Electricity - bringing power and light to your home - but what does that look like in practice? There are a lot of options to explore.
Part 2 of Mechanical & Electrical (M&E) Services
Part of our Delving into the Buzzwords series
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Following on from part 1 of M&E Services (Mechanical and Electrical), which looked at plumbing and ventilation, we are going to explore the variety of options around bringing light and power to your home. Long gone are the days of standard white sockets and switches in every room!
Sockets and switches - where to site them
Access to electrical outlets and controls adds to the space’s usefulness; you can never have too many sockets!
Of course, you don’t want to clutter your walls with many faceplates, so it’s a good idea to consider furniture layouts and discreet locations for many of them. That said, some prominent and easy-to-reach locations are appropriate for temporary uses, such as vacuuming. You may want to consider having at least one socket on every wall, so you don’t end up with trailing wires and extension leads across the floor if you want to plug in a new appliance in the future.
Multimedia (or Lounge) plates are perfect for behind your media unit, as they neatly offer four plug sockets and space for 6-8 ‘modules’ which can provide various data, media and aerial connections to suit any combination of set-top boxes, games consoles, DVD players or home cinema setups you might have or want.
Many of us have habitual spots for charging our phones, tablets and other battery-powered devices, so to prevent clutter, we recommend installing sockets in a cupboard or drawer. This includes shaver sockets, which can be located within bathroom vanity units or wall cupboards, for toothbrushes and grooming products. Alternatively, and more recently, many of these devices come with a traditional 3-pin plug or USB cables, so a discreet cupboard in the hallway or dressing area outside the bathroom could be a neat solution.
Don’t forget the Christmas lights! Whether you like to keep it simple or go all-out, well-placed sockets in a few potential locations inside and outside could save you from having a spiderweb of wires during the festive season.
Sockets and switches - what they look like
Many socket and switch plate finishes are available, including differing colours and surface textures that should meet any personal taste.
Our projects with white moulded plastic plates have utilised outlets and controls from Hager’s Sollysta range, or Scolmore’s Click Mode selection. Both have caps to cover the screws, or screwless alternatives are available if you find them unsightly.
Alternatively, Scolmore’s Click Definity, and Hager’s Sollysta Decorative metal ranges are available in white and black painted or brushed and polished steel finishes.
If you are considering metal-finished plates, matching metal trims and fixtures such as door ironmongery might be another consideration to ensure a complementary palette of colours and materialsBricks, concrete, timber, cement, nails, screws, and everything else that makes up the building..
Something more decorative can be nice, especially for period properties. Corston offers bronze, brass, and nickel plates, as well as paintable and clear ranges for more discreet fixtures. We have used the bronze and black faceplates on our Otter Cliff project, which look stunning now, and will age gracefully as the black rubs off with each use, revealing the brass colour beneath.
Light switches and dimmers can give you the flexibility to control various lighting circuits, to enable you to change the mood in a room. And you may want to consider additional controls alongside your beds and workspaces to minimise disruption to your sleep or workflow should you need to adjust the illumination.
Movement sensors might be appropriate for some rooms or lighting arrangements, so you can walk into a space with your hands full or reduce the clutter of switches on a wall. If you’re the forgetful type and regularly leave lights on, it can also help to save energy use.
Building ControlA chargeable service provided by the Local Authority or a private company that ensures that buildings are designed and constructed in accordance with the UK Building Regulations and associated legislation. They undertake checks of technical drawings and details and perform on-site inspections of the construction work as it progresses. dictates the heights of most outlets and controls, to ensure wheelchair and restricted-mobility users can reach them, therefore sockets are generally 450mm above floor level, or 150mm above worktops, and switches 1200mm high. We find these arrangements helpful for most users, as they do not have to reach uncomfortably behind furniture to the floor to unplug something.
Lighting
There is a mind-boggling selection of styles, finishes and functions available, but as a start, lighting is generally categorised into task and decorative categories.
In a kitchen, directional spotlights and under-cupboard LED strips provide bright light levels to worksurfaces, whereas pendants over tables and breakfast bars offer softer illumination, especially appropriate in an open plan room, to link with lighting elsewhere.
In addition to ceiling and wall-mounted lights, it might be desirable to have a number of table (or floor) lamps on a common circuit, operated by a single wall switch. For these we’d suggest 5A round-pin sockets, which can be both wall and floor mounted if your furniture is in the middle of the room.
In hallways, landings and bathrooms, discrete motion activated low-level lights are a fantastic solution for making those late-night journeys without disturbing you and other occupants with glaring illuminations and noisy fans being activated (although our whole house MVHR systems are whisper quiet, so not a concern).
For inspiration, and to help hone your choices, some recent projects have successfully utilised products from:
External lighting
When planning exterior lighting, consider carefully both your use of the space after dark (getting to and from the front door, putting out the bins, entertaining, using the hot tub…) and what you want the space to look like from within the house and to passers-by. Functional lighting, to highlight a path, as well as lighting over a patio area is useful, but uplights can be used to highlight building facades, trees and other features in the gardens. However we are conscious of light pollution, and maintaining Cornwall’s International Dark Sky Parks and naturally muted landscapes, so we encourage clients to use these fittings sparingly, choosing instead low-level, or downward focused lights. These also reduce glare and help to keep your night vision so you can enjoy the star-filled skies on your wander back from the pub or hot tub.
Another factor to bear in mind is that the salt-laden air in Cornwall (which does affect most of the county) is not kind to certain finishes. Things might need more cleaning than you expect, if you are new to the area, and finishes generally attract surface rust. This can be removed with regular cleaning, although that can be tiresome, so composite, marine grade stainless steel or concrete finishes could be an alternative for you.
If you’d prefer metallic finishes, Brass, Bronze, Copper and Galvanised steel fittings can age gracefully, with the surface patina adding character over time. Chrome & polished stainless steel lights might need a wipe every so often to keep them looking smart.
Design Services
Claire Pendarves of Luxplan.co.uk can provide a lighting design service that considers the fixtures’ appearance and achievable light levels, nominating suitable products from a wide range of suppliers. She’s got a great blog which offers tips and advice on where to get started.
We’ve also worked with Iroka, Millard & Flo and Sims Hilditch, who have produced socket and/or lighting layouts during their appointments to provide interior design services.
We will look at smart lighting control systems alongside other smart-home gadgets in our third M&E systems Knowledge Hub article.
