Working with electricity in your own home is a rather difficult task, requiring a lot of experience and responsibility from a person. Putting electricity into the apartment is traditionally considered a paramount task when moving into a not yet fully finished house. Not only the health and safety of residents, but also the quality of providing housing with electricity depends on the quality of this time-consuming and rather long work.
Electricity in the apartment
Conducting electricity to the apartment and installing wiring in the apartment is perhaps the most important task of those that confront the owner of the house upon check-in. It is the electrical wiring that is first of all laid in the walls, which are only then plastered with plaster, leveled and putty with various primers, achieving a perfectly smooth surface.
Of course, the wiring diagram in the apartment directly depends on the needs of residents - not everyone in the house has powerful computers or a large number of household appliances that consume a lot of electricity. However, the very principles of conducting electric energy in housing of any type have not changed for many years.
Also, over time, the wiring diagram in the apartment does not change. Let's talk about it in more detail below.
Wiring diagram in the apartment
The main principle of conducting electricity into the house is the phasing and sequence of laying wires.
First of all, it is carried out in the living room itself. To do this, a cable is stretched from the non-drive power source to the junction box, from which the wires will be routed through the rooms. At this stage, it is extremely important to realize that the electrical circuit of the apartment must be performed incredibly accurately, since in the process of work it will no longer be possible to change anything without spoiling the walls of the house.
At the second stage, electric cables are distributed in rooms, the location of power points for electrical appliances is determined.
Consider the fact that several basic lines should be made from the base power supply line, which will allow you to correctly distribute the load, and also separate, for example, the lighting system from the power supply system of household appliances.
The third step is to wire the wires directly to the previously marked and installed power points. This stage will become simple for the installer if he has a full-fledged wiring diagram in the apartment in advance.
Planning and distribution
Before you think about laying electrical wires in your apartment, mentally distribute all the furniture, appliances and gadgets in the rooms of your home. It often happens that after conducting electricity in the house in the right place there is no outlet. To avoid this misunderstanding, take a plan of your housing in advance and distribute all devices that consume electricity in places convenient for you.
You can look in the article for examples of electrical wiring in the apartment and based on the information received create your own circuit.
After that, you can safely proceed to the planning of wiring, the installation of junction boxes and the conclusion of power points.
Take your housing plan and some colored pencils. Then, on the plan, mark the main electric line - the one along which electricity will flow into your housing. After that, mark the side electrical lines that will distribute the energy to the rooms and rooms of your home in a different color. In a third color, mark the junction of the cable directly at the places of power and the connection of electrical appliances.
Next, check your drawing for collisions or for too close the load wires. The electrical circuit of the apartment must be made in accordance with safety regulations. If there are no such places, then you can proceed to the next step.
The next step will be to make the necessary measurements and calculations that will allow you to determine the exact amount of material needed for the purchase: you will determine the length and types of wires, the number of outlets and other materials.
Add not only materials to the estimate, but also possible tools that might not be in your home arsenal, and also consider the need to purchase a protective mask and special work clothes.
Wiring Plan Apartment
Carrying an electric cable into your home is a very responsible task, so step-by-step instructions will be incredibly important for you. Wiring in an apartment is not so easy to lay. To get started, try to clean the place of work as much as possible, ideally freeing it completely. Household appliances, bulky cabinets, art objects and furniture are best removed completely from rooms and corridors. This will not only facilitate your movement and work with the material, but also allow you to work comfortably by laying wires. Also, the free space is very useful to you when measuring and dividing the wires into the necessary segments.
After cleaning the apartment from unnecessary things, thoroughly clean the walls of plaster, putty, any coatings, wallpaper or laminate. Try to get directly to the walls of the house to lay covers with an electric cable not in temporary coverings, but in load-bearing walls, which will ensure the reliability and safety of wires for a long time and save you from having to calculate the wiring in the apartment in the coming years.
The next step will be drawing on the walls of the lines marked on your drawing. It is along these lines that you will lay electrical wires. Also, be sure to mark places for distribution boxes and power points.
Having finished applying the markup, make sure once again that not only did it apply correctly, but also did not make mistakes when designing the electrical lines in your apartment. If you have not found errors, then you can safely proceed directly to the main part of the work.
Preparation for wiring in the apartment
How to conduct electricity in a new apartment? Carrying it into your home should begin with laying special channels in the walls in which you will lay containers with wires. This process is called gating. You can lay a similar channel in the wall with the help of a special tool - a chamfer, similar to a manual grinder with a very wide disk, immediately cutting out an even channel of the required depth in the wall.
Take your time and carefully cut out the required number of channels in the wall, not forgetting after completing the process to thoroughly clean them from dust, dirt and fragments of the wall covering.
It is incredibly important to maintain the perfect cleanliness of such channels, since even small impurities when entering the openings for the electric headset can cause not only its breakdown, but also a short circuit of the electric circuit.
Proceed as indicated by the wiring project you created in the apartment.
After gating, you can start laying containers for wires in the formed wall channels. To do this, you will need to install a large number of holders directly into the channel itself. It is better to do this with an interval of 15-20 centimeters. After installing the holders, you can easily insert a gutter-shaped container into the channel.
After making sure that all the channels are filled with containers, fill the empty spaces with mounting foam, which will not only provide the electrical wires with additional thermal insulation, but also reliably hold the container in the channel.
Installation of wiring in the apartment
For direct laying of electrical wires in the prepared channels, use your plan, on which you noted the types of wires and the direction of their entry. Remember that all wires must be laid in one direction in order to prevent short circuits, as the electric current always moves in one direction - from the generator to the points of consumption.
Lead the wiring line according to the plan you created (the electrical diagram of the apartment): from the source of electricity to the points of consumption. Start by removing the wires from the electrical panel to your home, then distribute the electrical line to the rooms and premises of your home. Then lead the wires to the power points of the devices.
Remember that the wiring in the junction boxes must be consistent and carefully insulated from their walls. All branching of electrical wires must be additionally insulated with a special insulating tape, eliminating the possibility of their contact with the walls of the house, and with each other in particular. Fix them as indicated by the electrical diagram of the apartment.
After all the wires have been laid in containers, once again check the thoroughness of the work, check the resulting system for compliance with the original plan, and also try to identify the mistakes made during installation.
Thorough performance of your work ensures that in the coming decades, the replacement of wiring in a three-room apartment does not threaten you.
After making sure that no errors have been made, close the lids of the containers for wires and proceed with the installation of the electric headset. Next, consider this process.
Installation of an electric headset
This operation should be started by checking the holes obtained during the gating process. Thoroughly clean the holes from dust and dirt, and also lubricate them with a special reinforcing composition to avoid possible destruction of the wall.
Before connecting the wires to outlets, remove the core and insert it firmly into the hole for the power points you have created. Next, connect the wires and carefully insulate them with insulation tape.
After completing this operation, carefully close the headset cover and secure it with the special bolt. Check the reliability of your connection and installation of the outlet. By analogy, connect all switches and electricity meters. The last step in wiring is to close the covers of sockets and switches.
Checking the wiring and connecting electrical appliances
After you have made sure that all the work on providing your home with electrical wiring is completed, you should check all the power points and energy consumption points. This is done using a voltage indicator showing the voltage level and its constancy. If both indicators are normal at each of the output points of electricity, then you can safely connect electrical appliances and household appliances, simultaneously checking the operability of each of the connected devices.
After connecting all the necessary devices, check the condition of the meter and the distribution switchboard, and also take care of checking the load on the power line. However, if you initially drew up the correct plan for the distribution of the electrical load on the wiring in your housing, and also carried out high-quality electrical lines, then there should be no overload, and the condition of the line should be normal.
Material selection
Oddly enough, but the vital point on which your health and safety directly depends is the choice of materials for wiring.
Experts recommend abandoning aluminum wires, which have recently been recognized as unsafe, and give preference to a reliable medium-sized copper cable, which is known as the best cable for electrical wiring in an apartment.
Such a cable will not only be a reliable conductor of electricity, but will also withstand any loads from household appliances and other sources of electricity consumption.
When choosing power points - sockets, it is worth considering that almost all electrical appliances are now equipped with a Shuko system plug, which is popularly called a euro plug. This means that all sockets must comply with the European standard for the diameter of the holes so that you do not have problems connecting household appliances in your home.
Preference should be given to outlets and distribution boxes made of thick, poorly heated plastic, ergonomic ceramics or textolite, which is not only a poor conductor of electricity, but also has incredible strength and durability.
All necessary materials should be purchased comprehensively, in advance, a week before the start of work and in strict accordance with the wiring plan in your home, as well as the estimate. This will allow you to simplify the process of controlling the material, as well as simplify the process of laying the power cable in your home.
House master
Before starting to lay the electric cable in your apartment, weigh the pros and cons, evaluate your own strengths, capabilities, skills and knowledge of electrical installation.
Carrying an electric cable into an apartment and distributing wires in rooms is not as simple a task as it might seem at first glance. It requires not only practical knowledge, but also considerable experience in conducting such operations.
If you are not sure of your own competence in this matter, then the only safe solution in this case is to call a special team of electricians who will not only help you make a wiring plan in your home, but also perform any work related to electricity without risking your life and health.