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Choosing An Electrician? Be A Bright Spark

After recently moving house, the first thing we needed to do was get a decent electrician around to check things out. The amount of things I hadn’t considered was vast, however choosing the right company set me on the path to salvation.

davieselectricalThis article has been reproduced from the personal blog of Kelly Noble, Glam Adelaide’s editor, with permission.

My family and I recently moved into our “new” 1920’s home and have been working our way through a variety of things to-do since we settled. Being a 100 year old home, the most important thing we wanted to do was have all of the electrical checked out. With small kids running around, and Steve and I being ultimately clumsy, an accident with electricity is the last thing we need!

After having a disappointing experience with the plumber who wouldn’t even say hello to us, and paying our chimney sweep $200 to look up the chimneys and tells us they were ok (easyyyy money), I wanted to make sure our next tradesperson wasn’t a disappointment. Enter Davies Electrical. Merv Davies, the proprietor of the business has one of the largest electrical companies in SA. As it turns out, they also do residential stuff in addition to their commercial work, so I was in luck.

Things I realised straight away

1. I should have called Davies Electrical on the day we settled. There were some seriously unsafe things the building inspection didn’t pick up.

2. Merv has the friendliest guy working for him called Steve. It was a pleasure having him working on our home. Thank god there are tradies out there who actually have customer service (and social) skills.

3. I should have made a list in order of priorities. There are enough things to do in my house to keep the sparkies in work for the rest of the year.

4. I was over the moon that I chose to install pendant lights in the kitchen. It gave me something to ‘show’ people as most of the work done was ‘behind the scenes’ which isn’t as fun to share.

The best thing I did

I replaced the thirty 50 Watt Halogen down light globes in our kitchen/dining area with 15 Watt LED globe which will reduce ongoing electricity use by over 60%. In addition, replacing halogen lamps with LEDs will help keep our home cooler in summer as Halogen lamps generate heat. This heat often requires the use of air conditioners, which adds more costs when using halogen lamps. To keep things safer with the insulation in the roof (which is the loose spray stuff) we changed the entire fittings rather than just the bulbs, which means it’s also much less of a fire hazard.

Although the LED lights were a little pricey to buy and have installed, we’ll make the money back in no time as we have reduced our energy use dramatically. They also look much cleaner and the light is much brighter (while still being a warm rather than cool light) which is brilliant for the kitchen. We also had dimmers installed to manage the light output.

Note: Some LED replacements will fit directly into the Halogen down light fitting, however some, with higher lumens, will require new fittings, which may need an electrician to install. LEDs and CFLs can be purchased from lighting shops, and most large hardware stores.

My showpiece

As I mentioned above, my favourite thing electrical make over thing was the addition of pendant lights in our kitchen. It was a little tricky with the old ceilings and a hidden skylight which was in the roof (from pre-extention days) which made me pretty happy I was using professionals and not doing this ourselves. The lights really anchored the kitchen, which is part of a larger open plan living area at the back of the house. It also makes the fairly neutral kitchen more of a showpiece itself and we absolutely love them.

 

It won’t be long before I get the guys from Davies Electrical to come back and work on my outdoor fan and lighting solutions, as well as mechanising our front gate. If I get any amazing photos I’ll share them with you!

I’ve also managed to get my Glam Adelaide readers a 10% discount with any work Merv and his team do for you, so I genuinely recommend you get in touch with them if you need anything electrical done.

For more info on Davies Electrical services including phone, data, CCTV, Security Systems and C Bus installations visit their website or call 8376 3344 during business hours Monday – Friday 7:30am – 5pm.

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