Detailed electrical wiring & lighting plan

hexosan

As the title suggests I'm looking for someone to do a detailed electrical & lighting plan for a domestic new build.

What professional is this best suited to or should I get the lighting design done separate.

I would also like to include some home automation or again should this be seperate.

Welcome any recommendations by PM

Tefral

I'd ring up someone like -snip- They do a lot of the M&E stuff in Ireland.

hexosan

Any idea of the approx cost to get something like this done up. Ballpark

neilc

hexosan wrote: »

As the title suggests I'm looking for someone to do a detailed electrical & lighting plan for a domestic new build.

What professional is this best suited to or should I get the lighting design done separate.

I would also like to include some home automation or again should this be seperate.

Welcome any recommendations by PM

Any good electrician will be able to advise you very well. In my opinion KNX is the best home automation system out there, PM me if you want some details.

Drift

I did a lot of investigation into home automation for my own build and it's awkward because there is a lack of standards and a lot of different products/suppliers in the market. To summarise briefly what I discovered:

1. The tidiest, cleanest option is to get one of the companies who supply a full package to look at your drawings and advice you. - The only problem is if you go with them you will be tied to whatever proprietary stuff they use. It's also expensive.

2. You can try to assemble a home automation system yourself by buying the various bits and using open source software to control it. - The downside of this approach it that it's hard work that you have to do yourself and there are no guarantees with regards to interoperability and you need a good electrician who is willing to work with you and advise you re standards etc.

This is a bit of a simplified summary - there are obviously many many options in between using various combinations of items.

Which bits of the build are you looking to automate?

• Heating - Fairly Easy with modern control systems
• Lighting - Fairly easy but requires upfront costs and adjustments to the "normal" practices
• Curtains/Blinds - Bit of a pain in the arse
• Door Locks - Not difficult but again requires extra wiring above the norm

neilc

Drift wrote: »

I did a lot of investigation into home automation for my own build and it's awkward because there is a lack of standards and a lot of different products/suppliers in the market. To summarise briefly what I discovered:

1. The tidiest, cleanest option is to get one of the companies who supply a full package to look at your drawings and advice you. - The only problem is if you go with them you will be tied to whatever proprietary stuff they use. It's also expensive.

2. You can try to assemble a home automation system yourself by buying the various bits and using open source software to control it. - The downside of this approach it that it's hard work that you have to do yourself and there are no guarantees with regards to interoperability and you need a good electrician who is willing to work with you and advise you re standards etc.

This is a bit of a simplified summary - there are obviously many many options in between using various combinations of items.

Which bits of the build are you looking to automate?

• Heating - Fairly Easy with modern control systems
• Lighting - Fairly easy but requires upfront costs and adjustments to the "normal" practices
• Curtains/Blinds - Bit of a pain in the arse
• Door Locks - Not difficult but again requires extra wiring above the norm

KNX ticks all boxes mentioned above Heating, Lighting,Blinds, Locks, Intruder etc... The system is completely open protocol with all the major electrical manufacturers (ABB, Siemens etc) buying into it. Visualisation systems are now also commonly available for remote control etc..

hexosan

Drift wrote: »

I did a lot of investigation into home automation for my own build and it's awkward because there is a lack of standards and a lot of different products/suppliers in the market. To summarise briefly what I discovered:

1. The tidiest, cleanest option is to get one of the companies who supply a full package to look at your drawings and advice you. - The only problem is if you go with them you will be tied to whatever proprietary stuff they use. It's also expensive.

2. You can try to assemble a home automation system yourself by buying the various bits and using open source software to control it. - The downside of this approach it that it's hard work that you have to do yourself and there are no guarantees with regards to interoperability and you need a good electrician who is willing to work with you and advise you re standards etc.

This is a bit of a simplified summary - there are obviously many many options in between using various combinations of items.

Which bits of the build are you looking to automate?

• Heating - Fairly Easy with modern control systems
• Lighting - Fairly easy but requires upfront costs and adjustments to the "normal" practices
• Curtains/Blinds - Bit of a pain in the arse
• Door Locks - Not difficult but again requires extra wiring above the norm

I'm looking to automate the heating, lighting and I want to conect the TV & computers back to one central controller.

hexosan

I was in touch with willie Dugan lighting in Kilkenny about a lighting wiring diagram for the house. Seems like it's going to be expensive their to get back this week.

Anyone have any other companies I can contact that do electrical & lighting diagrams. My electric is good but he's used to just doing standard lighting and wiring.

Any suggestions welcome.

Drift

With regards to the lighting - when I was looking into it myself I found that it was usually activated and deactivated by controllers at the fuse board - this meant that a slightly different type of wiring was required for the lighting than a normal house and that each set of lights that I wanted to control separately had to have their own link back to the board.

(I'm not sure if all the systems do it this way.)