There is a bit of confusion in West Australia about changes to Safety Switch and Smoke Detector rules.
References:
Drop me a line, or comment below if you are unsure of what is happening
Every Aussie man needs a shed, and every shed needs power. Imagine this: it’s 9.00PM on a Sunday night in winter. Your lovely wife sends you to the shed to find that wedding present ornament. You stroll down to the shed, flick on the light switch, complete your task, and you’re away.
Not at your shed? Getting power to sheds is cheaper than you think. For an easy 5 metre dig to a shed, a double power point would cost about $250AUD. Compare this to the risk of extension cords, and the convenience of not having to run them, and it’s peanuts.
The time to think about this is before paving or turf goes down. The dig gets harder the more obstacles that are in the way.
Before you paint. Light switches and power points can get grubby as time passes. However light switches look grubbier because they are at eye level. Complete switches can be expensive, but here’s a tip; get an electrician to replace the switch plates only before your paint job. I reckon about $50 of materials and $150 of labour will do it.
You get a good look, and new switch plates with click-off covers for future painting. The trick is to make sure it gets done before painting starts.
I love installing extra new phone points. 
They are easy to get an installer’s licence for. And they are also fairly easy to install. But they are often unnecessary.
Let me explain why. Before broadband people had one phone line for telephone calls, and one for fax/internet. After broadband one line for calls and internet was plenty.
But the the big breakthrough was the introduction of cheap, portable home phone systems. Our latest 2 handpiece Uniden from Dick Smiths was less than $90.
So, how do you arrange things so you only need one phone line? You put your broadband modem and the portable phone base station at the phone point. If you’re lucky, or if you have a wireless router, the phone point is at the right place to use the computer and internet.
Problem is, in new houses the phone point is installed above the kitchen bench. Just right for your new 1970′s phone, but bad for using the internet.
You can get your new house phone point put wherever you like. But if your house is not new, and the phone point is not right for using the internet, you can get a new phone point installed.
Better still get a wireless router. 
If all this is too much too follow, drop a comment to this blog with some specific questions. Just click on the comment box below the headline of this blog.
In our post about “How to Reset Your Safety Switch” we said we would talk more about the difference between safety switches and other household protection devices. Here we go.
Safety switches protect people against electric shock. But what about protecting the wiring in the house? Our wiring needs protection against two main power problems.
The wiring protection in both cases is done by a circuit breaker, or a rewire-able fuse in older installations.
You can get Safety Switch/Circuit Breaker combinations these days. They still work the same in a common housing.
So, we have talked about two types of household protection devices: Safety Switches and Circuit Breakers. Next week we will talk about a third protection device, the surge protector. Cheers until then.
While mounting a power inverter for a solar home power system today, I was struck by the idea of how stealable these things are.
They do have these anti-theft precautions:
Still they are a very portable , and a good heavy duty one costs around four thousand dollars. Worth protecting.
Does anyone know if they can be covered by household insurance? Click on the top right comment balloon and let me know.
OK, you want to have lights around your precious stuff at night. But how will you control the light? Manually? With a motion sensor? I’m getting too far ahead. Here is my story:
My mate John got himself a midlife crisis Ford Mustang. It was his pride and joy but he had to park it outside. I turned up to install the weatherproof fluorescent light he bought to protect his pony car.
When it came to choosing the way to turn the light on and off, we considered a manual switch, and a motion sensor. It was John’s idea to have a sensor which turned the light on at sunset.
Cost wasn’t an issue. We worked out the 18 watt fluorescent cost less than 4 cents to run all night for 12 hours.
Someone else complained that a light on all night would help thieves with their work. However John’s street is a busy one. We did not think anyone would be brave enough to mess around with the Mustang in full sight of a street full of houses.
So how does this effect you? You can use sunset switches to turn on security lights like John did. Or you can combine them with a timer to light pathways in the evening only. If you have ideas to use a sunset switch, press the comment cloud on the top right.
Had my first hike with Android MyMaps this morning http://i5.be/agI All part of making exercise interesting
Residual Current Devices (RCDs) are often called Safety Switches in Australia.
These protect your family from electric shocks. They work by watching the “in” and “out” currents in your house. If these “in” and “out” currents are different, the Safety Switch assumes the difference is caused by someone touching a “live” wire. The power is cut within a fraction of a second to avoid a shock. Safety Switches protect power points, and sometimes lights.
There is a problem here. Some appliance faults look to the Safety Switch like someone is touching a live wire. These faulty appliances can make the Safety Switch trip off, and not allow it to reset.
You have to be a detective to find this faulty appliance.
If the Safety Switch still goes off after all this, you will need to get an electrician.
There will be more about the difference between safety switches and other household protection devices in other SparkMate posts.
This post comes from a prevoius SparkMate article, but it is still relevant.
Many homeowners are confused about whether being close to electric power cables can harm their family. In this post we’ll summarise current scientific thinking about this.
- Australian Department of Radiation Protection says “the majority of scientists, and Australian radiation health authorities in particular, do not regard chronic exposure to 50 Hz electric and magnetic fields at the levels commonly found in the environment as a proven health risk.”
Today’s Step; to propect people or property?
Here is part 1 of a series of articles to help you understand home alarm systems. It will help you make an informed decision if you decide to install an alarm. I learned these things while installing alarm systems in client’s homes.
Deciding what security system you need to protect your family means making two decisions.
Decision 1 To monitor or not?
The first decision is whether to monitor or not. Unmonitored systems set off local sirens and flashing blue lights. Monitored systems use a phone line to send signals to a monitoring station. The people in the monitoring station will follow your instuctions to either just phone you, or send a guard service. Which system you choose depends on your budget. Monitoring costs are around a dollar per day.
Decision 2 People or property protection?
The next decision to make is whether to protect just your home and property, or the people in it as well.
The basic home alarm has movement detectors inside which alarm when people enter. This is great to keep unwanted people out when you are away, but the system must be switched off when you are at home.
A more elaborate system protects the people in your home as well as your property. This type of alarm needs sensors on every door and window opening in your home. This means more material costs to buy the extra sensors, and more labour costs to install them.
Which way to go?
Only you can decide what the peace of mind an alarm system brings is worth to you. We will talk later to help you choose an alarm system. Watch this space for part 2: More about sensors
