Electrician's Tips for New Home Buyers | Some purchasers of new houses plan everything down to where they will put each chair, table and lamp. But very few of these conscientious buyers carry the planning through to the very last step - plugging the lamp or coffee maker into the wall. If they did, they would save quite a bit of cash, observed Ann Arbor, Mich., electrician Marj Schloff, who has worked with many new homeowners after they moved in and discovered they didn't have outlets where they needed them.
This problem most often occurs in large family rooms because people tend to group furniture in the center of the room rather than against the wall, Schloff said. After they've finally put the furniture in place, the new owners find there's no outlet nearby. The only alternative to an unsightly cord running across the rug, which can also be a trip hazard, is installing a floor outlet. "But if I have to cut a hole in the nice, brand new carpet without damaging it, and then cut a hole in the floor for the outlet box and run the wiring, the job will cost about two times what it would have if I had done this during construction," Schloff said.
With such a centered furniture arrangement, it's possible to dispense with table lamps altogether if you add recessed fixtures in the ceiling. But, as with the floor outlets, this will be very expensive if you add them after your house is finished, Schloff said. Adding overhead fixtures later means cutting holes in the ceiling, running wires to a wall switch and tying them into an existing circuit. Should a new circuit be required, you also have to run a wire to the panel box, she added. After the work is completed and all the drywall dust is vacuumed up, the effect will be nice, but the charge can easily be two to four times what it would have been if the fixtures were installed before the drywall went up, she estimated.
Schloff also gets calls from new homeowners who want her to add kitchen outlets because they discovered when they put their appliances up against the backsplash, the plugs and cords got in the way.
Envisioning how you will use the kitchen and exactly where you want the outlet for the coffee maker or mixer at the time the outlets are installed is hard, Schloff acknowledged, because the house is at the framing stage and all you see are 2 by 4-inch studs. She recommended that owners first study the kitchen and the outlet locations that they are using now. Then they need to study their builder's electrical drawings, which locate all the switches and outlets in the house. Getting the kitchen outlets exactly where you want them will take the electrician longer, so you may have to pay extra for this, but the ease with which you can work in your new kitchen makes the added cost worth it, Schloff said.
Planning ahead for exterior lighting will also avoid headaches later, especially during the Christmas season, Schloff noted. Although some buyers request wiring for outside security lights, no one ever thinks about hanging Christmas lights outside until the holidays arrive. Adding wiring expressly for this during construction will make this task much easier and avoid dangling cords everywhere, she pointed out. For example, if you like to put lights along the eaves just below the roof line, add wiring and an outlet there.
In most cases planning ahead with an electrician saves owners the much higher cost of installation after the house is finished. But sometimes planning ahead can save considerably more cash than that. One example is whirlpool tubs. Many new home buyers get one, spending as much as $2,500, not because they want it, but because of resale concerns. A far less costly alternative is to install the wiring only and leave it up to subsequent owners to install the jets and motor if they wish, Schloff suggested. Since some building officials do not like to have wiring that is not hooked up to anything, you need to check this possibility with your local building department first, she said. If they are amenable, the cost for wiring the tub, which would include adding a separate circuit for it, should cost less than $200.
Since households, especially those with home offices, will inevitably become more technically sophisticated in the future, Schloff also recommended adding excess cable and phone capacity in your new house. The extra wiring can usually be installed at minimal cost during construction and tapped for use when the time comes.
To get up to six separate phone lines in your new house, you need to be sure that the person who is installing your phone wiring - most likely your builder's electrician - is using "24 gauge, 6 pair category 3 wiring," explained Jim Farmer of GTE in Sarasota, Fla. The more commonly used "3 pair category 3 wiring" is less expensive, but it limits you to only three phone lines, he said.
Some new home buyers with more sophisticated home office needs request "6 pair category 5 wiring," Farmer noted. With this, they can have a computer network within their house as well as the ability to communicate with main frame computers all over the U.S. Getting the wiring though, is considerably more expensive because it's harder to install. Some buyers have also requested this wiring upgrade because they anticipate new computer technology becoming available which requires it, he added.
Although cable Internet can be accessed from the same cable outlet as your TV, most people do not want all these functions in the same place, noted Bruce Wadkins, a Plymouth, Mich., technician for Media One, one of the largest cable companies in the country. For the rooms where you might be doing both activities, he suggested getting two outlets on different walls.
Your builder's electrician will most likely be installing the cable wiring as well as the telephone wiring. To get the best quality reception, you need to be certain that he is using more expensive 100 percent shielded coaxial cable, Wadkins said. Otherwise you will get "signal leakage." You can pick up CB radio transmissions from cars passing your house as well as suffer inferior picture quality in the computer or TV at the far end of the house from where the cable comes in, he explained.
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