Each owner of an apartment or private house at some point will come to the realization that it is necessary to replace the electrical wiring. Changing the wiring yourself, of course, will not be easy. There is no way to do without basic knowledge of the principles of work and the functions of wiring, without documentation and wiring diagrams at home and, of course, without your own interest in the bewitching process.
Why does the majority decide to change the wiring with their own hands?
To change the wiring in the living room on their own are usually decided together with a major overhaul. This is probably the most difficult part of it. Most people opt for self-replacement for several reasons. The main one, of course, is the cost of this type of repair activity. In a regional city of the Russian Federation, a specialized replacement of electrical wiring from an organization costs more than a thousand rubles per square meter.
What is wiring replacement based on?
Answering the question of how to change the wiring in the house, first you need to figure out what actually falls into the category of replacement.
Replacing wiring includes:
- replacing wires made of aluminum with copper wires;
- implementation of the transfer of the power supply circuit from the neutral earthed neutral TN-C to TN-CS, which guarantees grounding protection;
- Avoiding branching of wiring to connect different groups of wires.
Why is it worth changing the aluminum wiring?
It is known that aluminum wiring was widely used in the world in the sixties and seventies. At that time, this element attracted many because of its economical cost and safety, it was believed that the extraction and, moreover, the smelting of copper was quite harmful to the human body.
But today the realization has come that it is necessary to change the wiring, in particular aluminum wires, since they are unsuitable for electric wires for a number of reasons:
- Today in the living room, as a rule, quite a lot of different electrical appliances are concentrated. In this regard, the wiring power is more, therefore, very often today, aluminum wiring is not able to withstand modern conditions.
- Even with the smallest ingress of water droplets, aluminum is susceptible to electrocorrosion emanating from the wire sheath. Therefore, the monolithic-looking wire appears to be torn to the ground, hence very often malfunctions occur, which sometimes lead to emergencies.
- Everyone knows that aluminum is a soft metal. It is squeezed out from under the terminal screws, the torsion points are weakening, and the soldering of this element is difficult, expensive and is one of the so-called harmful industries. Because duralumin contacts are unreliable.
Why change the power scheme?
The Soviet TN-C power plan in Soviet times was necessary in connection with the implementation of mass electrification, the Soviet period was characterized by a huge length of communications in a large country and a lack of non-ferrous metals.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the Russian Federation, a different power supply scheme, TN-CS, was adopted, which guarantees maximum safety for customers regardless of the state of the power grid.
How to change the wiring in the apartment with your own hands?
If you decide to change the wiring in the room, house, you should adhere to a certain sequence of work. It is worth noting that adhering to the plan, you can reduce the cost of replacing the wiring almost three times.
How to change the wiring in the house? Replacement Stages:
- It is necessary to start with the preparation of a plan for supplying electricity to the living space.
- Schematically depict the wiring diagram of the existing wiring and approve it with the registration scheme of the power supply.
- Build a temporary building.
- Next, we directly connect the mechanisms, including automatic machines and on / off switches, and connect a differential current device.
- Now you need to install sockets (connection points) and stationary equipment (including elements of electrical appliances at home).
- At the final stage, it is necessary to conduct the wiring of electrical wiring into groups and points for the connection of electrical appliances.
If you are interested in the question of how to change the wiring in a prefabricated house, it should be noted that before replacing the electric wire, grounding should be made if possible or grounding should be provided.
What power wiring is needed?
High-quality wiring of the living area is characterized by the amount of power consumption of technical devices.
Very often, public services set a certain limit on power consumption, for example, in rural areas, a limit of electricity consumption of 20-30 kW per living area is set. Of course, in an urban environment, such power limits cannot be observed. If the power reaches high levels, in multi-apartment buildings it can knock out central traffic jams in the entrances.
We also note that in the Soviet five-story buildings, where the limit on the power supply is 2.3 kW, basically you need to change the wiring.
Of course, the residents of such houses adapt to the necessary conditions, realize that you can not turn on too many electrical appliances at the same time - you should alternate and weigh preferences. Especially in the summer when you want the air conditioning to work all day.
We carefully calculate the voltage
We will not consider in detail the methods for calculating the power for each type of living space, we will look in more detail at the consumption option of the average city apartment with a total area of about 100 square meters:
- the central meter should have readings - from 30 to 35 A, based on the area of the premises;
- RCD on the living area is 55 A - 35 μA;
- two branches of wires of 4 square mm should go to the kitchen;
- on each branch in the kitchen there is a 30A RCD per 30 μA;
- air conditioning or split system - a separate branch of the wire - 3 sq. mm - on the central counter 15 A, RCD - 25A at 30 μA;
- sockets and lighting circuits - should pass one in each room - wire readings of 2.5 square meters. mm
In principle, these are all the basic values for a single-line power plan for an apartment.
We are preparing a power supply scheme
If you live in a standard apartment of the city plan, then as a basis for your scheme, provided that you have not changed the location of objects in the house, you can take samples of the standard plan. On such samples, you should only enter your testimony. The RCD brand provided on the sample can be left, this factor does not play a significant role.
When drawing a diagram, carefully monitor the scale and size of the symbols of the elements present. It must be remembered that their incorrect scaling is not allowed. That is, the electric condensate should look in the drawing in the form of two parallel lines half a millimeter thick and no more than one centimeter long, the sticks should be located at a distance of 2 mm from each other - there can be no other designation in the drawing.
We change the electrical wiring in the house
How to change the wiring in the house with your own hands? To begin with, in accordance with the stages of replacement, we carry out preparation - repair temporary shelter. Recharge all the power tools necessary for the planned work in advance. We also stock up on a long extension cord, so that without any difficulties to carry out activities in all rooms.
Then, it is absolutely necessary to turn off the apartment’s counters so that there is no energy. You need to turn out the plugs or turn off the central apartment counter. Next, we hollow out the space around the meter to bring to the surface of the wire from the electric meter.
To the wires brought out, we connect a temporary hut on a tight twist (for the duration of this type of work, twisting is permissible), carefully get the joints, then we fix the temporary hut to the wall.
We perform strobing
It should be noted in advance that the strobes can be used straight, horizontal or vertical. We recommend using horizontal strobes as a fallback, they are sometimes very inconvenient in that they pass only a half meter under the ceiling. Inclined and curved strobes are extremely dangerous when replacing electrical wiring.
Drilling and ditching the wall should only be done on a stepladder with side stops, which is often used in the work by posters of high announcements. An ordinary step ladder under the pressure of a tool can simply knock you back with a working device, which can lead to injury.
It should immediately indicate the boundaries of the grinder necessary for the strob. As a rule, they make a depth in the diameter of the corrugation and the width of the drill bit, then they fill the groove with it. Further, inside the angles obtained, it is necessary to make an oblique incision with the help of a grinder and knock out a hole there in order to make the bend of the corrugation smooth. Space for the counter is also made using a chisel.
It is advisable to choose a double gate for the switches, into which it will be possible to place two cable streams at once.
Today, changing the wiring without gating will be a number of certain problems, so it’s worthwhile to warn the neighbors in advance about the time at which you are going to make such a noisy job. Of course, to carry it out is acceptable in the first half of the working day.
Wire routing
How to change the wiring in the apartment? First, measure the required length of the cable and corrugation. The cable itself is tightened into the corrugation on the floor. Further, in the markings on the alabaster pillow, we insert the rosette. Now we put the corrugation from the cables into the gates, while trying to bring the ends of the wires into the installed socket boxes. At the end of the sub-rosette, we report with a layer of alabaster to the wall, and plaster strobes with corrugation at intervals of about half a meter.
Now it is necessary to insert the ends of the corrugations into the VSC, glue them with a special conductive paste, tighten the tin clamp on the screw, and connect the screw directly to the VSC grounding terminal. We install the VSC in the required place, mark the mounting holes, drill and attach the dowels.
We check whether everything is disconnected from us, we disconnect a temporary bar. Next, we install the wires from the electric meter and the apartment PE in the VSC, which we immediately connect to the VSC housing. The latter is securely fixed to the wall. We isolate the wires from the meter and put them into the housing of the VSC. Next, restore the surrounding space with plaster.
Coloring Guide
This type of activity involves direct contact with electrical wires, so you need to familiarize yourself again with which wire is responsible for what.
So, a blue hue (or blue) always indicates a neutral N wire. The PE wire intended for protection is marked in yellow with a longitudinal greenish strip.
Phase wires can have various shades, for example, white, red, yellow or brown. It is worth noting that when replacing wiring, only wires of the same color can be connected.
The transition of phase to zero, from phase to phase and switching on / off in a zero gap are not allowed.
The final stage: plastering the object
Now is the time for the plasterers, painters and wallpaper makers. However, at first it is necessary to fill the foam rubber, paper or rags flush with the wall in the socket, and close the plastic with a piece of plastic film, tucking it under the edges of its frame.
It is worth noting that the meter also needs to be covered with film, but make sure that everything is superimposed without breaking the seal - you won’t get any problems with the energy service later. If the seal was still hurt and damaged, you must immediately report it to the appropriate organization.
In the end, after the plastering and painting and pasting work has been done, the podrozetniki and VSP will most likely look worn and pasted, but they will simply be groped and cut out the wallpaper in shape. Having freed stucco deficiencies from the socket, we install sockets, switches, lighting fixtures, a boiler.
Then, on the terminal blocks in the VSC, we carry out the power supply circuit, but the input from the counter does not need to be connected yet. Each branch wire must be carefully checked for short circuit before entering the terminal strip:
- For a short time, we start the flow to the apartment.
- We find the indicator phase zero, which is moving away from the electric meter.
- We take indicators of nutrition.
- We bind phase and zero wires along the terminal blocks with wire segments of the corresponding colors.
- Once again, we check for a short circuit when the voltage is on.
- Turn off the main machine, power up the apartment, and turn it on again.
That's all, the replacement of the electrical wiring was successful.
In conclusion, it is worth noting that replacing wiring is not the easiest task for a home master. It is worth undertaking it if you were able to create a power supply scheme, wiring plan and arrange them in an appropriate way without the help of others.
Safety precautions
Before carrying out work, it is necessary to disconnect the power supply, ground everything that is possible. In no case should you save on high-quality wires, sockets and switches - this can end badly. It is advisable to use residual current circuit breakers during operation. This will not provide a full guarantee of security (like nothing else), but it is possible to significantly reduce risks in this way.