Handyman Tips-A guide to home electrical DIY
Electricity is by far the most dangerous and feared area of DIY in most peoples homes and yet is doesn’t deter amateurs from taking a risk leading to serious fatalities every year.Here are a few straightforward points, tips and tricks to know when attempting to deal with electrical work yourself.
Plan the work at hand, get the right tools foe the job, observe the safety rule and switch off all the electrical supply, and most importantly take your time and do not attempt anything that is beyond your capabilities. The fear conception about carrying out electrical work is that it is illegal, true to a point .If you follow the part P building regulations section regarding electrical connections you will know what you can legally do and what you cannot do. Bear in mind also that if you were to carry out any electrical wiring work yourself and there was a fire ,then there could be a small possibility that this could compromise your buildings insurance cover if the work were carried out as a building regulations notifiable work and you did not inform building control or did not get a certificate to cover the work.
Electricity works in a way that: electrical current passes through the service providers cables into the house wiring circuit. The current in the house then flows through the live wires of the house-just like water rushing through the pumps into your home to provide a powerful spray of water when the tap is turned on.
The current in the live wires is then distributed to sockets, light switches, and so on. The surge of current then flows through the live wires to generate enough heat to light up the bulb in your ceiling or in your table lamplight fittings carry the least load 5amps the general rule is that the rate at which current flows through wires is determined by the voltage and the size of the wire in which it passes. In essence the thicker the wire the less resistance it has ,which in turn means the greater the flow of electricity, that is the reason why the larger the load carrying the electricity the larger the wire, so for lights:5-6amps,for sockets:15-20amps,for electric showers:30-40amps.The wire sizes are also different i.e.: for lights:1-1.5mm2,for sockets:2.5mm2 etc.The inner core or strands of the wires are made of copper which is a good conductor of electricity ,these compliment the materials used to make the bulb filaments and other lighting materials, the electric current has to be sufficient to heat up the filaments in the bulb. Fuses are used to protect the circuit from being overloaded and to serve as a safety mechanism to protect a circuit say the lights or sockets from overheating and causing a fire, that is why when you overload a circuit the fuse automatically trips to warn you that something is wrong therefore cutting any excess supply, the system is much more simple nowadays because when this happens all you do is press a button to restore the flow of current. The wires carrying the load to the electrical circuits were at one time easily labelled red/brown-live, blue/black –negative and the yellow and green –neutral, you will need to check this because there has since been a new colour change so make sure you are up to date on this and remember:
1.switch off all electrical supply 2.never attempt any work you do not understand or are not sure of
Stay safe
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