Necessity in such works as the replacement of wiring, usually arises in the owners of houses in houses built in the last century - breeches, Khrushchev and other typical buildings.
Earlier, when building these houses, the load on the electricity grid was calculated by other standards and did not imply an abundance of used household appliances and a high load on the wires, as now.
Contents:
- Replacing the electrical network - step-by-step solution
- Preparing for electrical work
- Changing the old wiring to the new
Replacing the electrical network - step-by-step solution
If you decide to change the wiring yourself, then start with the simplest - estimate the estimated amount of work.
It is important to understand if you will change the entire wiring, or replace only its individual sections.
The second option is less preferable, because, for example, replacement of wiring in a hruschevka, a panel house is desirable and must be done completely.
The main reason for this is that the electrical network was previously installed with an aluminum cable of a small cross-section, it was often even without grounding, and the operation of the wiring at a high voltage arising in the electrical network is dangerous.
Now, copper wires, junction boxes, sockets with grounding and other modern materials are used for the construction of electric networks.
Therefore, having decided to change the electrical network in your apartment, think about the safety of your housing and do it completely.
How to replace the wiring in the apartment - alone or with the involvement of specialists, you decide.
On the one hand, electrical work is not particularly difficult, however, when carrying out such work, you need to have a special tool, know the basics of work with electricity, be able to make calculations.
Preparation for electrical work
As any construction work, the change of wiring begins with the project. As a project, a scheme is created for the new electrical network of your home.
Location of outlets, switches, junction boxes, connection points for powerful household appliances such as electric stove, water heater, washing machine and dishwasher( they are usually fed directly), all this should include a scheme for future wiring.
The scheme will help you choose materials in accordance with the requirements, calculate their number.
Drawing the design of the network with your own hands, pay attention to the location of the junction boxes, they should be at an accessible level.
When the repair work is completed, place the sockets and switches in a convenient, but at the same time, safe place.
The following video will clearly demonstrate how to create a scheme for the future electrical network in the panel house with their own hands.
Video:
When choosing materials for repair work yourself, we recommend that you pay attention to the following tips:
- The main element of the electrical network is the cable wire. It is taken copper, three-core. Its cross-section depends on the application: for sectors where the sockets are located, the cross-section must be at least 2.5 mm², for the luminaire sector - 1.5 mm², and for high-power household appliances - 4 mm²;
- Automatic protection devices. Changing the wiring in the panel house, be sure to think about protecting the wiring from leakage current, overloads, short circuit. Use an RCD and a circuit breaker or a combined model of a difa-automat. The model is chosen with respect to the forthcoming loads. For sockets it is better to take a submachine gun at 25A, for powerful devices - 32A, lighting devices - 16A.For the switchboard take two machines: water at 50A and protective at 63A;
- Depending on the section of conductors and the number of branches of electrical groups, the junction boxes are selected. They are round, square and rectangular;
- The sockets are taken based on the expected load, whether the electric stove or floor lamp is switched on, everything is necessarily grounded. If the house has small children, we recommend choosing sockets with special curtains;
- Switches differ only in design, so their choice determines the interior of the apartment.
- To connect the wires, it is better to use terminals.
For assembly work, you will need the following tools:
- punch;
- hammer;
- Bulgarian;
- chisel;
- level;
- screwdriver with special indicator or multimer;
- electrical tape;
- pliers;
- level.
In addition, prepare the filler.
At this preparatory stage is completed and you can go directly to work on replacing the old wiring with your own hands.
Changing the old wiring to the new
Before you begin to remove the old wiring in the house, you must completely de-energize the apartment( be sure to check with the multimedia) and move the furniture away from the walls. Sockets, switches are dismantled.
Begin to remove the wiring from the junction boxes. They can be identified by round plastic covers, which are removed. Disconnect the wires and carefully dismantle the old cable from the wall.
Video:
Sometimes you can use a metal detector to find the wire in the wall.
In panel houses, it is not uncommon for cases where the old wiring is removed by simply pulling the cable out of the junction box.
But there are exceptions, the wire is laid in the wall so that its removal will lead to the destruction of the wall structure. To avoid this use the method without strobleniya.
Its essence lies in the fact that a site that can not be removed, cut off and carefully insulated, leave it and the wall without the shtrobleniya.
Removing the old wiring, begin to prepare the walls for the laying of new electrical networks. In the wall make new grooves under the wires, mark the places where the sockets, switches will be located.
The scheme, drawn earlier, will be an indispensable assistant at this stage of work done by yourself.
In some cases, the walls are not shtrobyat, and lay the new cable in the old channels.
To make the rod evenly smooth, draw two parallel lines at a distance of 2 cm from each other for the entire length of the future cable grooves.
With the help of the Bulgarian make cuts with a depth of 4 cm along the lines drawn, a hammer and a chisel remove the middle. Deepening can be done with a perforator.
The video of laying the new wiring in place of the old is shown below.
Video:
The next step in replacing the electrical wiring with your own hands will be the installation of junction boxes. It is desirable to immediately fix them in the locations.
Cement mortar is usually used as a fixative. The cable starts to be laid, starting from the shield to the junction boxes.
To determine if the cable is laid correctly, use a level. The size of the cable must match the length of the bar, it should not be too long or too short.
The wires are connected to each other by means of terminals, making twists and avoiding the entanglement of cable ends in phase. All twists are located in junction boxes.
You can correctly connect the cable to each other in the following way. The wire is stripped at the end by 3-4 cm in length, the bare ends are twisted together and shortened to 1 cm in length.
Insulated with terminal or insulation tape. After that, we conduct the cable from the distribution boxes to the prepared grooves to the connection points.
After completely laying the cable, do not forget to take a picture of its wiring, thereby you will help yourself in case of a breakdown, quickly find the damaged area and repair the defect.
Video:
When mounting all the wires in the electrical panel, you can use the following advice.
It is desirable to divide the cables into separate lines( the distribution can be pre-drawn on the diagram) and for each line make a separate switch.
This is especially important for powerful household appliances, since the electrical line to which they are connected will operate under increased voltage.
Distribution of lines will also simplify the repair of wiring, replacement of outlets, light bulbs and so on.
The wires along the lines can also be placed in separate corrugated or conventional pipes, which are laid in strobes. This option is safer than directly plugging wires.
In addition, by laying the wires in the pipes, in the future you can replace the wiring with your own hands, without resorting to strobing the walls, it will be enough to pull the wire out of the pipe through the junction box.
Video:
You can also use the external wiring method. However, such installation of electrical networks may not be safe and aesthetically not acceptable for apartment arrangement.
Strokes are coated with mortar only after a full test of the operability of the new electrical network. For this, the electric wiring is called with a special device - a multimedia device.
It allows you to determine the operability of the network and to detect a short circuit in case of an incorrect connection.
In the absence of defects in the wiring, it is connected to the input electrical panel and the operation of all outlets and switches is checked.
If the check shows that everything is normal and the new wiring is working, then it is necessary to de-energize the apartment again, and only after that go to the covering of the depressions.
Cement mortar must dry well and only after that it is possible to connect switches, sockets, lamps.
The following video will demonstrate the final stage of wiring replacement, including a dial and a readiness check.
Video:
As we can see, the work on the change of electrical wiring can be done with their own hands, observing the rules and listening to the advice described above.
