Electrical Aspects of a House construction

So when does the electrical related aspects of a building start ?

1. As soon as you get the borewell done and are ready to start earth excavation for footing, you need water and you need pump and you need electricity. That is where the electrical journey begins.

How to get electricity ? Do I directly connect the wires to electric pole and use for the time being ?

1. No. You need to apply for a temporary connection. Here are the steps
2. Visit nearest BESCOM office if in Bangalore[ nearby government electricity provider ]
3. Mention that you need a “Temporary connection” and your its for residential and your house location.
4. Either he will give the necessary information or he will ask you to visit another office nearby applicable for your building location.
5. Normally an agent tries to get your connection done. Infact they claim that your house electrical contractor needs to apply for it.
6. In anycase if you do not have an electrical contractor already, there will be several contractors in the premise ready to do your work for a charge. Do not to pay bribe.
7. So this person takes your id proof and sale deed copy and asks all the owners to sign or a NOC from other owners to apply for temporary connection.
8. A temporary connection requires deposit upto the KVA you request. The charge is per KVA.
9. If you exceed the KVA for your house then you will need to cough up some fine in that month.
   Temporary connection is given only for 28 days or 56 days. In either case you need to renew the connection by filling a form and submitting at the same place. Its a pain, so that is a way for somepeople to make money. You will find that same person who did your file will renew the connection for a small fee + ofcourse the monthly electricity bill. He does all the work, you need to pay his fees and electricity bill or submit the form every month like how I did at bescom office. It takes 10 to 15 mins but your work, best you do it and experience it.
10. NOTE that you need to renew 1 week before due date end and pay the bill before due date, else the connection gets lapsed. Only way forward is you will have to reapply for the temporary connection. That is the risk you should be willing to take if you choose to do it yourself.
    So now you get a connection [a temporary meter ]. You need to arrange for electrician to connect from the Pole to this meter which is normally placed in your watchman shed or hung somewhere close the building protected from rain.

Now you are ready to connect your borewell pump and start using water for construction.

Looks like I have temporary connection till end of construction, provided I renew time to time. So what is the next step w.r.t electricity ?

*Electrical drawings from your architect are required or you can do it yourself!

Ground floor roof is the next time you need your electrical contractor. When the centering work is done and steel rebars are placed over the roof, before RCC or mould concrete the electrical connections are done as indicated below.

1. He will place a metallic fan box at center for every room [ skipping bathrooms and passages ]. A fan box has a metal rod or hook inside where fan can be hung.
2. Good grade black conduit pipes are connected to this fan box. The other end is placed near a beam and dropped in L shape to the bottom of the beam. A good idea is to drop it at center of each wall. Drop it to the side of window if you have large windows which end all the way till beam bottom. So if you have a square room you have now 4 pipes to 4 wall centers.
3. Sometimes the main power is also distributed in the roof. In such a case a pipe from the main MCB area is connected to this fan box. So a 5th pipe can exit from this fan box carrying the live and neutral wires from mains.
4. Now if you want lets say 4 LED lights in the room, you can cut the pipe equidistant from this fan box and place a junction box or led box.
5. Make sure to cover the fan box, junction box, conduit pipe end point at beam bottom with tape to prevent concrete from entering the pipe and blocking it. This has the potential to make a pipe unusable if concrete enters the pipe.
6. Also make sure to place small amount of red mud at the bottom of beam where pipe is placed to later identify the point once mould is complete and centering work is removed.
7. At every terrace make sure your plan to place a separate conduit pipe for cable connection, internet connection. Discuss with electrical contractor.

Note: Try to insist on a fan box instead of junction boxes as sometimes you may want to hang a swing in your balcony from one of these fan box rods. It is a normal practice.

What next ?
So every roof mould you need to do repeat the above acitivity.

When is internal wiring ?

1. Once all the moulds and walls are complete the internal electrical work starts. It is done before plastering.
2. Wall grooves are made using a cutter machine and chipper machine. It starts from the center of the beam bottom where you had placed the roof conduit pipe and goes all the way to switch boards.
3. Ensure that wall grooves are done perpendicular to the switch box or parallel to it but not at an angle. This is because in future when you are drilling and you do not know where the electrical pipes are you will know that it is always perpenedicular to swtich box or parallel to it.
4. In anycase take plenty of pictures once the conduit pipers are placed and before plastering. it is always useful later when you need to do some rennovation or other electrical works.
5. Now you can see from the picture how it looks with internal conduit work done. At this point the electrical contractor needs to verify if there is any blockages in the pipes by pushing a GI wire or spring wire into the conduit pipes. All path ways from fan box to switch box should be clear and reachable easily. if not the electrical contractor tries to clear the blockages using known methods. It may work or may not work if concrete has got into the pipes.

When is actual wiring done ?

Electrical cable wiring is done once plastering is done and during the time of paint/putty.

Light fixtures/fans?

1. All switches can be fit after 1 coat of paint or putty.
2. All lightings and fan fittings are done after 2 coats of paint since pooja is normally done after 2 coats of paint. And at pooja time all fittings are to be present.
3. Choose a good brand llke legrand, anchor roma, gm, havells for your switches and switch boards.
4. Lighting and LEDs mostly appear from china and priced high. You can take time to finalize on these at your own leisure and timeline. Try to do the basic lighting before pooja. Fancy can be bought later if you are not able to make the choice.
5. You can consider some energy saving fans for bedrooms where you run it the entire night[such as super fan] and a fancy but good power saving one for the living where again the usage is high but you need good looks as well.

When do I move out of temporary connection?

1. You can move out of temporary connection just before parking area tiling is being completed. This is because you need to do earthing for the actual connection.
2. Also you need to connect the cable underground by digging from the electrical pole all the way to your house.
3. You need to use a 4 core wire from pole to your meter area.
4. You could choose to go for a NEW 3 phase meter[return the old meter] and separate the different floors of your house and AEH into separate phases to balance the load. It is ideal.
5. Also you could take a connection underground for your sump area from the meter area using the conduit pipe and ensure its done before pavement tiles are laid.
6. So you need to do all underground work and meter work before your parking/pavement tile work.

Well hope you enjoyed and the summary of information was useful. Will be writing more on each of these aspects in my spare time. Please do leave your comments and follow the blog for more useful information.