Electrical Design - Building Services

Electrical Services Design is relatively straight forward if you come from a trade background and easy to pick up if you invest some time and effort.

Regs/Standards:
• National Rules for Electrical Installations, ET101:2008 (Irish electrical wiring regulations)
• I.S. 3127:2013 (Irish Emergency Lighting Regulations)
• I.S. 3128:2008 (Irish Fire Detection System Regulations)
• BS EN 12464-1:2011 (British Standards for lighting)


Design Guides
• CIBSE (UK) publish design guidelines which are not to be interpreted as regulations but they are very well presented covering every topic you can think . e.g. CIBSE Lighting Design Guide.
• Search Google for Cooper Emergency Lighting Guide, Cooper Fire Alarm Design Guide and you will find nice and short technical documents covering these areas.
• For lightning protection look up Furse. They provide good technical literature (and products) .


Industry Software (some of it)
• Lighting design - DIALux, Relux
• Building Information Modelling (BIM) - Autodesk Revit or Autodesk MEP
• Standard 2D designs are done in AutoCAD which is what the two Autodesk products above are based on.
• Sustainable Design - IES VE Pro (can do BER calculations)
• Protective Coordination and Cable sizing - Amtech Pro Design. Its not cheap btw. It wont do much outside what I mentioned. If you are looking to perform load flow studies, dynamic simulations etc you will have to look to different software.
• I think Schneider have free software that does coordination (using Schneider products).

Any questions don't hesitate to ask.

You are right! Fair comment - ETCI would mean very little to a person not in the trade/game.

No problem.

As 2011 pointed out the ET101:2008 Regulations can be bought from ETCI. They are not available in PDF format.

I.S. 3127 and I.S. 3128 are available online but I don't think they are free. If you have access to a third level institution library then they are usually available free through one of the knowledge portals. The same goes for the IEEE (Xplore Library) and CIBSE publications - free access for third level students.

Its worth looking through IEEE Xplore Library if you can gain access to it as thats one of the places engineering research is published. Depending on the area you work in it can be an excellent resource to have at your disposal.

RE Hospitals etc - the wiring regulations will be the same for the most part but there are additional regulations that must be met that you would not find in your typical installation. Earthing requirements would be a special area also.

Lighting would be different lux levels and the fittings themselves may have to be IP rated I think. Its been a while since I have worked in this area so I stand to be corrected by fellow members.

If you can't get hold of any information pm me your email address and il check through my library at the weekend to see I have anything of interest.

I would recommend you get hold of a small building layout and attempt to design the electrical services from scratch. It would be a great exercise to learn from and you could make a little portfolio of your work to bring to interviews. Interviewers love to see your work and it makes for a great conversation during the interview itself.

There are many knowledgeable members in the Electrical/Engineering forum who would be more than happy to help you along the way.