Electrical Items, Home Appliances and Emergency Device Installations by Electricians

We often buy electrical devices, home appliances and emergency devices such as smoke detectors and think that we can install them ourselves. Lots of people install these kinds of things on their own regularly and most of them do it wrong. Amateur DYI electricians are responsible for many fires and many injuries every year. Just think about it. Are you willing to risk burning you very expensive house to the ground and risking the lives of your family to save a little money on an installation? A few of the items that really need a professional installation by an electrician are listed below.

Hard-Wired Smoke Detectors

Installing hardwired smoke alarms is required by modern building code. Since there are occasionally electrical outages, the smoke alarms should include a battery backup. Nowadays most of them available on the market will have battery backup. Also, it is better if the smoke alarms are the linked type, where if one goes off, all the alarms sound. If your home doesn’t already have these installed and you want to install them, you will need to run concealed wiring into every room in the house as well as at least one per every large open space and two if you have two floors. This is a fairly major undertaking and is every bit as difficult as installing new lights where none exists. It is complicated work that will need to be done safely and within building codes. Also, you can pretty much be assured that at some point, for either selling the home for insurance purposes, that wiring will get inspected. If it is not up to standard, you will have to pay an electrician to redo it. Besides that, it is just safer to let a professional handle electrical work, especially when it concerns safety devices.

RCD Safety Switches Installation

An RCD is a device meant primarily to protect people. By that I mean it is meant to detect ground faults that are potentially hazardous to people. For instance. You have an electric water shower heater. If there is water leaking inside that contacts one of the energized electrical wires, that electrical current may travel through the water, through your head down out your feet and follow the water to a metal pipe. This circuit is now traveling through your body and it creates a ground fault condition. If you have RCDs installed in the home or water heater, you will likely feel a short shock, the RCD on the circuit will trip and cut the power to the water heater and you will be fine. If you do not have proper RCDs installed you might need better life insurance because things can go much worse. RCBO switches are similar to RCDs except that they also protect the circuit from overloading, which protects you as well as the wiring. Code requires that RCDs and RCBOs be installed by certified electricians and it is very dangerous for untrained people to attempt this on their own. To have RCDs and RCBOs installed or replaced please contact a nearby electrical professional who is certified and licensed.

Ceiling Fan Installation

People regularly install ceiling fans without the aid of an electrician. Some get it right, some get it wrong, and some you see on the news. Ceiling fans are great. They are very useful for keeping the air mixed well so that HVAC systems can do a better job. You do need to be careful to be sure that the wiring and the electrical circuit that the fan is on can handle the wattage of the fan. Fans tend to pull many more watts than a light, so the original wiring may not support a fan. Also, the light fixture itself may not be sturdy enough, in which case you need to upgrade the fixture to one that can handle the weight of a fan. Ceiling fans and their fixtures are quite heavy and should be solidly mounted to a stud beam. If they are not, they might suddenly come down one day and hurt someone.

In any of the above listed installations, you may get the idea from watching YouTube that it is fast, safe and easy to do it yourself, but when it comes to electrical work, unless you really know what you are doing you are gambling with your safety. It is much better to call a professional electrician if you have any reservations or doubts at all.