Have you ever started to install lights in your home and then realized that you forgot to calculate something in before you installed the light? If you have, you are just like every other human being who has ever installed lights. This happened to me two days ago, and to be honest, I see that it happens to other people a lot.
When someone has a lot of things to do, concentration can simply go away to the next task, and those are the instances when we forget. Although I can’t teach you how to remember things better, I can tell you, or in this case, inform you, of the top five tricks to remember when you are installing home lights.
Position your ladder beside the lamp, instead of directly underneath it.
This way, you won’t have to look directly up. Why is looking directly up the problem? Because it is highly likely that your body will lose balance in this position. This is not a problem if the light you are installing is not very high, but if you are standing on a ladder, and look up with both hands up, holding the lamp, well, it is not a good situation to be in, to say the least… Besides, you will have a much better view of the area on the wall where you need to install the lamp, and the lamp itself, once installed.
Oh yeah, there’s one more thing when it comes to ladders. I always use ladders that have rubber pads glued on the bottom. There’s less chance that my ladder will slip when I’m working in houses with tiles.
Test wires with the multimeter before installing the light
You should take advantage of the situation and make sure that everything is in order with the circuit where you plan to install the light on. It is somewhat rare that something happens and that you then need to remove the lamp, but it happens.
Thing number two is safety. If you are doing this job for someone else, you should make sure that the circuit works fine and that it is safe to use, if you are a professional, of course. If not, I highly recommend that you don’t risk your life, but that you instead contact a professional electrician to test the live circuit for you.
Of course, prevention is the best solution to all problems. Test the wires with a multimeter before installing them into the wall. Inspect them for cracks and damage so that you don’t have to remove the lamp and break down the wall to replace the wire in case it was damaged before you installed it.
Make sure that the weight of the light isn’t too much for the wall
I don’t mean that you should spend hours and hours calculating and trying to find the optimal weight. It would be best if you would just factor the thickness of a wall and the size of a lamp that you plan to buy before buying so that you can avoid any mistakes.
When I was working on a construction site of a family house, the owner insisted that we install a huge set of lamps on the wall because it will look excellent in combination with other home decor. However, he forgot to mention that when the walls were constructed because wall builders should have implement reinforcements on the wall and ceiling. Luckily, we found out about this in time, and we explained to him that there is a high possibility of the wall caving in if we do that.
Use a screwdriver with a rubber handle
This one serves two purposes. The first one is safety. You wouldn’t want to suffer an electric shock if you accidentally place the screwdriver in a wrong hole, do you? Use a screwdriver with a ribber handle then.
The second and more likely purpose this serves is time management. If you are installing lights on heights and ceilings, your screwdriver could slip out of your hand.
If you are like me, I believe that you hate it when you drop something while on the ladder, and then you have to go down and pick it up, only to drop it again, just because your hands are sweaty from all the work. Besides, you wouldn’t want to accidentally injure someone with that falling screwdriver, would you?
Add fire resistant aluminum to the inside of the light mount
This will improve the amount of light your home gets by two times. The aluminum acts as sort of a mirror, and the light that would otherwise be lost will be reflected in the direction it should have gone in the first place.
You can use this information for all sorts tricks. If you have a light positioned on the side of your room, shape the aluminum in a way that directs the light towards the center of the room, or where it suits you the most.
Do you have a light right above your work desk? Does the light keep shining in your eyes, and not on your desk where it is needed? Use aluminum to focus the light, and enjoy working without a lamp that shined directly in your eyes.
I believe that most of you have one question about this? Does the aluminum have to be fire resistant? Yes, it does. Aluminum could melt due to the heat radiated by the lamp. Besides, some more expensive lamps already have aluminum built in, in the way I mentioned. Just remember to check for the correct, heat and fire resistant aluminum when you do this.
Conclusion
It took me a while to figure out some of these things on my own. Now that I know them, I implement them in my work whenever possible.
I hope that these tricks will be helpful to you and to your friends and that they will improve the quality of your work, or, if you are doing this for yourself, enable you to customize what you do so that products of your finished work suit you as you desire it.
