Restaurants, cafés, pubs and hotels
Restaurant and Hospitality Electricians in Surrey
Are you looking for a restaurant electrician in Surrey for your restaurant, café, pub or hotel? We would be glad to help.
We are NICEIC registered commercial electricians who work in kitchens, bars and dining rooms, including premises in listed buildings.
Work with us and you can expect power, isolation and extract controls installed so your kitchen opens on time, work scheduled around service and closing days, front-of-house lighting that works morning and evening, and certification handed over on completion.
So whether your venue is in Guildford, Weybridge, Esher, Farnham or anywhere across Surrey, get in touch for a free, no-obligation chat to discuss your requirements and an estimate.
Commercial kitchen installation completed: power and sockets to the prep counters, with extraction above the range.
Registered & checked
What we understand
We understand the challenges involved with hospitality electrical work
Hospitality runs on a clock that does not negotiate. Bookings are taken, stock is ordered, staff are rota'd, and the doors open at a fixed time. A job that overruns does not just cost you a day. It costs you covers you have already sold.
So what you need from an electrician is work completed promptly and properly, so your kitchen opens on time and you can carry on serving. We work in the mornings before prep, between services, on closing days, or through a shutdown, and we agree the finish date before the work starts.
There is a second pressure specific to this sector. A kitchen is a hot, wet, greasy room that gets deep cleaned constantly, and the electrical installation in it has to survive that. Equipment gets pulled out and pushed back. Steam sits under the canopy. It is an unforgiving environment, and installations that were fine in year one are often not fine in year five.
Behind the pass
Commercial kitchen electrical installation scope
The photograph is the controls end of a commercial kitchen we completed. It shows more about how these jobs work than a paragraph does.
On the wall there is an extract fan speed controller, the yellow gas shut-off emergency stop for the gas interlock, a fused connection unit, and a time switch. That cluster is the part of a kitchen installation people forget about when they are budgeting for sockets - and it is the part that decides whether the kitchen is allowed to run.
Our electrical scope in a kitchen covers:
- Power and local isolation to catering equipment
- Socket outlets at prep counters and service areas
- Extract and supply fan connections, speed control and time switching
- The electrical side of the gas interlock and gas shut-off arrangement
- Kitchen lighting and containment suited to a wash-down environment
- Distribution and circuit protection for the kitchen load
We do not commission catering appliances and we are not gas engineers. We provide the supply, the isolation and the controls, and we work with whoever is supplying and commissioning the equipment.
Scope
Electrical work we carry out in hospitality premises
- Kitchen power and controls
- Supplies and isolation to catering equipment, prep counter sockets, extract fan controls, gas interlock wiring and kitchen distribution.
- Front-of-house lighting
- Dining room, bar and lounge lighting, with switching and dimming split so the room works at breakfast and at nine in the evening. See commercial lighting.
- Fit-outs and refurbishments
- Full electrical installation for a new venue or a refit, working to the programme with the other trades. See electrical installations.
- Emergency lighting
- Escape routes, stairs, changes of level and open areas, plus periodic testing. See emergency lighting.
- Fire alarm systems
- Installation, alterations and servicing as the premises changes. See fire alarm systems.
- Inspection and testing
- EICRs for insurance, lease renewal, a change of licensee or your own records, particularly worth doing in a kitchen that has had years of heat and cleaning. See EICR testing.
- Repairs and fault finding
- The circuit that trips every Friday night, the failed extract, the dead socket behind the pass. See maintenance and repairs.
Older buildings
Electrical work in listed hospitality premises
A great deal of Surrey hospitality trades out of buildings that are hundreds of years old. That is the appeal, and it is also the constraint.
In listed and historic buildings you work with the fabric rather than through it. Surface routes get chosen to be discreet, fixings have to suit old timber and lath, and consents need resolving before anyone books an install date.
We completed new lighting and small power in a Grade I listed building on Guildford High Street. The track spots are fixed to the existing beam and the containment routed around the structure, which is slower than chasing a plasterboard wall, and the only acceptable way to do it.
Working with us
How easy it is to work with our hospitality electricians
Built around service times, closing days and the date you have to be open again.
Tell us about the job
Send us the premises type, what you need doing and when you need it done. If you have drawings, a schedule or a previous report, send those too.
We survey and estimate
We look at the installation, agree the scope with you and put it in writing. You get an estimate you can take to whoever signs it off.
We book the work around you
We agree dates that suit your operation, turn up when we said we would, and hand over the certification when the work is finished.
Restaurants, cafés, pubs and hotels across Surrey
We work in hospitality premises throughout Surrey, from single-unit cafés to pubs, restaurants and hotels. Our project work includes a completed commercial kitchen installation and a Grade I listed building on Guildford High Street. For the wider picture, see our commercial electricians in Surrey page.
If your premises is a shop, see shops and retail.
Get in touch
Send us a message
If you're in need of trusted commercial electricians, we'd be delighted to assist. Provide a little bit of information in the form below and we'll be back to you within 24 hours to discuss further. There is no charge for the conversation or the estimate, and no obligation to proceed.
Questions we get asked
Hospitality electrical questions from Surrey venues
What owners, operators and general managers ask us before booking work in.
Can you work around our service times?
Yes, and it is how most hospitality work gets done. Mornings before prep, afternoons between service, closing days and quiet weeks are all normal for us. We agree the window before we price the job, so the quotation reflects when the work actually happens.
If you have a closing day or an annual shutdown, that is usually the cheapest and least disruptive time to do anything substantial.
What exactly do you do in a commercial kitchen?
The electrical side of it. That means power and isolation to catering equipment, socket outlets at the prep counters, connection and controls for the extract system, the gas interlock and shut-off arrangement, lighting, and the containment that carries it all in a room that has to be cleaned down every day.
We are electricians, not catering engineers or gas engineers. We take the electrical supply to the equipment and provide the isolation and controls around it. Commissioning and servicing of the appliances themselves is for the specialists who supplied them.
What is a gas interlock and do we need one?
A gas interlock ties the gas supply to the kitchen ventilation, so the gas appliances cannot run unless the extract and supply air are running. The yellow emergency stop in the photograph on this page is the gas shut-off for that kitchen.
Whether your kitchen needs one, and what form it takes, depends on the appliances, the ventilation and the assessment made for that kitchen. It is not something to decide from a web page. Tell us what you have and what has been specified, and we will carry out the electrical side of it.
Do you install and test emergency lighting for restaurants and pubs?
Yes. Hospitality premises are places where people who do not know the building are sitting in low light, often having had a drink, sometimes with steps and changes of level. Escape route lighting matters more here than almost anywhere.
We install it, extend it when you change the layout, and carry out the periodic testing with the certification and logbook entries. See emergency lighting.
Our lighting is too bright and kills the atmosphere. Can that be changed?
Usually yes, and it is one of the more satisfying jobs we get asked to do. Restaurant and bar lighting has to work at two extremes, bright enough to clean and set up in the morning, low and warm enough to eat in at night, and that is a switching and dimming problem as much as a fitting problem.
Getting the circuits split sensibly is often more effective than replacing the fittings. See commercial lighting.
We are in an old or listed building. Can you still work in it?
Yes. A lot of Surrey hospitality sits in genuinely old buildings, which limits chasing and fixing and pushes you towards surface routes chosen to suit the fabric. We completed new lighting and small power in a Grade I listed building on Guildford High Street, and the photograph further down this page is from that job.
Electrical work needed at your venue?
If you have a kitchen that has to open on time or a room that has to look right, requesting your free estimate is the right next step.