Building a home is both an exciting and stressful time for property owners, with a large focus centred on the design and interiors. What is often less emphasised, is the importance of proper construction and ensuring that an adequate electrical fit out occurs to fit your final power needs.
Planning electrical installations is important and ensures that when the time comes to move in, the electricity use in your home is both functional and practical.
Follow these 4 key planning steps to ensure a smooth build of your home.
1. Plan the use of appliances and required power outlets
While it may be hard to picture how each room will eventually look, it's important to work with your construction manager to coordinate where certain electrical features are to be situated.
In doing so, you must plan out how many electrical outlets are required in each room and where they are to be located for practical use of appliances such as A/C, fridges, TV’s etc. At this stage, you should work alongside a Residential Electrician who must also plan to wire to achieve the power to each outlet.
A good option is to sit with your electrician and the plans of your home to map out the positioning of furniture/electrical appliances so they can position the necessary cables and wiring.
2. Talk through the power requirements your home will need
Your homes total electrical system will comprise of the electrical wiring, fuses and circuit breakers that protect and control electricity to hardwired appliances and lastly, installed power points. A small home with standard electricity usage will have an electrical system averaging 40-63amps in total, while a larger home with central A/C will require 3 phase power.
Because each home will feature different electrical appliances, each home requires different wiring to supply the appropriate conductivity.
You should discuss with your Residential Electrician the number of electrical features you wish for your home.
Consider the following: Will you have large appliances for audio/visual entertainment purposes? Perhaps a large home office? Or a number of fridges.
3. Make energy consumption considerations
Considering the future energy usage in your home, one must look at the environmental and cost effects of installed home appliances. Thankfully, with new technology, many modern builds are incorporating the use of control systems that can switch on/off the use of appliances when they are not needed.
Remote controlling of electricity usage can be as simple as installing a plug in devices to power points with timers that will trigger a switch on or off. A more advanced system can be co-installation of your home appliances, and this will allow you to control the activation of appliances via a smart device.
Imagine being able to control the power of your A/C, TV, Entertainment system all from the touch of your phone!
4. Hire the right Electrician for the job
One of the most important factors in a successful build is having the right team members. Find a residential electrician that will talk you through the process of construction, listen to your requests and provide you feedback to increase efficiency. They should be set on completing deadlines and working alongside other tradesman to ensure a smooth construction with little delays.
Building a new home is a daunting task, but with our key planning steps you can rest assured that the electricity to your home will be well covered.
