ELECTRICAL

I have posted about my Electrical and Colour Appointments before, and the pre-planning in January. The actual plan did not fall far from my pre-planning but there are some unexpected items, so I do suggest you to think about what you want before going in. 

Due to the Electrical planning system being upgraded, we couldn't do the plan on the computer. Everything was done on paper and after we receive our 'proper' plan, we made some changes. 

Some tips:

1. Consider batten lights where you want your downlights. You can find downlight kits that are cheaper and better later and get an electrician to fit them. If you choose lower wattage downlights, you might need more battens (e.g. every 1.5m)
2. Think about where you want fans/ pendant lights. They need to strengthen this part.
3. If you have two storeys, get everything on the bottom level upfront, at least get the wiring. Adding them after build is very difficult.
4. Consider sensor lights on places where you're unlikely to switch the lights on and off because they're unconvenient. E.g. Garage doors, side and back of the house.
5. Two way switch for hallway. You don't want to go back and forward the hallway to switch things off. 
6. Consider two ways switch for bedroom light (at least your master bed). This way you can just switch the light off when you're on your bed, ready to snooze.
7. You might need to budget for 3 phase power if you are going to have a shed/ large garage and plan to use high power equipment like hoist, welder, etc. You might also need this if you are having a ducted refrigrated cooling. Upgrading to 3 phase is cheaper now than later (later you need to redig the trench, rewire your main cables, upgrade your meters, etc)
8. IF you choose 3 phase power, your surcharge protection would be x3 at approx $220 each.
9. Check and double check your electrical plan. Make sure you don't miss a thing - my initial plan (from drawing to computer) missed two GPOs.

NBN and Data point:

• The basic $1750 NBN pack includes 3 data points and a maximum 4. If you want more than 4, you need to upgrade your board to allow more points (was $600 to upgrade).  Each additional data point is about $135.
• Remember - your work space would need data, your TV need data, some specific gadgets need data (like some the WiFi speakers). If you want all residents in the house to have data point, i.e. one in each room, you will need to pay for the upgrade and each additional data points.

The hand drawn plan

When you do the plan on computer