Learn UK home wiring by doing it.
An interactive practice canvas and learn library for apprentices, trainees, and serious DIY learners. Drag the cables yourself, try different layouts, and build the intuition that watching videos can’t — so when you’re standing in front of a real consumer unit, you actually understand what you’re looking at.
- Articles
- 30+
- Circuit types
- 3
Features
Built around how UK domestic circuits actually go together
Focused on the conventions that appear in UK homes, so the canvas behaves the way real installations look — not a generic electronics simulator.
Drag-and-drop canvas
A real circuit canvas. Pull components from the palette, wire them up, route the cables — no diagrams to copy from a textbook.
Built-in sanity checks
Simplified, rule-of-thumb checks for ring final, lighting and radial circuits flag common mistakes as you wire. Educational only — not a substitute for full design calculations, inspection and testing.
Three circuit types
Ring final, lighting (1-way, 2-way, intermediate) and radial circuits, with typical MCB ratings and cable sizes pre-filled to illustrate common UK setups.
View the internals
Open a ceiling rose or junction box and see every conductor resolved on its terminal — the bit that diagrams usually skip.
Old & new colour codes
Toggle between pre-2006 red/black and modern brown/blue colours so older installations make sense at a glance.
Save your circuits
Designs persist locally in your browser. Build, revisit and iterate — no account, no sign-up, nothing to install.
Why a canvas
Hands-on practice beats passive watching
You can read every BS 7671 guide and watch every spark-on-YouTube video, but wiring only really clicks once you’ve done it. The canvas lets you do it — safely, on a screen, as many times as it takes.
More than a video
A video shows one finished circuit. The canvas lets you build it, break it, and rebuild it differently — which is how you actually learn what each wire is doing.
Rehearse before you commit
Try the layout, talk it through, second-guess yourself, then try again. No copper cut wrong, no walls chased, no live circuits — just the thinking part, repeated until it sticks.
Mistakes that don’t hurt
Get the cable colours wrong, miss a CPC, double back on a ring — the canvas will flag it. Far better to learn that here than with 230 V down the other end of the conductor.
Who it’s for
Built for the learner, not the licensed
CircuitWise sits between the textbook and the consumer unit. It won’t qualify you to do electrical work — that’s a job for registered electricians and the schemes that certify them — but it will help the concepts click.
- Apprentices and trainees building intuition alongside their coursework
- DIY learners who want to understand their own wiring before any work is planned
- Homeowners trying to make sense of an electrician’s quote, report or EICR
- Hobbyists curious about what’s actually inside a consumer unit
Learn & practise
More than just a canvas
Honest about the source
Built by an enthusiast, not a sparky
CircuitWise is built by a keen DIY learner with an interest in UK home electrics — not a registered electrician. It exists because there wasn’t a good way to learn this stuff interactively as someone outside the trade.
The content here reflects widely-documented UK conventions, cross-referenced against publicly available sources such as BS 7671 (the IET Wiring Regulations) and the IET On-Site Guide. It is not a substitute for those documents, and nothing on this site is professional advice.
Found something wrong, missing or misleading? Please get in touch — corrections from people on the tools are very welcome.
Important — please read
CircuitWise is an educational tool for understanding UK domestic wiring. It is not a how-to guide for carrying out electrical work, not a qualification, and not certified electrical design software. The built-in checks are simplified rules of thumb; they do not perform full BS 7671 design calculations (cable sizing, Zs, fault current, voltage drop, RCD selection, etc.) and they do not replace inspection and testing by a competent person.
Electrical work in dwellings is regulated. In England and Wales, certain work is notifiable under Part P of the Building Regulations and must be carried out or certified by a competent person; Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own rules. BS 7671 (the IET Wiring Regulations) is the authoritative standard — always refer to the current edition, and always isolate and prove dead before working on any circuit.
CircuitWise is provided “as is”, without warranty of any kind. You use it at your own risk, and the authors accept no liability for any loss, damage or injury arising from its use. If in any doubt, consult a registered electrician. See the full disclaimer and terms of use for more.
Open the canvas. Start exploring.
No sign-up, no install. Drop a consumer unit, drag in some sockets, and learn how the pieces fit together.
Practising here is not the same as being competent. Real wiring involves live conductors, design calculations, and inspection and testing — build genuine competency (and the right qualifications and notifications) before touching anything real, and bring in a registered electrician when in doubt.