Four Ways to Improve your HDB Flat’s Electrical System

You might be an office worker who only stays home at night or you could be a businessman who often does meetings outside. Maybe a full-time Mom with an online business who stays all day and all night at home, taking care of the kids and handling your online shop.

Whatever your lifestyle is, you’d always want your home to be the best that it can be. We know that interior design does a good job in dressing up our homes to be aesthetically pleasing and suitable to our taste. But these days, mere beauty is not enough. We want our homes to fit our lifestyle in every aspect possible.

We want it to give us the convenience we need. And in this generation, convenience means accessibility to advanced technologies that make our lives easier. The important thing to note is that when we touch on technology, we cannot separate it from power and electricity.

So today, in this post, we’re going to talk about making your home more conducive to these electrical devices which are the lifeblood of a modern home in this era. We’ll focus on how to make electrical connections, fixtures, and appliances work for you based on your lifestyle.

Aside from that, we’ll give you tips on how to keep them accessible but out of sight so as not to ruin your interior design. So if you’re as excited as we are, here are some useful tips to improve your HDB flat’s electrical system.

Proper lighting for rooms

When every fixture looks right and you’ve picked the perfect interior design for your home, don’t let your hard work go to waste by having a poor choice of home lighting.

Remember this, lights inside your home can make or break your overall interior design. While natural light is still the best source that will brighten up your home, the artificial lighting system is the only option you have when the sun sets.

So it begs the question. Do the lights in your home emphasize the beauty of your interiors or do they decrease their aesthetic value?

Yellow or white light?

Would you go for white or yellow lights for your home? Any color aside from these two might cause a mismatch in your home interior. Unless you want to go for something bold, which generally looks odd, you should avoid funky colors like pink, blue, or green for your home interior.

When choosing between these two safest options – white or yellow – you have to consider the purpose of the room. If it’s one made for relaxation, a warmer shade of light is preferable. This type of lights will create a cozy ambiance to living rooms, dining areas, and bedrooms.

However, for rooms where you need to concentrate and work, a bright white light is more preferred. Opt for white and clear LED lights for your kitchen where you need to be careful in preparing and cooking food. The same type of light should be installed in study and work areas inside your house where you need to stay awake and stay focused.

Strategic areas to install lights

Aside from the usual areas where lights are needed, there are parts where proper illumination is not implemented. One such area is the kitchen counter. If you have cabinets and cupboard installed above your kitchen counter, you’ll notice that light is blocked by these cabinets, making the area directly under them not properly illuminated.

This is not ideal since we usually perform cooking preparations on the counter. Your best bet in addressing this is to install lights right under the cabinets to make sure the area is properly lit as you cook and prepare food.

Another neglected area is the lower part of a bunk bed. For those who love to read before sleeping, it’s pretty hard to do so when all light is blocked by the bed above. Brighten up this area by installing at least one light on the wall right in the corner of the lower bunk bed.

We can go on and on telling you about these home areas where light is much needed but there’s lack of it. But our advice is for you to examine your house closely so you can make an independent assessment and make the installation wherever you deem proper.

Which lighting fixture is the safest?

Safety is one of the primary concerns if you live with kids. A house for the family should have the safest electrical system installed in every corner. That includes our lights on the ceiling and walls. If you’re going to ask us which lighting fixture is the safest, we say one which is totally unreachable by your kids.

Recessed lights could be your safest option because they are literally hidden inside the ceiling. Though they lack the wow factor of track lighting fixtures or the glamour of classy chandeliers, they are totally safe from a curious child’s reach.

Track lights and chandeliers, though pretty, can be hazardous when kids go rowdy, throwing things up to the ceiling. Be creative by dressing up recessed lights by using stylish frames or lining them up in a way that demands attention.

Add smart home devices

When you’ve set up the perfect lighting system for your home and your residential unit has the best interior design you can ever imagine, the only thing left for you to do is to make it most technologically advanced as well.

Automated Lights that you can control through voice commands

What’s the better way to do that than by adding smart home devices that will make everyday living much easier? Some of our favorites are automated lights that you can program to turn on and off or dim up and down by literally asking them to.

A Genius Voice Assistant that performs thousands of tasks

This leads us to another one of our favorites – a smart home device called Alexa that can be your over-all home assistant. Although we trust that you’ve somehow heard of this genius device from Amazon, let us give you a brief background about the things we love most about this voice assistant. Alexa can actually list grocery items for you, allow you to control automated lights, pick up the phone for you while your hands are busy with cooking, and set reminders for you. These are only a few of more than hundreds of things she can do for you.

Smart Thermostat that turns off when no one’s around

How do you feel about a smart thermostat that turns on and off on its own based on the presence or absence of people inside your house? Sounds enticing, right? It gets more enticing when you discover that this smart thermostat does not only detect motion and proximity, but can also receive voice commands for easier control and access.

Speaking of easy-to-control features, it’s also amazing how seamless this device’s touchscreen display is. It provides an overview of what the device can do at a glance. Plus, it’s very responsive too. But if you’d rather speak than press and slide the screen to control your thermostat, you can easily connect this device to your Wi-Fi and install your desired app to control it via voice command.

There are tons more of electronic devices and smart electrical appliances that make home living easier for the family. Incorporate them in your home and you’ll experience the real definition of relaxation in this day and age.

Perform rewiring work for proper socket placement 

We’ve entered an era where a great weekend at home means having smart home devices assisting you in every chore and watching your favorite series and movies at the living room. For some, it simply means using their gadgets for all the entertaining things not related to work or reading a book in your favorite home corner.

For all these activities, you’ll need a socket installed nearby. You need a socket to charge your mobile phone and other gadgets, to brew coffee, and to light up your favorite lamp as you read.

Using extension wires, while convenient, is not the safest choice for several reasons. It’s a tripping hazard and a common cause for electrical emergencies. Instead of improvising electrical connections, ask a professional electrician to do rewiring work for your residential unit

Conceal the wires

Finally, you’d want to hide those electrical wires running through your walls, on the floor, and even above your tables. They just look so messy, they will ruin the whole clutter-free, organized, and stylish look you’d want to have for your home.

Now, you don’t need to reduce the number of these wires. They are pretty useful for your electrical devices. So along with asking a pro to do a rewiring work to your home, ask them to do wire concealment too. These electricians know the right materials to use to conceal these wires. You can also engage a carpenter to modify your furniture by adding holes where wires can pass through and some cable raceways that complement the color of your tables. (Photo from Cable Ties and More)