Electrical Work

On electrical system and the different fittings and connections associated prompt us to think about the planning of office, retail, residential the electrical requirements as an interior designer.

Each of the circuits in the house is designed and rated to carry a certain amount of power (it is rated in amperes), this means that a certain number of appliances or fittings can use the circuit at one time before it becomes unsafe. If more power is being taken through the circuit then the wires can get too hot and melt causing an electrical fire. This is the reason that we have fuses or circuit breakers in the distribution board. They act as a safety device to stop the power going through the circuit, if the circuit can’t handle it. Standard breakers which include both single-pole and double-pole circuit breakers, ground fault circuit interrupter circuit breakers and arc fault circuit interrupter circuit breakers as well. In the case of MCB, MCCB, RCB, RCCB, ELCB they trip if there is too much current going through them and a must for electrical system. If there is too much current going through them then they are like a spring-loaded switch, which cuts off the circuit if it is unsafe. On the circuit the appliances such as the dishwasher, waste disposal, fridge and microwave will be plugged into it. Items such as the oven and hot water cylinder will have their own circuits, as they tend to draw a great deal more current than most other appliances combined. All these appliances and fittings will be connected to the circuit separately from a plug on the appliance fitting into a socket on the circuit.

Lighting circuits are different. The lights are permanently connected to the circuit but the power won’t feed into the circuit until the light switch is turned on. The amount of light fittings to the circuit is critical as are the types of light fitting.

As with an appliance circuit, the lighting circuits are rated for a number of fittings as well. Not only can the light circuit be overloaded but more importantly from the designers perspective optimization is of utmost importance for lights to enhance the efficiency as planned for.

If there are too many fittings on a single circuit then they may blaze softly or trip transformers these days. For lighting we focus on following as deemed fit.