Double Storey Side Extension Electricals advice?

fezster

All electrical work will come under building regulations. You can have Sockets and lighting all put in as part of your building regs plan which will eventually be signed off. This means you have to employ an electrician who is qualified to do this. I would suggest you have a discussion with whoever you contract to do your building work to go through all of these questions and get an expert opinion on all of your questions.

With regards to powerline adapters - these are not a good gauge of how good your electrical installation is! There are a number of reasons why they may not function very well, from the quality of the adapters, to the layout of your electrical circuits. I'd take the opportunity to run Cat5E cable around the house, as said above.

bery_451

Cheers for the advice there. Im at the stage now of buying electrical components for the electrician to fit. Going screwfix after the weekend and like to know regarding dimmable led lights especially led downlights.

macman

Your sparky will be able to buy them at a much better rate at his trade counter than you can at Screwfix. And many will not want to install items not supplied by them, since they are responsible for signing off the overall system.

bery_451

We agreed with the electrician for us to supply the parts and the electrician is contracted for labour charges only because we prefer to get good quality parts backed up by good reviews at screwfix instead of risking with the electrician buying inferior made in china parts that can cause a fire hazard.

All tradesmen top priority is profit so made in china parts are more likely to be purchased following this priority.

So we are at the stage of educating ourselves on parts/components/specs so we have confidence on the parts we buy our safe and quality that will last long hence the questions we pose in this thread.

glennevis

"If I decide to get solar panels in future then will solar panels be compatible or what shall I look for to make it compatible?"

Make sure you buy a consumer unit with two spare tails. That's all you need at this stage.

System

You can of course tell the electrician what components to buy and they will get them at their trade price... I've found the good reviews on screwfix aren't the most reliable things, better to speak to people in the trade to see what they would recommend - mk brand are a fairly consistent manufacturer in terms of quality

ComicGeek

Good tradesmen use the right product for the job, as return visits to fix/place need to be avoided, it's not about profit on the product itself.

Google research is not the way to pick products yourself if you have no experience in this area. Lights are slightly different, but how are you going to decide what type of consumer unit to buy?? Personally I don't think that the electrician should agree to install what you buy, they should choose the most appropriate unit themselves.

bery_451

glennevis wrote: »

"If I decide to get solar panels in future then will solar panels be compatible or what shall I look for to make it compatible?"

Make sure you buy a consumer unit with two spare tails. That's all you need at this stage.

I assume the popular selling consumer units at screwfix have 2 spare tails as standard?

ComicGeek

And that's exactly why you shouldn't be buying this yourself. Not to belittle you, but if you don't know what this means then I would suggest that you get the electrician to buy it.

bery_451

I understand what you mean.

At one point in my life I didnt know nothing about cars. Took it to a reputable garage for a oil service, mechanic said you need this and so and so oil and my response to that is I think about it.

So decided to go home and research and bought my own oil which is far superior to what the mechanic is offering plus it is much cheaper.

So theres no harm in self educating especially when there's internet available to take opportunity of self educating.

Its people like me go on the internet to self educate and kind people online providing answers to questions makes websites like these important.