.
• Whether the wiring can carry what you are about to plug in. A Delhi household today runs two or three ACs, a geyser, a microwave, a washing machine and an inverter. An older installation was not designed for that. Our guide on the signs house wiring needs replacing lists what an electrician will be looking for, and the full house rewiring guide explains why an empty flat is by far the cheapest moment for that job if it is due.
• Earthing. Ask for it to be checked. It is your protection when something goes wrong, and it is worth a specific question rather than an assumption.
• All the new points, in one go. Every socket, switch, light point, fan point and AC point from your plan. Doing them together means one round of chasing, one round of making good and one round of paint.
• The geyser point and the AC points before summer or winter demand hits. Both trades get very busy in their season; getting the points ready early means the install is a simple visit rather than a wait.

Step three: water, drains and anything wet

Plumbing runs alongside the electrical work, because it too involves opening things up, and because the water side of a Delhi flat has consequences that show up months later.

• Get the overhead tank and any private tank cleaned before you start using the water. You are about to drink, cook and bathe with water from a tank you have never seen. Ask the society for the last cleaning date; if nobody can give you one, treat it as due. See our water tank cleaning guide and our water supply and tank tips.
• Find and turn every stop valve. The main inlet, and the smaller ones under each basin and behind each WC. A valve that will not move is a small job today and an emergency at two in the morning later.
• Run every tap and flush every WC, and watch the drains. Slow drainage or a gurgle points at the stack rather than the trap, and that is worth raising with the society while you are new and it is clearly not your doing.
• Fix the small leaks now. A weeping joint under a basin or a dripping tap is a ten-minute job in an empty flat and a swollen, ruined cabinet base a year from now.
• Decide the geyser and washing machine positions before anything is fitted. Both need water, drainage and power in the same place, and moving either later means opening a wall.
• If any wet-area waterproofing or bathroom work is needed, do it now and in a dry season. Waterproofing cannot bond to a damp surface, so it belongs to the dry weeks, not the monsoon. Our bathroom renovation guide covers what drives that job, and the monsoon checklist covers the seasonal window.

Delhi’s hard water is the background to all of it. Scale shortens the life of geysers, taps, showers and washing machines, and if the supply is borewell-heavy it is worth deciding early whether you want treatment at the point of use.

Step four: pest treatment and the deep clean — in that order, and after the mess

The two jobs people do too early. Both belong after the trades have finished and before the furniture arrives, and they must happen in this order.

• Pest treatment first. An empty flat is the easiest place there will ever be to treat: every cabinet, corner and skirting is reachable, and nothing of yours is in the way. Treating before your food, boxes and mattresses arrive is far simpler than treating around them. Look inside kitchen cabinets, under the sink and along skirting for droppings or egg cases before you decide what is needed.
• Then the deep clean. Cabinet interiors, the backs of shelves, the floor where the wardrobe will stand for the next five years, behind where the fridge goes, the tops of doors, fans, window tracks and grilles. All of it is reachable today and none of it will be next week. Our move-in cleaning guide sets out what a proper empty-flat clean includes.
• If there has been any building work, that clean is a different job. Renovation dust is cement-fine and gets everywhere. Our post-renovation cleaning guide covers why it is treated separately.

Prioritise the two rooms carrying someone else’s history: the bathrooms and the kitchen. Limescale and old grease need chemistry and time rather than effort, and they are the parts anyone actually notices.

Step five: fittings, carpentry and the last things before the van

Now the visible layer, in an order that stops one trade damaging another’s work.

• Fixed carpentry before paint, loose fittings after. Wardrobes, kitchen units, shelving and door adjustments generate sawdust and marks, so they come before painting. Curtain rods, handles, hooks and mirrors go up after.
• Change the locks. On a resale or newly rented flat, you cannot know how many keys exist and nobody can tell you reliably. Do it before you move anything in — see our door lock replacement guide.
• Fans, lights and switch plates. After the ceiling and walls are painted, not before.
• Geyser, chimney, AC and appliances. Installed once their points and positions are ready. Book AC installation ahead of the summer rush rather than in it.
• Curtains and blinds last. They are the thing everyone forgets and then lives without for a month. Our curtains, blinds and furniture assembly guide covers this whole batch, which is much better booked as one visit.
• Batch whatever is left. Keep a running list rather than calling someone out each time a job occurs to you. Most of what a small job costs is the visit, and our tip on saving money on home repairs explains how much batching actually saves.

Once the van arrives, the useful list changes again. Our moving house checklist covers the logistics of the move itself, and our tip on moving into a new flat is the short first-week list for a tenant.