Come every Christmas, most household will have hell of a time sorting out their Christmas lights that they have stashed away for the past one year. A common sense tip is when you dismantle your Christmas lights this year, do make sure you roll it up neatly so it does not get tangled up. Once a string of Christmas Lights gets all tangled, you will probably prefer tearing away your hair than to untangle the mess.

As in all thing that rubs on electricity, make sure your old Christmas lights are in good condition before hanging them up. Check for any damage to the wire’s insulation. Cockroaches and mice likes chewing on wire insulation and many a mishap have happened due to leaking wires.

If you see the damage is too bad and yet still want to re-use them, do not simply wrap the exposed wires with insulation tape. Cut of the entire damage portion and join back the wires individually. Make sure you twist the joined wires tightly so there will not be any loose contacts. Then make sure you bind those exposed wires with a good insulation tape. You and your family will be spending a lot time under that Christmas tree, so you do not want any small children touching any exposed wires.

Have a safe and merry Christmas.

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Electrical Lineman are the unsung heroes of the whole process that bring electricity to our homes. Their part of the job hinges between life and death and one minute of carelessness or one second of misfocus could well cost the electrical lineman their precious lives.

Basically an electrical lineman’s job is to make sure the giant electrical cables that we see hanging for miles and miles above giant steel towers are in perfect working condition. This ensures that whenever we flick on our electrical switches, the lights automatically comes on. When we are enjoying the comfort of our homes with our electrical heater turned on during winter or the air conditioner during summer, no one spared a thought for these special breed of electricians who made this possible.

To make sure the high tension cables are in good working condition, periodical checks have to made manually. If there is a fault, these giant cables too have to be fixed manually. All this is within the job scope of the electrical lineman. They have to hang precariously and do tightrope walking along the cables a few hundred feet above the ground.

In many places where these line towers runs across mountains and forest, they have no choice but to access them with helicopter. The video below shows how dangerous the job of an electrical lineman is.

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Other than hydro power and solar power, wind power is another form of cheap, clean and environmentally friendly energy that can be put to good use. Many countries have adopted these technology to tap into these free source of power. The Netherlands being a windy country by nature is one of the major users to tap the power of the wind.

For the uninitiated, looking at a wind mill may be very puzzling to them. They will be wondering how with the whirling of those big giant fins,  electrical power can be produced.  A brief explanation will be very enlightening experience.

To understand how wind can generate electricity, you have to understand how electricity is produced first. Basically, in very simple terms, electricity is produced when a piece of magnet is turned vigorously round a coil of copper wires. To go into an in-depth explanation may take a whole book, so for his brief post, we just have to imagine a giant magnet being rotated inside a giant coil of copper around it which is encased in a giant turbine.

In conventional power producing plants, the giant magnet are rotated with the use of a diesel or gas powered motors.  In recent years due to the world supply of these fuel getting short, scientist have turned to neucler power to run those motors.

Another way is to use the power of water to push the magnet into rotation thereby saving on fuel. Try to imagine the propellers of motorboats. The magnets have propellers attached to them in order to absorb the power of the gushing water which may be a few million gallons per minute. The theory and the end result is the same. A magnet rotating inside a coil of copper wire. Which produces electrical power.

Coming back to wind generators.  The fins you see turning on the giant windmills are attached to the magnets by rods and gears so that when the fin turns, the rods and gears attached to those fins will turn the piece of magnet to create electricity. The greatest disadvantage is of course, wind. There must be wind blowing in order to untilize this power. For those who stays in windy areas, they can actually generate their own electricity with a simple DIY Home Built Wind Generator. Information are readily available around the Internet teaching those interested in tapping the power of the wind to light up their resident.

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With the econmy downturn that don’t seems to be ending real soon, practical cost saving solutions should be observed. As apposed to many things that when cut down or done away with may effect our lifestyle, cutting down on electrical cost can be done without any drastic change to our daily lives. However, the changes made will need some investments, but in the long run,  you will save many times more that you have invested.

There are a few areas which can be considered when it comes to cutting electrical cost. For a quick start, comes this Christmas when you are hunting for Christmas trees, consider using the modern fiber optic Christmas Tree. These Christmas tress comes ready with super energy saving light bulbs that will only consume a fraction of electricity if compared to the conventional Christmas lights.

Christmas comes but once a year. A more realistic cost saving method which ion the long run will pay for itself is to consider installing domestic LED lighting. The main advantage of LED lighting is, energy consumption notwithstanding, the life span of these lights if compared to incandescent lights. No doubt, the light emitted is not as bright and strong, but even using 3 LED lights in replacement of one incandescent light you will still save lots when your electrical bill comes.

The most neglected kind of free energy that can be used to power up our household is solar energy. Solar energy can be used for a host of household electrical products, the most common being used to heat up water. Solar powered water heaters are very widely used so it is kind of surprising that not many has turned to solar lighting. Maybe it is due to the misconception that solar power only works when the sun is shining. It should be assuring to know that solar power is used by scientists doing research in the North or South poles to light and power up their camps and equipments, even when light from the sun is at the minimum. Advancements made to this technology has made it possible to tap into this energy with the minimum source.

For those who still has fear of using this free source of power, why not start off and experiment by installing some solar garden lights first. When you see how these garden lights works and the money you are saving on your electrical cost monthly, you will be confident enough to turn to this environmentally friendly power. Not only will you be doping your part to keep the world a little bit less polluted, you will be saving a whole lot on electrical cost.

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2. Tapping The Power Of The Wind Other than hydro power and solar power, wind power is another form of cheap, clean and environmentally friendly energy that can be put to good use. Many countries have adopted these technology to tap into these free source of power. The Netherlands being a windy country by nature is one...
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The most frustrating moments a hard core DIY practitioner faces is the lack of materials when they are nearly done and the most common case is not something that is unexpected. Most of the time they discover that they missed out the most crucial part of their entire project until the last moment when all the shops have closed. When that happens, many projects are just left hanging there for weeks. It is not always that we find the time to do a project so before starting, make a detailed inventory of the things we need and get them all ready so we can finish the project preferably in one go. If it is uncompleted, god knows when we will have time to continue with it.

Taking the installation of a simple outdoor light for our garden as an example.   Sit down and do a checklist. Start from the beginning.

Tools:

1. You will need to do some digging to lay the cables, so you will need a hoe and a shovel.
2. You will need to terminate the wires so pliers , wire strippers, cutters are in order.
3. You might need to do some hacking, so hammers and chisels should be included too.

The best thing is to check your tool box and make sure everything is in order. No point banging your head against the wall at the last minute when you realise your pair of pliers are missing.

Materials:

1. Cables. Measure roughly how much you need and buy at least 10 to 20 percent extra so you have room for mistakes.
2. Termination glands and cable lugs.
3. Switches whether you want one with timer controlled or otherwise.
4. Outdoor Lights, choose the type and look that you prefer fo it is going to be there for years.

That is just a small example of what you should jot down in your checklist and it is by no means extensive and I might have missed out many other details. You should know better.

The good thing is, when shopping for these necessities, we can do it online these days and the products are so varied that you will be spoilt for choice. When shopping for power tools, site like Power Tool And Hand Tools list out all the different kinds of tools from different manufacturers like Ryobi Tools so you have an easier time locating what you prefer.

When it comes to getting a nice and elegant Outdoor Lighting there are also shopping sites that caters specially for this products. All the different types of landscape lighting and track lighting are listed out clearly for you easy reference and picking. It saves you lots of time hopping from one site to another.

After you have gathered everything you need, do a re-check to see if you missed out anything. You will never know. Sometimes, even after double checking, we still manage to miss out one or two items and that could be the most frustrating feeling.

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I guess lots of you still uses the old fashioned fan speed regulator like the one you see above. These speed regulators works with a copper coil as resistance to regulate the amount of current passing through to the fan. There is of course the speed dial ranging from 1 to 5 or sometimes 0 to 5 where 0 means it fan is switched off with no current passing through. 5 would mean all the current passes through offering no resistance at all. At speed level 5, the fan will be running at full speed. Anywhere in between 9 and 5 willoffer a different range of resistance. The bigger the number, the more current will pass through and the fan will run faster.

If you open up the cover of the fan’s speed regulator, you will see clearly the copper coil behind the speed dial. You will also see different strands of copper wires coming out from different parts of the coil and connected to their specified speed numbers. Of course, the more times the current travel round the coil, the more resistance it will meet, so less current will pass through, making the fan run at a slower speed.

Terminating this regulator wires simply means connecting the 2 wires to each of the ready terminal that you will see when you open up the cover of the regulator. Preferably, the live wire should go to the end with the smallest number and the switch wire to the terminal at the maximum speed. It will still work the other way round though.

Modern day speed regulators has done away with this old technology and has gone silicon. In place of the copper coil, transistors are used these days. The regulator looks more elegant and compared to the old fashioned type, they are very light weight, smaller and easier to install.

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Installing an outdoor light is a good practice especially if you have a wide compound where some areas can be really dark during the night. This can be a security issue. To install a outdoor light will involve some digging as the wires will have to be run underground and the light pole will have to be planted.  Refer to the diagram below.

As in installing any lighting circuit, there are always the live and the neutral wire coming from the source which can be the Mains Distribution panel of the switch and light nearest to the new circuit that you are going to install. In the case of an outdoor light, it is compulsory that you have an earth wire as the light will be expose to rain and anything that is wet, like the perimeters of your outdoor water fountains, is a good conductor of electricity. Having an earth wire will prevent any electrical accidents in case there is a leakage in the outdoor light or circuit.

As usual,  the Live wire, L goes to the switch before being run to the light. The Neutral (N) and Earth (E) wire goes straight to the outdoor light. Terminate the wires in the switch as usual. In all outdoor lights that you buy, there will be an earth terminal. It will be denoted by the letter E and three hroizontal lines. The earth wire should be attached there firmly.

Plant your outdoor light as per instructions given in the installation sheet that comes together with the light. Some will require you to make a cement foundation but some just require you to plant it, so do as instructed.

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Say you have a room that has only a single light point or maybe a dining hall that you feel is not bright enough. You can always add in an additional light without too much trouble and you don’t even have to mess with the Main Switch Panel.

Wiring Diagram 1- Shows you how the existing light point’s wire is typically installed. The live wire goes to the switch and the neutral wire to the existing light. In short you have everything that is needed to light up another light right here. The live and the neutral wire are what we need.

Diagram 2 – One way to install an additional light is to run a piece of wire (S2) from the existing one gang switch and another piece of wire (N2) from the existing light to the new light point. Then replace the one gang switch with a two gang switch and terminate them seperately using the looping method that I showed you in this post.

At the existing light point twist the newly laid out neutral wire with the existing one and re-terminate the light point.

Wiring Diagram 3 – If however you want to locate the switch for the new light away from the existing switch, all you have to do is to run a new wire (L2) from the existing switch to the new location. From that new switch, run another piece for wire (S2) to the new light point. Get a new set of one gang switch and terminate it accordingly.

Follow the same procedure for the neutral wire as mentioned just now.

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