How to Wire a House

This article will teach you how to set up a wiring plan for your house, including where to install electrical outlets, how to configure switches, and how to plan for future wiring needs.

Things You'll Need

• Outline of the rooms you want to wire drawn to scale
• Pencil

Instructions

How to set up a wiring plan for you house

1. When completing new construction or a major remodel you will want a wiring plan for your house. It is important to consider where to put outlets and switches and what you want your switches to operate.

2. I recommend adding at least one outlet to each wall of a room. This will allow the most flexibility for placing furniture in the future. All outlets should be approximately one-foot off the floor. The actual wiring will be an additional foot up from the outlets. There are several types of outlets, but I recommend using a 3-prong outlet if you house is grounded. If you will be wiring a bathroom or kitchen or other location near water you will want to use a GFI protector, however, in this article we are concerned with those areas not near water.

3. The next step is to determine what type of lighting will be in each room. For some rooms can lighting is appropriate, for other rooms a nice ceiling fan with attached light may be right. Decide if you'd like a dimmer for your lighting (you can also add this later if you change your mind). Now is the most important time to decide if you would like all the lights in a room to come on at once or to use two switches with one working, say the can lighting and the other working a fan. It will also be important at this stage to determine if you would like a light switch to work an outlet. Although this is not as common as it once was, this is when you would make that decision.

4. Once you've figured all of this out, draw your plan on the outline of the room you wish to wire. This should be drawn to scale as it will help you determine how much wire you will need to buy, as well as the number of outlets, switches, and fixtures. Once this is complete you are ready to wire your house.

Tips & Warnings

• Prevent electric shock. Turn off the power to your house before working with wires!