Basic DIY - Week Four

It's all gone so quickly but here we are - the final session and a chance to mess around with electricity. I guess that this is a real area of fear for many people but having been electrocuted more than once I'm not so worried about wiring and all that; at least you don't flood the house when you make a mistake! Like last week we started at the beginning - how does electricity get into your house and what can you do when it gets there? As it happens not a lot; you can replace something that's broken and move a socket around but forget making any additions. That kind of tampering is strictly verboten!

Instead we got to talking about lighting, wiring, plugs and all of the different types of fuse. Take it from me if your fuse-box still requires you to change a wire when one blows then it's time to call the electrician; in this modern world it's all MCB this and RCD that. Useful devices to have kicking around no doubt but the fuse-box isn't something that I'm going to mess with. Honestly I'm far more likely to re-wire a standard lamp and as it turns out this is exactly what we did:

I am from the '70s

There's something strangely satisfying about screwing a circuit together and having it all work first time! The lesson here is that a good connection is a solid one; there's no room for loose, wobbly, held together by tape connections in our modern world you know!

The final thing that I want to mention though, and this is important, is that LED lights are the future. No, really, I used to dismiss them as being too expensive and under-powered but they've really come a long way in recent years. Just last weekend I ordered myself a box-full from Simply LED and they've been a revelation! Last year we replaced the GU10 50W halogen bulbs in our kitchen with the 11W CFL (compact fluorescent) equivalents and while they did the job they were always a bit too dim and slow to get going to be properly useful. But now I've bunged in a load of 4W LEDS and I can't imagine ever going back; I am a convert I admit it! The light quality and intensity is as good as I could ever want and my electricity bill will certainly feel the benefit.