Determining Your Electrical Needs for Your New House

When we visited my Mom when we got home from Singapore, I was surprised with the many extension cords in her room. They were plugged in from other rooms and I was really concerned with what was plugged in the extension cords. It was a jaw-dropping discovery. 

A small refrigerator and the aircon on another extension cord.

What?!?!?

60-year old outlet. It included a 110 volt socket which was common in the 70s

I was just thankful that no untoward incident has happened. They probably did that even during the pandemic. I immediately had a licensed electrician check everything. The house was built in 1970 and it definitely did not take into consideration any newer appliances. 

Modern outlet of a hotel. We're skipping the ones with USB options since that changes quite frequently. We'll stick to traditional ones and just work on keeping them out of sight

Anyway, the shock probably contributed to my heart deteriorating further. We also did an electrical audit for our new home. The house was deemed a fire hazard and so we had to re-wire everything and changed all the cheap lights installed on the renovated house. 

Research on brands. Did you know electricians prefer Panasonic for outlets and switches?

We learned a lot from that experience and we followed this process when we were given the floor layout:

• Listed all appliances per room
• Marked where all the appliances were to be placed per room
• A sheet listing all appliances and gadgets
• A separate sheet listing  air conditioner placement
• CCTV placement (check with your provider if it gets its power from the server or requires it's own plug)
• Network needs (internet is more important nowadays than a phone line)
• Outdoor needs for your laundry area and garage and lights for your garden if you need it
• Noted what kind of outlets we needed, i.e.  universal outlets for kitchen appliances and placement of energy guzzling appliances like the fridge, oven and microwave
• We followed most of the planned lighting and just added some wall mounted lights outdoor. We also decided to use smart lighting sparingly (less fuss = less stuff to think about and replace in the future).

#BeKind #StaySafe