Electrical Checklist for Your New Home
When moving into a new home, there are so many things you will have to do. Designing the interior and unpacking your stuff is the first item on the list. Next, you’ll have to change the lock on your doors to ensure the safety of both your family and your property. Lastly, you need to check the installations in your home. Ideally, you would do this while looking for the place to buy but your options to do so are quite limited before you actually own the place. Afterward, nonetheless, you have all the time in the world, as well as the freedom to bring in professionals of your own choosing. With that in mind and without further ado, here’s an electrical checklist for your new home.
1. Light
Upon inspecting your hew home, make sure that you check all the lights around the place. It might be best to wait for the evening and then try turning on all the lights, room by room. For starters, you need to check whether any of the light fixtures (or bulbs) are dead. Some less frequently used lights are easy to miss while inspecting the place the first time around. Second, you should probably look for flickering lights, which might indicate a problem with wiring or power source. Lastly, consider whether the intensity of light and positioning of fixtures suit you.
2. Power sockets
The next major issue is the problem regarding the power sockets in your home. There are two potentially problematic issues here. For instance, there may not be enough power sockets. This often happens with older homes, seeing as how a couple of decades ago, households didn’t have nearly as many appliances as they do today. The second potential problem lies in finding sockets in odd places. The intended layout of the home may not be what you have in mind with the place so make sure to take this into consideration.
3. Look for professional help
There is only so much that a layman can visually notice regarding the electrical checklist of the household in question. There’s also the issue of future development and projects regarding your home. For instance, do you plan to install solar panels in the future? Do you want to install exterior security lights? Do you intend to change your heating system anytime in the future? Whether or not your new home is up to the task (regarding any of these issues), is not something that you can answer on your own. This is why finding professional electrical services is so important.
4. Your specific needs
Another issue worth addressing is one of your specific needs. For instance, if you need some extra cables in the room, you might need some extra outlets, seeing as how extension cords and splits aren’t the safest of options. This is especially true if you need to plug in something extremely power-hungry (like an electric heater). Then, there’s the issue of using an area of your home as a workshop. Some power-hungry tools may need a bit stronger (more stable) source of power. All of these are situational and a swift course of action allows you to customize your home to your own needs.
5. Room-by-room evaluation
Chances are that you don’t need the same power structure in every room in your home. This is why you need to make a room-by-room checklist. This way, you can break this process of evaluation into fragments. Make a micro-list for your living room, kitchen, bedroom, laundry, hallway, garage, and make one list for your exterior lights. The thing is that each of these rooms has a certain set of requirements to fulfill in order to be considered functional. This way, you can ensure that every room fulfills your needs.
6. Look for warning signs
Warning signs that something’s wrong can be seen either through odd smells (burnt), weird (buzzing) noises, or discoloration around sockets. This is not just a thing of functionality but a legitimate concern for you to keep in mind. This way, you reduce the risk of electrocution and risk of household fire caused by faulty installations. Moreover, you prevent an expensive appliance malfunction caused by preventable power shortages. All in all, there’s so much benefit to being careful with your home’s power.
7.check the wiring
Unfortunately, even a brand new home should be checked for the negative effects of user error. If the previous owner was delinquent in making roofing repairs, you’ll find some problems in your attic space. Likewise, if the previous owner overloaded the circuits regularly, there are also signs of this in attic or basement areas.
Overloading circuits that don’t have circuit breakers may result in overheating and melting insulation, which is able to remain a controversy even after the circuit load is returned to a secure level. they’ll have also treated outlets poorly or taken shortcuts when having repairs are done, which may end in unsafe conditions. Check all outlets for damage, and be especially wary of outlets that appear to not be working—this can be an indication of a poor connection or broken wires that would be a significant safety hazard. If all of your wirings are up so far and in good shape, you ought to have nothing to stress about. that is if you wish to live life unplugged.
Unfortunately, most homes don’t have their wiring updated frequently enough to keep pace with the ever-growing electrical needs of modern life. Our laptops, monitors, TVs, cable receivers, internet receivers, hairdryers, cell phones, tablets, kindles, just to name some, all need electricity.
you’ll likely have to install additional outlets in an older house (even one that isn’t very old) to accommodate all of your gadgets, so ensure you know how much you’ll have to invest to accommodate your power requirements.
Wiring doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker for your new house, but it should be considered when calculating the price of your new house. If significant improvements are needed, check with the vendor to negotiate including the price of electrical work into the value you pay money for the house. after you enter your new home, make certain that it’s safe and really meets all of your needs.
In conclusion
In the end, the questions about your electrical grid, affect both your safety and the safety of your home. A risk of electrocution or household fire caused by a faulty socket/wire/appliance is something that can be avoided (or at least the risk can be minimized) if you were just to check the place in time. Don’t avoid hiring a professional to help you out, seeing as how there’s only much that you can notice as a layman. When it comes to your home and your family, no amount of caution can be seen as excessive.
Author Bio
Allan Wickerson is a passionate blog writer who is extremely keen on writing about health, lifestyle, home improvement, and technology. His exclusive hobby is surfing the net to find amazing articles that can inspire him with some fresh ideas for article writing. He is also a fitness and health enthusiast. He loathes being a common person who wastes his time. Follow him on Twitter.
