Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Oct 02, 2009 5:41 pm For those of you who are still in the planning stages, don't make the same mistake we did and overlook the positioning of your light switches (especially if you have a double brick house, cos its not a simple task to change them later). We paid a lot of attention to our powerpoints, but didn't really think about where the light switches were going and the builder has put them in some silly places e.g. - The kitchen light switch is in the fridge recess. We will have to put our hand between the fridge and the wall to turn it on - There is only one light switch in the hallway and its at the other end from where we will be entering from the garage - The home theatre switch is behind a door. We will have to walk in and close the door to get to the switch. We realised way too late to change them, the walls had already been rendered, and the builder said flat out that they don't accept any changes to electrical after pre-start anyway That annoyed me because our pre-start lady never went through the light switches with us, she only talked about the powerpoints. But I'm more annoyed at myself for not noticing than I am at the builder for putting them in silly places to begin with. At the end of the day we signed off on it, so we should have paid more attention Re: My light switch rant 2Oct 02, 2009 5:47 pm awww don't be sad, at least you will have a lovely new house and hey, you will get used to the switches eventually Building with Homebuyers Centre El Questro! My building thread..viewtopic.php?f=31&t=19421 Brickies started 5/10 Re: My light switch rant 3Oct 02, 2009 6:02 pm Yeah I know. Ours are the same on the plan like the hallway one being on the inside of sliding door on living room side and theatre room being out side in hall. Just stupid annoying things like that. Re: My light switch rant 4Oct 02, 2009 6:02 pm lynnebin1968 awww don't be sad, at least you will have a lovely new house and hey, you will get used to the switches eventually You are being calm.. wait till you find out where your lights are Re: My light switch rant 5Oct 02, 2009 6:04 pm we thought we were really smart planning exactly where our switches would be. BUT there is one that we thought wouldn't fit in a certain place so we allowed it to go where they suggested. Now we've discovered it could have gone where we wanted it. it's in our eldest sons bedroom so not really a big bug bear for us but it annoys me all the same. My biggest annoyance with switches is where we have 2 switches on the same switch post. 2 of these doubles seem to be in the wrong order. Top switch for the wrong light. DH is going to have a peek at the switches and see if its a matter of just switching around the 2 sets of wires and switch buttons (by physically maneuvering not rewiring) otherwise I guess we'll be waiting until we get some electrical work done. After 3 months both switches still bug me so I figure they MUST be wrong. I'm also not 100% happy about where the kitchen light switches are in our new house. . Not sure why now they were moved from where we originally wanted them to go but I vaguely remember there was supposedly some good reason. ( no idea what now and I seriously think they should have been kept where we had them as they aren't really "in the kitchen" which does bug me) I guess the biggest things to focus on is that there will always be something we wish we'd done differently and if a switch is the only thing we can find to be unhappy about then it's pretty good going. Hope otherwise you are in love with your new home. as for a switch on the wrong wall. we had a switch moved completely through a single brick wall and relocated on the other side at our last house while getting some other electrical work done. we had planned to put in a sliding door ( not a cavity slider) and so the switch was moved in preparation for that. After getting it done though we ended up not getting the slider put in as it was quite expensive. Blog http://wherethehearthis.blogspot.com/ Build https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=6634: Yard https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=27687&p=378401#p378401 Re: My light switch rant 6Oct 02, 2009 6:10 pm shell83 - The kitchen light switch is in the fridge recess. We will have to put our hand between the fridge and the wall to turn it on - There is only one light switch in the hallway and its at the other end from where we will be entering from the garage - The home theatre switch is behind a door. We will have to walk in and close the door to get to the switch. Yes, you all need to think about the placement, my sparkies hate me I’m too fussy! BUT…….good grieve, anyone with a brain would not do what they have done to you! That’s not even slightly funny! Internal and External Building and Colour Consultant Online - Worldwide http://www.denovoconcepts.com Re: My light switch rant 7Oct 02, 2009 6:18 pm Chedasha lynnebin1968 awww don't be sad, at least you will have a lovely new house and hey, you will get used to the switches eventually You are being calm.. wait till you find out where your lights are You know what..I am not even gonna look I expect they will all be inside a cupboard or somewhere hidden nothing surprises me any more Building with Homebuyers Centre El Questro! My building thread..viewtopic.php?f=31&t=19421 Brickies started 5/10 Re: My light switch rant 8Oct 02, 2009 6:30 pm lynnebin1968 awww don't be sad, at least you will have a lovely new house and hey, you will get used to the switches eventually Don't worry, I'm not the type of person to let a minor issue overshadow everything, now that I've had my grumble I can go back to excitedly counting down the minutes! Re: My light switch rant 9Oct 02, 2009 6:39 pm kexkez I guess the biggest things to focus on is that there will always be something we wish we'd done differently and if a switch is the only thing we can find to be unhappy about then it's pretty good going. Hope otherwise you are in love with your new home. as for a switch on the wrong wall. we had a switch moved completely through a single brick wall and relocated on the other side at our last house while getting some other electrical work done. we had planned to put in a sliding door ( not a cavity slider) and so the switch was moved in preparation for that. After getting it done though we ended up not getting the slider put in as it was quite expensive. You're right, there will be always be something that gets overlooked and I was hoping my little rant might also save someone else from making a similar error. I'm going to find out if I can get the kitchen light switch moved to the other side of the wall. So it will be on the outside of the kitchen, but I think this is better than putting my hand down beside the fridge to turn it on. Re: My light switch rant 10Oct 02, 2009 6:49 pm shell83 kexkez I guess the biggest things to focus on is that there will always be something we wish we'd done differently and if a switch is the only thing we can find to be unhappy about then it's pretty good going. Hope otherwise you are in love with your new home. as for a switch on the wrong wall. we had a switch moved completely through a single brick wall and relocated on the other side at our last house while getting some other electrical work done. we had planned to put in a sliding door ( not a cavity slider) and so the switch was moved in preparation for that. After getting it done though we ended up not getting the slider put in as it was quite expensive. You're right, there will be always be something that gets overlooked and I was hoping my little rant might also save someone else from making a similar error. I'm going to find out if I can get the kitchen light switch moved to the other side of the wall. So it will be on the outside of the kitchen, but I think this is better than putting my hand down beside the fridge to turn it on. if you can catch the sparkie he might be willing to do it as a cashie job for you. otherwise it might work out cheaper to get it done afterwards by your own sparkie. Assuming there are other things you'll want done after handover. as long as you have a sparkie coming in already you might find it far cheaper to do this. Good luck. Re: My light switch rant 11Oct 02, 2009 6:56 pm kexkez if you can catch the sparkie he might be willing to do it as a cashie job for you. otherwise it might work out cheaper to get it done afterwards by your own sparkie. Assuming there are other things you'll want done after handover. as long as you have a sparkie coming in already you might find it far cheaper to do this. Good luck. The builder's sparky has been and gone, but we need to some extra powerpoints put on the external walls anyway so will get it all done at the same time if it saves us some $$$ Hmm... just wondering if it matters if we get the sparky in before or after we paint? Re: My light switch rant 12Oct 02, 2009 9:06 pm we didnt look at ANY of the placements of light switches during planning stage either - was not something that even remotely came into our thought pattern. Too concerned with colours and all the other bs I guess. Was only when my other half was doing a walk through with the sparky to talk about data cabling that he pointed out stupid locations of light switches. Why on earth they dont give some logical thought to these Ill never know (I figure thats what happens when you dont have a womans input on the planning stage). It was exactly like you are talking about... kitchen light switch was in the loungeroom, hallway light switches down opposite end we'd be entering from etc. Lucky for us the sparky was really cool and switched on (get it! haha) and pointed it all out and changed it all around before he'd even done any wiring. Now everything is in a logical spot (and we have data cables EVERYWHERE Re: My light switch rant 13Oct 02, 2009 9:22 pm Hi Jaded, you are so lucky that your sparky was switched on (hehe , I had to use that one again!) and was able to make changes for you. The person in charge of electrical placement at our builders is obviously male too We have a wireless network which works well for us, so didn't get any data cables. It seems a lot of people prefer hard wiring though, most people on here seem to have gone for lots of network points too. Re: My light switch rant 14Oct 03, 2009 6:36 am shell83 We have a wireless network which works well for us, so didn't get any data cables Larger houses and those with many walls will not work well with wi-fi. Various devices (not just computers) don't have wi-fi, so hard wiring is still necessary for them. Hard wiring is also faster and more reliable. Such points in a smart-wired house can also be used as telephone points. The future of TV has long been substantially over the Internet, and hard-wired speeds are needed for full-HD quality and reliability. In my new house I'll have a network point next to every TV antenna point. Re: My light switch rant 15Oct 03, 2009 7:29 am I can understand your frustration... Our light switch placements annoy me too. I'm not too worried about 'where' they are - we chose that so only have ourselves to blame (most are pretty good, I just wish that we had double switched the lounge/hall and the hallway to the bedrooms is a bit odd) - my issue is the same as Keks... The sparky has crossed over every one of our power points so that the left switch lights the right side and vice versa... Idiot!!! He's also mucked up the placements... In some rooms the switches are right beside the door (within a couple is centimetres) and in others it's about 20-30 centimetres from the door so that when you slide your hand in blindly to turn a light on you end up fishing around looking for the switch (I'm sure there's probably a reason...). At least the switch that was behind the toilet door was corrected.... If we ever build again (hmmm...) I will certainly be giving the electricalS MUCH more thought! My blog: http://artstitcheshome.blogspot.com Re: My light switch rant 16Oct 03, 2009 10:21 am We spent 22 years in a house with stupidly placed light switches, so we were very careful about where they went in our new place. Imagine having to walk several steps into the lounge from the front door and then go round a corner to turn on the light, and having to walk across to the far side of both the dining and family rooms to reach the switches there. To our builder's credit, we were asked about placement of every single light switch and power point during our electrical appointment, and our consultant made some really good suggestions that we hadn't thought of. kexkez My biggest annoyance with switches is where we have 2 switches on the same switch post. 2 of these doubles seem to be in the wrong order. Top switch for the wrong light. We still have this same issue....what do some of these sparkies use for brains?? You would expect the left-hand switch to operate the light to the left and the right-hand switch to operate the light to the right. Apparently not.... One thing I am grateful for is that our entry/hallway has several sets of lights, so no matter where we enter from there's a switch nearby. I also put a two-way switch on the hallway to the kids' bedrooms and bathroom, so we have one at either end. Youngest son can turn the hall light on, go to his room at the opposite end, then turn it off without having to back-track. We made a couple of boo-boos though. We have double doors to our bedroom, so the light switch had to be placed a fair way into the room to avoid having it behind a door. In hindsight, we should have added a two-way switch just outside the room, so it could be turned on more easily, then turned off from within the room. I did put a two-way next to the bed, to save walking back to the door to turn off the light. We've been in the house almost 10 months now and we still haven't added our last feature light, way up near the peak of our vaulted ceiling. It annoys me having a switch that does nothing ....must call our electrican friend and do something about that over the Christmas break. Re: My light switch rant 17Oct 03, 2009 10:26 am shell83 For those of you who are still in the planning stages, don't make the same mistake we did and overlook the positioning of your light switches ... Re: My light switch rant 18Oct 03, 2009 3:30 pm cyberman shell83 We have a wireless network which works well for us, so didn't get any data cables Larger houses and those with many walls will not work well with wi-fi. Various devices (not just computers) don't have wi-fi, so hard wiring is still necessary for them. Hard wiring is also faster and more reliable. Such points in a smart-wired house can also be used as telephone points. The future of TV has long been substantially over the Internet, and hard-wired speeds are needed for full-HD quality and reliability. In my new house I'll have a network point next to every TV antenna point. I'm very glad we got a few conduits put it just in case then. I guess I shouldn't have made the assumtpion that if its working ok in the little holiday shack we are staying in then it will be fine in the new house Our study, home theatre room and lounge are all next to each other so hopefully it will work ok. Re: My light switch rant 19Oct 03, 2009 4:13 pm cyberman shell83 We have a wireless network which works well for us, so didn't get any data cables Larger houses and those with many walls will not work well with wi-fi. Various devices (not just computers) don't have wi-fi, so hard wiring is still necessary for them. Hard wiring is also faster and more reliable. Such points in a smart-wired house can also be used as telephone points. The future of TV has long been substantially over the Internet, and hard-wired speeds are needed for full-HD quality and reliability. In my new house I'll have a network point next to every TV antenna point. I just worry what all the wireless rays are doing to my brain haha at the rate we are going with so many computers (BF is in IT) Im going to end up having a 3 headed baby Plus cables are faster (as you mention) - and we have a main media centre pc which streams all the movies out to the tv's via playstation etc. best set up ever. so easy.. even I can operate it Re: My light switch rant 20Nov 08, 2009 5:52 pm shell83 For those of you who are still in the planning stages, don't make the same mistake we did and overlook the positioning of your light switches (especially if you have a double brick house, cos its not a simple task to change them later). We paid a lot of attention to our powerpoints, but didn't really think about where the light switches were going and the builder has put them in some silly places e.g. - The kitchen light switch is in the fridge recess. We will have to put our hand between the fridge and the wall to turn it on - There is only one light switch in the hallway and its at the other end from where we will be entering from the garage - The home theatre switch is behind a door. We will have to walk in and close the door to get to the switch. We realised way too late to change them, the walls had already been rendered, and the builder said flat out that they don't accept any changes to electrical after pre-start anyway That annoyed me because our pre-start lady never went through the light switches with us, she only talked about the powerpoints. But I'm more annoyed at myself for not noticing than I am at the builder for putting them in silly places to begin with. At the end of the day we signed off on it, so we should have paid more attention Yeah, sometimes you'll realize this kinds of things after it's done, it really happens sometimes. But the good thing is you have a very nice house for sure. You'll get use with the positions of your light switches as time goes by. Any electricians here please help. 1) Will the Fan need separate switch to ON/OFF/Speed eventhough it comes with Remote 2) how about… 0 1215 Hi - thanks for your reply. Yes I think 'Ill go for whitish with very speckly bits rather than pure white something like this. PS was actually 2008 I built the… 2 11696 That was always going to be a challenge and a test of patience. Full marks to your mate. Did you discuss the wet area near the trampoline? 16 17365 |