Once you know the basics of electrical wiring, it’s hard to stop yourself from doing-it-yourself to cut down on costs. The brown wire is active, the blue wire is neutral, and the green and yellow striped wire is the Earth. Should be simple, right?
Wrong! If it were as simple as that, sparkies across Australia would be out of a job. I can understand how you go to this decision, however. Funds are tight across the globe thanks to COVID-19, and online tutorials can easily instil a sense of bravado.
Unfortunately, DIY electrical wiring will end up costing more than an arm and leg without guidance from an electrician with years of experience, training, and licensing. And these tutorials often leave out essential safety measures, equipment, and code that needs to be adhered to.
Sure, there aren’t many news stories about homeowners drowning from leaking pipes. But there are a plethora regarding electrocution and home fires, with 40 per cent of home fires being due to electrical faults. You are, in fact, playing with fire.
To help put this into perspective for you, here are the dangers of DIY electrical wiring in New South Wales.
Electrical Fires
Faulty electrical wiring is one of the most common causes of electrical fires in the home. It can ignite your beams, drywall, and insulation to spark a fire in several ways.
If individual sections of wiring experiences heavy loads and your work has resulted in loose connections, the resistance raises. Essentially, this raises the voltage beyond what the wiring can handle, thus increases the heat. The excessive heat can cause the wires to ignite or their insulation to melt, exposing live currents.
If you install a circuit breaker that is rated to more amps than the wire gauge amp rating, you’re putting too much stress on the wiring, causing it to heat up quickly. Excessive overloads such as this can ignite the wiring insulation.
The list goes on. You can even spark a fire by wiring lamps or heating elements too close to flammable materials!
Electrocution
Trial-and-error has no place in electrical wiring. One mistake and you or someone you know could quickly end up in hospital, or worse. Electrocution is a huge risk when working with wires – especially if done so incorrectly!
You could forget to turn off the power, or you could forget that you’ve turned it back on and that the current is still live. You could touch two wires with different voltages together or leave loose connections that end up exposing live wires.
Depending on the severity, electrocution can cause severe burns that leave scars, seizures, heart attacks, internal tissue damage, long-lasting cardiovascular issues, and death.
Expensive Fines
Simply put, DIY electrical wiring is illegal in New South Wales. It is considered unlicensed electrical work, and thus deemed a dangerous, finable offence in the eyes of the state. As an individual, you can be fined $22,000 for doing your own electrical work.
If any damage, injury, or death occurs due to your electrical wiring, or even exposing anyone to the potential of either, this number will soar!
And without a license to show for it, you can be sure that your homeowner’s insurance will not cover the costs.
As you can see, DIY electrical wiring is indisputably dangerous. So dangerous that it is an illegal, punishable offence in New South Wales and Australia as a whole.
If you need electrical wiring done in your home, contact licensed, experienced, and trained electricians like those found at Copper Electrical!
Our top priority is your safety and satisfaction. We don’t compromise on quality to cut costs. We exclusively use the highest quality materials from leading brands. Every job we do exceeds the latest Australian standards, and we’re so confident in our work, we offer a lifetime warranty on all workmanship.
Contact us to request a quote or answer any questions you have!