Wiring your house is important for multiple reasons. Proper wiring helps keep your house secure and provides a stable and efficient electrical system. Improper wiring, on the other hand, can cause short circuits and even lead to house fires.
This is why it is extremely important to properly wire your house by professionals. If you’re moving to a new place, then have it checked by professionals. But if the place is completely new and does not even have wiring or you want to make some changes by yourself, then you need to know a couple of things.
First, you need to have experience in wiring houses, and second, well that’s what this article is for.
Here, we will help you out by providing some tips and tricks on how you can smartly wire your new home.
Smart Ways to Wire Your House
Let’s say you just bought your new property in Naperville, Illinois, and want to construct your house. You have to go there before the construction of the walls because most of the wiring will be done in between the walls.
One of the perks of living in Naperville is having the best utility services. Especially when it comes to electricity. If you are having trouble managing it yourself, you can always take help from a professional electrician in Naperville or wherever you happen to live.
And for doing it yourself, please follow the tips mentioned in this article.
1. Have an Electric Diagram
Before you work on the entire wire pathing for your house, it would be easier if you had a demo diagram. This will let you know which ways the wires need to go to connect the electric sockets with the power line of your house.
There are various websites and software that can help you with this issue. Such websites will allow you to create a demo design of your house and you will be able to manually check how you need to organize your wires. This even helps with the construction of the house.
A lot of people make the mistake of overlooking the electricity requirements when building a house and attending to it later only to face problems related to wiring.
You can further refine this diagram by contacting an electrician. As mentioned before, you can easily find experienced electricians in Naperville.
2. Use Different Colored Wires
Many people create this mess where they use only one type of color for all cables, such as all black wires or all blue wires. If you do this, you won’t be able to find out which wire represents what. For utmost efficiency and better efficiency, use different colors for each wire.
For example, in recent times, brown wires are used for electric connection, blue wires are used as neutral wires, and green wires are used for grounding. You can also go for the standard red-black-green wire which represents connection, neutral, and grounding wires.
3. Mark Wire Location
Now that you have a proper blueprint, you need to mark the wire locations at your wall on both sides. You can use a pencil to mark the locations of the wire. You can also write down where you want to have a duplex receptacle (dual outlet), single switch, three-way switch, or light fixture.
Be sure to mark on both sides of the wall. Otherwise, your electric wires from one room might get tangled and overlap the wires of the other room. You can easily avoid one route if you mark the wall on both sides.
4. Drill Bore Holes Around the Walls
Once all the locations are marked, you need to drill holes next to make sure that the cables and wires can smoothly pass through the wall. Without these holes, the wires will have no path to run through the wall and will need to be placed outside of the wall.
The holes need to be at least ¾ inches wide and 1 and ¼ inches away from the wall surface. If the holes do not touch the wall, they can add an extra layer of security in case your house gets a short circuit and catches electricity.
5. Thread the Cable Through the Holes
If you are thinking of how to hide cables and place them in a safe yet easy-to-access path, then this is the right method. You need to thread your wires through the holes you made and make sure they stay firm and steady.
If you need to run one wire, then it should be fairly simple. But if you need to run multiple wires through a single hole, you need to gently poke the hole with a needle to fit the wires. This is where the Naperville electricians can come to your aid. Contact them and seek their help in such delicate matters.
6. Cut Cables Accordingly
Once the cables are set through the wall, they will reach the box where you will place different sockets or switches in the future. Once you reach the box with the cables, you need to cut the cables to the right length.
This is because if you cut the cables too short, then you cannot connect them with the electric port. If they are too long, on the other hand, they will take up too much space. So, keeping a length of 12 inches is a safe bet. Once you actually place the socket, then you can cut accordingly to the right length.
7. Label Your Wires
Now, the final thing that remains is to label each wire. Because not all of your wires will be connected to one single electric device. You will have multiple electric wires that connect with the ceiling fan, the light, and other devices.
To make sure that you have all the related wires together, you need to tape them together and label them. This way, you will not create any confusion and the mistake of connecting the light wire with the fan switch will be removed.
8. Have an Electric Walkthrough
When wiring a brand new home, an electric walkthrough is the final step that you need to undertake. This is a physical inspection to check the entire layout of the electrical system. This is where you can look for any final changes, the position of switches, outlets, and fixtures. Once the walkthrough is completed, you can finally have the walls and ceiling sealed.
Final Thoughts
Wiring or rewiring has a bunch of benefits that include improving your electric system, providing better protection and safety, reducing cost, and increasing electric capacity. This is exactly why you need to know how to wire properly. We hope this article has provided the information you need to set up a good strategy for wiring your new home.
