Home Renovations: Tips From An Electrician
Thinking about renovating your home? Or maybe not your whole house? Just a kitchen or bathroom or even a study (we all work from home these days). Here are some ideas from a home renovation electrician to help you.
Renovating can be nothing but a huge headache, filled with drama and excitement. Mostly excitement at the end result but dealing with multiple trades and deadlines and stock shortages and not to mention the almighty cost of is all… and now you wonder why you feel like running a mile just at thought of the sheer scale of it all.
Yes, renovation projects can be daunting, but they can be so rewarding too.
What you need is to engage professional tradespeople that know what they are doing, communicate clearly and know how to work with you and your budget.
Renovating any room requires multiple skill sets including yours to get to the end product.
That’s why choosing the right plumber, painter, carpenter, builder, electrician etc can be crucial to how big your headache will be. Have you seen those news articles on Current Affair? You don’t want to be left with the disappointment and costly mistakes incompetent tradespeople can leave you with when their expertise doesn’t match your requirements. Ever heard of the phrase ‘You pay peanuts…’
At South East Electrical Services, our team of electrical qualified technicians have over twenty-plus years of experience each and have completed hundreds of home renovation projects since our beginning in 2002. We have the experience to understand your requirements, quote accurately, communicate from the time you engage us until the job is completed to your satisfaction. We are also well versed in working alongside other trades to get the job done.
Here are some examples of the type of electrical work that you may need for your home renovation:
1. New Lighting Installation
Are you tried of seeing those old round lights on your kitchen or bathroom ceiling? Or how about those beam lights where the lights point in different directions? Not trendy at all.
Installing new light fittings can create that ‘new’ feeling you need to spruce up your space. Downlights and pendant lights are the new in thing at the moment as seen on the Block this season.
New lighting installations generally require new wiring to the location where you want the lights to be positioned and the amount of skill and expertise required would depend on the type of light fitting.
Downlights are quicker and easier to install, whereas pendant lights need to be hung from a certain spot, need to be spaced evenly and need to be hung at a certain height to create the effect you are after.
Think about downlights as the lighting you need to give your space light and pendant or decorative lights as the lights that add to your interior design vibe.
Both are great add value options to your home and especially key when you are thinking about selling your home. Beauty is in eye of the beholder.
2. Appliance installation or relocation
Whether you are spoiling yourself with a brand new, state of the art stove and oven that will be envy of everyone or keeping your old tried and tested, kitchen renovations could include appliance installation and/or relocation.
What we mean by this is let’s say your stove is currently located at the back end of your kitchen and you want to move it to the front, that means your electrical and power needs to be moved to the new location as well.
Yes, you could save by just keeping your layout the same – just a simple take out existing appliance, insert new kitchen re-model, and re-insert the appliances in the same place, but what is the fun in that when you wanting to cook right in front of the breakfast bar?
The best way to understand what type of financial and time impact your new kitchen layout will be is to request for two to three qualified electricians to come out, evaluate your current and new layout and give you a quote on cost and time required so you can factor in whether or not your new soft touch cooktop should be installed on the kitchen island.
The reason we recommend you get two to three quotes is because you can use each quote as a benchmark to evaluate each skill set based on the time and cost they quote.
It’s the best way to confirm that you are choosing the best electrician for the job.
3. Power point relocation
During any home renovation, the functionality of any room is based on where your furniture and décor will be positioned. For example, you may want your floor lamp to be in the right hand corner of your living room next to your new armchair or if your kettle will be next to the fridge when originally it was next to the cupboard.
Relocating the access to power for your appliances and electrical décor items (items that plug into a wall socket) depends on a few factors such as where the existing power points are and where they need to move to or if you need extra ones and if the electrician can access the space required to install one.
There are a variety of power point types in the market like USB port power points, double power points, single power points and even automatic power points which work on a timer to switch on at a certain time each day.
The rule of thumb with power points is that it is cheaper to install a power point next to an existing one but more expensive, due to the extra wiring required, to install a power point in a new location.
It is so cool to see our customers having fun when they colour code their light and power point fixtures. Black is trending at the moment as well as brushed brass and sliver. Great design aspects for your modern home.
4.Outdoor power and lighting solutions
Outdoor weatherproof power and lighting options can enhance your outdoor living areas. By installing lighting, it prolongs your ability to spend more time outdoors in the comfort of your backyard, so it’s a great investment.
Weatherproof power points can be useful if you are looking at installing an outdoor spa or an additional cooking space like the ones you see on the Weber catalogues.
A simple outdoor ceiling fan can also create a simple design upgrade for your alfresco area and be great for source of relief on those humid and hot nights and the air just stands still.
On the Gold Coast, outdoor living is apart of our daily lifestyle including having a power source for our boat in the front of our homes. Yes, we install power solutions for your jetty as well to ensure your safety is not compromised when you decide to live the ultimate Gold Coast dream.
5. Are you working from home?
The world of work has definitely changed since 2020. With the rise of more people working from home, ergonomic and functional at home office setups are by far one of the most important contributors to having a successful day ‘in office.
Many of our customers contact us to enquire about their options to add more equipment to their space and stabilise their internet connection to ensure they can be more productive during their workday.
Some of the most popular requests we get are installation of new data points and installation of more power points because using electrical extension leads and multiply plugs that run through your home is not only a trip hazard, but they can be unsightly. The last thing you want to do is have to pack up your cables every time someone is coming over.
If you have a permanent workspace in your home, then adding in additional power points could help you gain access to a more direct and safer power source than running extra cables. Also, it can limit interruptions every time someone else needs to use the power point you are currently running your extension lead off of.
Accessing a data point can help you stabilise your internet connection and makes your internet speed run faster than if you relied on a wireless connection. Great for uninterrupted zoom meetings.
Yes, renovations can be hard. Your marriage, patience and even your pet’s well-being will be tested but if managed correctly and you work with the right trades people that outline the risk before hand then it could be relatively smooth sailing.
Our team is ready to take your call and answer any of the questions you may have. We even offer a free quote service so that we can start giving you the piece of mind you need to achieve the renovation of your dreams.
