Electrical Design

briaineo

Hi

We're finished with our architect he was only commissioned up to planning stage.

Who might be best to design the wiring for the house, I presume a qualified reci electrician would be but looking for a good design don't want important sockets or lights omitted from the design.

Thanks

BryanF

On domestic stuff this typically down by the arch as part of tender/construction drawings

SC024

I would put a lot of thought in yourself & mark it out with input from electrician. Ie Am I missing anything?

briaineo

SC024 wrote: »

I would put a lot of thought in yourself & mark it out with input from electrician. Ie Am I missing anything?

Thanks, started that yesterday, when I said design; I ment best location for lighting: a few bulbs will light any room but with proper positioning and different lighting fixtures you can illuminate a room via wall and floor lights...

Not sure the average spark would be too good at this bit! Or would they?

JimmyMW

briaineo wrote: »

Thanks, started that yesterday, when I said design; I ment best location for lighting: a few bulbs will light any room but with proper positioning and different lighting fixtures you can illuminate a room via wall and floor lights...

Not sure the average spark would be too good at this bit! Or would they?

I found it difficult to get someone to do this by actually putting pen to paper, loads want to visit site and just mark walls etc however no one seems to properly design it on paper (private domestically speaking).

Larger architectural practices who mainly work in large commercial buildings (offices etc) do quite a bit of work for lighting design however it seems to all be based on experience and no actual calculations of lux levels etc. Nevertheless I cant imagine they would have any interest in a private domestic project unless you were offering a substantial fee.

Dardania

An electrical building services engineer would do it. In a past life I did it a lot - there's some skill to it (including all the calcs that go into it)

A possible route for you would be to get a lightning supplier to do it for you if you commit to buying their lights.

If you want, throw up the architects layouts and I'll see if I can make a few suggestions

Sausage dog

Some lighting suppliers will draw up a detailed lighting plan for you....I know there's one in Kilkenny that do it, but their lights are at the more expensive/designer end of the market. Perhaps an interior designer would do it.

mrsWhippy

We had a domestic lighting scheme and switching circut put together by a lighting designer based in Bray. Fairly pricy but something I wasn't willing to leave to chance to get right. We decided to source the actual light fittings through our builder who offered a much better price than said designer but well worth it imo.

irishfire

If you want to throw up an architect's layout and a rough idea of what style of light you want in each room I can run it through lighting design software to give you an idea of the lux levels etc.

As for small power and data points, get a set of plans and Mark in some furniture as a guess, work from there. Don't be afraid of having 1 or 2 extra in places, sockets will never go astray in a home!

Remember that network points can be used for hdmi so include more than 1 of them at tv points (eg 1 for data and 1 for hdmi).

And most importantly, Mark out that your network points are patched into a panel at a central point in the house, and that there is a provision for the phone line to be brought to there for your modem to be placed.

If you want to use a landline then fit network points where you may want it situated, your electrician will make you a custom cable that goes from rj45 to rj11 for the phone, and if you change your mind later then you have a spare network point that can do voip or whatever else you may want.

A final note, if your network cabling and modem are not located fairly centrally in your house, or you're planning a large house, think about having 1 or 2 network points just above the ceiling to allow you to fit access points to get proper wifi coverage.

Any other questions just ask