Electrical Done (for Now)

We met the electrician that will be doing the installation for our house. We met him as his new shop in Kemps Creek where he had a showroom to give us a view of the products that they can install. Apparently, the show room is pretty new and as evident with the trade tools in one corner of their kitchen, the office is not yet finished. 

The electrician welcomed us and in all honesty mentioned that he was not there to sell things to us. We were quite honest as well in that we may need some suggestions and ideas for our install as this is our first experience of building from scratch. 

We walked through our marked up plan (with red pen on the original electrical plan). I suggest other buyers/builders to prepare this before you meet with your electrician. I have to say that we already had a plan that was proposed by the builder which helped us in what kind of things we should initially think of (e.g., number of lights in the room, fan and light in bathrooms and basic things were already in place). If anything, we just had to add new stuff and move some thing to more convenient places. 

Here are some things I would consider coming from our experience today: 

• Consider your bedroom power outlets in conjunction with your proposed bed position. This should also accommodate for proposed furniture (e.g., heater, bedside table.) 
• Consider a two way light switch near the bedside and on the normal position at the door. At least you can turn off your light without having to get out of bed when you are ready to sleep. 
• You may need sensors for areas which will be rarely inhabited and behind closed doors. This is in case people (especially children) forget to turn off the light. If it is behind a closed door, it may be even more difficult to detect the forgotten light. 
• Ensure you install a sensor with sufficient range for the area which you need to be lit. At our front, we have 4.5 metre frontage. We though a 5 metre range sensor is sufficient for this. 
• Fittings stick out. You may not want a sensor, a smoke detector and a light fitting to appear in a row. Consider moving some fittings or using a design that is more flush with the ceiling/wall. 
• Anything wired or that needs provision within the walls will be easier to install now. Being IT people, we opted to put in our data ports now rather than later. 
• You can probably bring down price by doing wiring only if needed, especially, if your loan is limiting your available funds. When it comes time to installing a few months or a year down the track, you probably have more funds available then. This is good for things like the alarm and intercom. 
• Consider separating circuits for different machines/rooms/electricals. For example, you may want your lights to be on its own circuit so that it does not trip when you are doing an electrical project in the garage. Another example is to have your computers on a separate circuit from "noisy" equipment like your washing machine and rainwater pump. 
• How about some down lights on areas where you need focussed lighting? Maybe the kitchen bench, the feature wall or a designated area for electronic projects. 
• If you have a kitchen island, consider a power outlet on the bench side. 
• With NBN, think about how and where you will put your branch out to the other areas of the house where you think hard-wired LAN will be required. Also remember that you can move the NBN box to another place inside the house. The garage climate is usually not easily controlled. 
• Having 3 in 1 (heater, light, fan) devices installed in bathrooms should be considered now than later. We initially had light and fan only. If we were to do this later, on of the holes will need to be patched as the 3 in 1 only requires 1 hole. 
• Consider an external, waterproof GPO for outdoor electrical devices. We're not big on Christmas lights but some people may be. You can always whip out a super long extension lead. If it is near a gas outlet, think about the GPO's position in relation to your barbecue grill. 
• Consider ceiling fans and check that they have speed controls and reversible motor (summer/winter mode). Usually, the season mode is controlled with a switch near the fan mechanism. Check its placement in relation to any vents (e.g., air conditioning). 
• Think about putting in a surge protector at the meter box. This should protect everything in your house including your fridge, air conditioning, laundry machines, lighting, and other electronic appliances without having to get those surge protector power boards. 

Before the meeting with the electrician, we actually underestimated the price for our proposed electrical modification. We also got some ideas and suggestions from Joe (our electrician), that we thought were pretty practical and will be difficult to install after fit-out. We wound up with a pretty big price that was even more expensive than one of our big ticket items we opted for our structural upgrades. 

In any case, given the rushed nature of our building process, we thought our meeting with our electrician was very pleasant and open. Perhaps with him not having a sales background helped a lot in that he was giving us suggestions and not pushing them. He was letting us make our own decisions and was happy to make recommendations and have them accepted or rejected. We told him that we were happy with the meeting and appreciate how it was arranged. Not to mention the chocolates for the kids.