Rewiring an old house can seem like a big challenge. Older homes often need comprehensive rewiring especially when their existing wiring no longer meets building codes. Yet, no matter if a home is 50 years old or 150, it’s important to work closely with a licensed electrician throughout this process. A small mistake or a forgotten area of the home could lead to costly mistakes later.

Older homes can be full of electrical hazards. Many times, the need to rewire comes from two areas. First, you need to be sure the home is safe and electrical systems are working as they should. Second, you need to upgrade the home’s existing electrical system to meet modern needs and electrical capacity requirements. That’s not always easy to do.

To upgrade old house wiring, there are several key considerations. This is where you need to start with the help of a licensed electrician. Here’s the process:

Water and electricity make a dangerous combination. That's especially true in your bathroom, where you use water from the sink and shower to clean yourself, but also rely on electrical devices like shavers and hair dryers. That's why you need to take special care with your devices in the bathroom to protect yourself and your family from shock, electrocution or fire. Read on for tips on how to ensure safety when it comes to the electrical work in the bathroom.

Bathroom Electrical Safety is Paramount

Water is essential to human health and hygiene. Unfortunately, it's also a great conductor of electricity. That means that you could receive a severe shock when you are standing in water, and even wet skin allows electricity an easier path to pass into your body. Electrical shocks can cause burns, heart arrhythmia, nervous system damage and death, and bad wiring or improper grounding can also start a fire. That's why safety in your bathroom electrical work should be one of your primary concerns. Follow these tips to avoid an emergency:

Don't Leave the Quality of Your Electrical Work to Chance

In addition to these tips, certain requirements about the installation of electrical work in bathrooms are found in local municipal codes as well. For all the electrical work in your bathroom, make sure you hire a qualified electrician who can adhere to all of the applicable quality and safety standards.

Dimmers are relatively old devices. Granville Woods patented a “Safety Dimmer” in 1896 in order to substantially reduce energy usage. Saving energy is actually the first reason on our list of reasons why you should install dimmer switches throughout your home.

The biggest advantage to dimmer switches is that they can reduce energy consumption and costs by allowing you greater control over your lighting. Traditional light switches only have two options—on (100% power) and off (0% power). However, if you want to save electricity, you have an entire spectrum of settings in between to choose from. For example, if your family is watching a movie in the living room, you don’t need the lights all the way up to see where the popcorn bowl is. Instead of leaving the living room light on during the entire movie, you can turn it down to maybe 40%.

One of the benefits of controlling the amount of power your lightbulb gets is also controlling the ambiance. In the above example, the family watching the movie managed the level of lighting in the room, allowing the living room to turn into a makeshift theater. Likewise, if a couple wanted to have a romantic dinner, they could lower the lighting in the dining room to 30% instead of relying on the dim illumination of a couple of candles.