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Basic Electrical and Hiring an Electrician : Household electricity is more clearly understood when it is compared it to household plumbing.... Home Lighting by Jennifer Weldon Home lighting is an important part of any home renovation. Home lighting can be a focal point of a room, or the piece of the puzzle that brings all elements together. Do not underestimate what good home lighting design can do for your house. If you would like to update your home, but don’t have the budget to do it, consider simple home lighting changes. Replacing an out of date fixture can give an entire room a facelift. Adding a dimmer switch can soften a new coat of paint. New technologies in home lighting today include colored or textured gels and light bulbs that can transform a room. Creative home lighting design can create a new look for your home at a fraction of the cost. In the past, home lighting simply meant table and floor lamps. These only directed light at the ceilings of a home. The 1970’s saw the advent of moveable pole lamps and the like which could be manipulated to shine light where you wanted it. Currently, home lighting includes wall sconces, ceiling fan down lights and up lights, and ceiling rope lighting to create different moods with light. Home lighting in the kitchen has also undergone a transformation. In the past, you would have a single ceiling mounted fixture to light up the entire kitchen. Now, you have several lighting choices. In addition to ceiling mounted fixtures, you can choose recessed lighting, pendant lighting and under cabinet lighting to highlight the areas you are working or eating in. Home lighting today also encompasses your exterior lighting. In addition to porch lights and coach lights, outdoor home lighting includes landscaping lighting. Properly designed landscape lighting can illuminate trees, flower beds, and walkways for ambiance as well as providing security. Outdoor lighting can be programmed for time, brightness and even color. Wiring the lighting underground is possible and a good idea. Exterior lighting can put the finishing touches on any home. Regardless of the power source, the majority of U.S. households have electrical service in their home. Power sources can be the local power company, a generator, solar panels, or windmills. A power company will only hook up power to a power meter on the house. It falls to a licensed electrician to install electrical panels and the wiring throughout the house. If you are building, remodeling, or tackling any renovation project where electricity is involved, you should seek the services of a licensed electrician. Do-it-yourselfers and inexperienced handymen can experience significant injury or death due to an electric shock. In addition, faulty wiring in a house can cause house fires. Licensed electricians have the proper training and experience to perform any electrical work safely and efficiently. When building a new home, an electrician performs his work prior to any insulation and drywall. If the home has wood framing, the electrician drills holes through the framing to place wires from the electrical panels to various outlets. If the home has steel framing, these steel frames already have pre-drilled holes to allow for easy wire feeding. The electrical panel houses circuits where the various wires are attached. Each circuit has the capability of switching off, or tripping, if there is an electrical overload on that outlet. In older homes, you will find fuses in the electrical panel. Fuses will burn in the case of an electrical overload and break the circuit. Licensed electricians are not only needed when wiring outlets for a new home. Cable television is another instance where electricians are utilized. At the birth of cable television, electricians fed the cable lines from the outside poles directly into the television set in the home. Coaxial cable then came on the market which brought with it the invention of the cable box. The cable serviceman, also an electrician, would then only feed the cable wire from the pole to the outside of the home. The newest technology for cable television is known as low voltage wiring. Low voltage wiring is thus called because it uses very little current, if any. It also facilitates a broad range of services in addition to cable television; including home alarm systems, home computing networks, home media systems, lighting systems and more. This new technology has changed the face of electrical wiring in new homes. An electrician will now install the traditional wiring and also install CAT5 cable for home computing. Low voltage wiring work does not require a licensed electrician, but again, the training and experience a licensed electrician brings to a job is a valuable tool. With the rise in popularity of wireless signals and wireless networks, electrical and low voltage wiring is sure to undergo more changes. |
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