Saving Energy For the Future

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Category Energy Efficient Building

How to Plan Your Home Electrical System

Planning your home’s electric system is a complex process that needs you to be careful. It’s crucial to plan the installations according to your needs and expectations in anticipation of your stay. Knowing what to do from the beginning prevents unforeseen circumstances such as circuit overloading with multiple high performances and increased connector strips.

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It would help if you kept close attention to doors and open directions, fireplaces, staircases, windows, and steps. This is carried out based on a floor plan by making it as accurate as possible, and you can use a computer with software that corresponds to the plan.

Planning Your Kitchen Area

The kitchen is often the first room to plan for your electric system. It’s because of the many features involved, which consume more time as compared to other places. Put up lighting and install connections for extractor fans or freezer, microwave, refrigerator, and ovens.

The planning needs to be in a dimensional manner for easy implementation. Don’t forget to connect other utensils such as blenders, steamers, coffee machines, and toasters. If need be, you can also install a telephone in your kitchen.

Planning Bedrooms

Begin by putting lighting around your bed. Designing luminaries as wall lights will save you a lot of space. Also, consider installing more electrical outlets around the bed that you can use to charge the telephone. When done, move to the children’s rooms.

Remember that children grow very first, and you need to plan well to accommodate all their needs as they grow. For instance, you can get a heat lamp for a toddler, a desk lamp, and a computer with essential connections for the little ones.

Planning the Living Room

Pay close attention when installing an electrical system in the living room. Put in mind the sections for TV and telephone by installing the sockets in the appropriate position. Once you determine where to place the devices, look for the right place to install the internet, antenna, and loudspeaker. Be careful not to leave loose cables down the line.

Bathroom Planning

Today, most homeowners are turning their bathrooms into places of rest, more like a spa. This means the electrical installation required for the bathroom has also changed. Initially, you only needed hairdryers, a ceiling lamp, and sockets for shavers. However, things have changed, and you need to get a lot of appliances such as steam dryers, heated toilet seats, shower radios, and electric toothbrushes.

Therefore, ensure you have an adequate number of sockets to accommodate all the appliances. To avoid any issues, you can check the bathroom connection regulations to ensure you’re doing the right thing.

Smart Home System

Due to advanced technology, many homes today have more components that need proper electrical planning. They include motion detectors with cameras, light, and dimmer control systems, electric blinds, multi-room audio systems, and door-to-door communication systems. You can wire these systems by flexibly integrating them as a plugin solution so that you can move along with them as you shift to another home.

The Bottom Line

How you plan your home electrical system determines how well you do it. It looks complicated, but it becomes easier once you master the art of doing it step-by-step. Following the plan above will help you carry out your installation effectively while also observing safety measures to keep your household safe from harm. It’s always a good idea to consult with an electrician in your area.

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Six Ideas for Energy Efficient Construction

You may be unfamiliar with the term, but the passive solar design is about as old as human civilization. It involves orienting a building and working with nature to keep a structure comfortable for a minimum of energy usage instead of fighting the elements.

  1. Orient the building

Prevailing winds can impact how cold you feel in winter and how hot you are in summer. Orienting the building properly can also help a structure soak up heat from the sun in winter and minimize absorption in summer. This is done hand-in-hand with details like window choices and landscaping. It is not a choice that stands on its own.

  1. Use thermal mass

Thermal mass means having thick walls or being partially underground or similar. It serves as natural insulation to help protect the building from heat loss in winter and heat gain in summer, making it effective at maintaining a comfortable indoor temperature year-round without running an HVAC system.

  1. Heat sinks

A wall painted black and facing the winter sun can soak up a great deal of heat during the day and then radiate it into the house at night. Similarly, the right flooring can serve to soak up heat from windows or skylights during the day and radiate it back into the house at night.

  1. Windows and daylighting

worker installing a new windowSome of the above techniques work in conjunction with the proper orientation of windows to make sure the right things are getting maximum sunlight in winter and minimum in summer. Choice of windows and window positioning thus plays an important role in passive solar design with regards to managing temperature. Secondarily, proper positioning of windows can provide natural sunlight throughout the day thereby minimizing the need for artificial lighting sources. Be sure to consult with a remodeling contractor that specializes in energy efficiency. 

 

      5. Landscaping

Deciduous trees can provide shade in summer but then lose their leaves in winter, exposing the main structure to the winter sun. Evergreens are often used to create a windbreak against prevailing winter winds. Proper orientation of the building combined with strategic placement of the right kind of landscaping will cut heating and cooling costs substantially.

This kind of design used to be the default norm for building design and construction. It also gets called vernacular architecture and is strongly associated with historic regional styles, such as adobe structures in the Southwestern US states and deep porches in the rainy Southeast.

Deep porches allow for keeping windows open to create a cross breeze during frequent rainstorms in the hot, humid southeastern US. Deep porches went out of style to some degree with the rise of the air conditioner, which tells you that there is an alternative to AC.

6. Efficient HVAC Systems

All of the ideas outlined above will not entirely eliminate the need to have an HVAC system. Extreme weather conditions will demand that you have heating and cooling. Additionally, proper ventilation is important to maintain good health. Talk with an air conditioning repair service to discuss various options and proper installation. 

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