Older villa going into summer, what's a sensible electrical safety checklist before we pile on the AC load?

Sensible to check before summer, not during. Run through this: test each RCD with its test button to confirm it actually trips; feel whether any breaker or the board is warm or looks discoloured, and note anything that trips repeatedly; check every outdoor socket and garden or pool light for water ingress or cracked covers; confirm the AC circuits are properly rated and not sharing with other big loads; and watch for the warning signs, burning smells, warm or browned socket faces, flickering lights, or buzzing from the board. The check itself is mostly visual and quick, and something like a filthy or water-exposed outdoor fitting you can spot yourself. But anything warm, browning, buzzing, or an RCD that won't trip on test is a stop-and-call-someone item, not wait-and-see. For an older board about to take full summer AC load, it's worth having a licensed electrician in Dubai do a proper condition check and sort anything flagged before the heat, most of it is servicing, not a rewire. Catch the warm breaker in April, not the failed one in July.