The Tools For Working With Electricity 

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  Electricity Tool Equipment 1

  As everybody know working with the power components of your house requires the right tools.Majority electrical contractors  and electricians have their special tools of the trade. The tools needed for an electrical contractor fall into three major categories. They are basic wiring tools, system installation tools, and testing equipment. The basic tool kit of the electrician will contain many tools common to mechanical, plumbing, and household tool kits.

• The most of one special piece of equipment in the electricians tool box is the combination wire stripper/cutter. This special tool is used in the preparation for wiring. The typical stripper has grooves for most common wire sizes. The end of the wire is inserted in the groove and the stripper is closed. When the wire is pulled out of the groove, the insulation will be removed leaving the underlying wire exposed. The combination tool also is a wire cutter.

Electric Tool Equipment 2

• It also installation tools are more expensive and not normally found in the average tool collection. These include special tools designed for breaking through wall surfaces for the insertion of conduit. Another group of contractor tools enables the electrician to pull wire through enclosed areas. These are cable pulling or fish taping systems used in wiring.

• The other thing was a testing equipment is an important part of the contractors tool assortment. There is a wide variety of testing equipment. The most common is the Digital multi-meter. The most common function of the multi-meter is to test circuit integrity. This is done by disconnecting power from an appliance and touching the negative and positive probes of the multi-meter to each end of the circuit. If the resistance reading is zero, it indicates that the circuit is intact and will handle a current flow.

• A final group of equipment for an electrical contractor is safety related equipment. Electrical work has a high potential of danger. Safety equipment is the most important part of any electricians tool kit. Safety equipment includes eye protection, electricians gloves, and tagging equipment to insure that equipment is disconnected while work is being performed.

 

 

How To Save Electricity In Your Home. Saving The Money With A Lower Electric Bill

This may sound too good to be true.We are wondering how to save electricity, saving it will not only save you money, but will also help with the rising power cuts.We all know the country needs to cut energy use by 10% for the current system to cope. By saving electricity will also give you a warm fuzzy feeling, as you will be doing your bit to conserve natural resources, i.e. coal, and reducing the impact energy consumption has on the environment, slowing down global warming. There are several ways to save money - listed below are a handful of that you may find beneficial.

Electricity Definition.What is Watt?

• 1 kilowatt hour (kWh) = 1000W or 1kW working for one hour
• Electricity is measured in units of power called watts (W)
• 1 000 watts = 1 kilowatt (kW)
• Electricity is measured in kilowatt hours, and on your electricity bill each kilowatt hour is shown as one unit.
The basic thing about electricity is all household appliances are rated in watts or kilowatts. This will indicate how much electricity the appliance uses in a certain amount of time. As for example, a 1kW kitchen appliance uses one unit of electricity an hour. A 100 watt rice cooker uses one unit of electricity every 10 hours. Usually the rating is shown on the appliance, the higher the rating, the more electricity it will use.

Hungry Appliances

heating and cooling

The first step in saving electricity is to understand how electricity is used in your home. South African households, on average, use electricity in the following ways:
• Space heating and cooling: 18%
• Lighting: 17%
• Fridges and freezers: 8%
• Cooking: 11%
• Consumer electronics: 5%
• Consumer electronics on standby mode: 15%
• Geysers: 24%
• Miscellaneous: 2%

switched off standby mode

What you should standby for more Savings
These days our homes are full of appliances that use electricity all the time, even when we aren’t there. We leave them on standby mode, waiting to be used again. You would think that an appliance on standby would only use a little electricity, but sadly we are mistaken.

In some households appliances of standby mode use the equivalent of leaving a 100W light bulb on all year

Some examples of appliances that use power, but can be switched off are; battery and phone charges, microwaves (do you really need that digital clock?), computers, TVs, DVD players, decoders, Hi-Fis, game consoles, rechargeable toothbrushes, the list can go on an on. There are some appliances that do however, need to be powered all the time such as; home security systems, remote controlled gates and garage doors, to name but a few. Make sure you select low consumption models to reduce your electricity usage.

Check the Electricity Label Rate

The most important thing you should know before you buy a new appliance, check the energy efficiency rating, which is rated on a scale from A (most efficient) to G (least efficient). A-rated appliances are better for the environment and cost much less to run. For example, if you replace the fridge-freezer you bought in 1995 with an A-rated energy efficient one, you would save about R 680.00 a year on electricity. Some brands are A+ or A++ rated - the pinnacle of appliance energy efficiency.

Some handy tips for reducing energy around the house

In the Bathroom:

• Shower instead of running a bath, as a shower uses much less water and therefore, less hot water and less electricity.
• Fit low-flow shower heads, this will not only save water, but electricity too.
• A geyser blanket will insulate your geyser not allowing the heat to escape. To save even further, insulate the water pipes and turn the geyser’s thermostat down to 60°C.
• Fix any dripping taps, especially hot water taps.
• Turn off the water when you are brushing your teeth and take shorter showers.  This will not only save water, but it will also save the electricity that it takes to pump and heat the water. 

Lights:

Use energy efficient appliances

• In most homes, lighting accounts for around 17% - 20% of the electricity bill. A considerable amount of electricity can be saved by replacing your conventional tungsten bulbs with compact-florescent lamps (CFLs). They are more expensive, but CFLs last 8 times longer.
• Get into the habit to turn off the lighting when you aren't using it. This is an energy saving idea that would not cost you a single penny.
• Fit lower wattage bulbs wherever possible and avoid leaving spot lights on for too long, as they use more electricity.

In the Kitchen:

• Use a kettle to boil water for cooking as it is quicker and uses less energy than a pot on the hob.
• Check how much electricity your water heater uses. If it uses more than other models of water heaters, replace it with a more efficient one.
• Put insulation around the pipes going in and out of your water heater.  If you have an older water heater, put an insulated blanket around it.
• If you will be out of town for more than a couple days, turn off your water heater.
• About once a year, drain one gallon of water from the faucet at the bottom of your water heater.  This gets rid of the sediment in the water which reduces the energy efficiency of your water heater.
• Use a microwave to cook as it is quicker and cheaper, 1 oven uses the same power as 18 microwaves.
• When it comes to cooking it would not be a bad energy saving idea to use your toaster or microwave instead of your oven whenever possible. You could possibly use your microwave to boil water, cook foods and make desserts. Microwaves cost much less to run than regular gas and electric ovens.
• If you have a very aged heating boiler, consider replacing it to a moder A-rated condensing boiler, you're more likely to reduce your gas bills by around 30 percent a calendar year which is a enormous saving and the cost of the boiler will soon be recovered.

• Only fill kettle with the amount of water that you need.
• Cut food into smaller sections before cooking to help it cook quicker.
• Make your toast in a toaster, not under the grill.
• Don’t keep opening the oven door while you are cooking.
• Always put a full load of washing in the washing machine and if the weather is good dry the clothes on the line outside.
• If you have a stove with heavy solid plates that retain heat, switch off the plate a few minutes before removing the pot.
• When you open your fridge door for more than a moment, it loses cold air. Cooling it down again will take a lot of electricity. So be quick and don’t let all that cold air out.
• Its a great energy saving idea to always keep your refrigerator clean. A clean refrigerator takes up less energy, because it runs more effectively. So make it a habit to clean your refrigerator regularly. An empty refrigerator requires more energy to run, so always keep your freezers and refrigerators full. Freezers should be defrosted regularly.
• Do not place hot food in the refrigerator or the deep freeze, rather allow it to cool outside first.
• Ensure that the door seals are in good condition and don’t put the refrigerator near the oven.

• Every time you switch on your dishwasher, it’s the same as switching on 120 CFL energy-saving light bulbs. Wait until the dishwasher is full before you switch it on. Use the economy programme wherever possible.
• Clothes should never be placed in the tumble dryer while they are still dripping with water, so be sure to remove excess water.

• Onto your washing! A great energy saving idea for your washing machine would be to wash in full loads. Don't throw just a shirt or two in the machine. Wait until your dirty laundry piles up before you do your washing. Try using warm or cold water temperature. This is an energy saving idea that once it turns into a habit will lessen the cost of your electricity bill considerably over time.

In the Lounge:

Switch Off TV

• Switch the TV off when not in use, leaving it on standby mode uses up to 50% of the power the TV would use if it was actually on, the same goes for the Hi-Fi’s and computers.
• Be sure to turn off lights when you leave a room.
• Turn off machines when you leave a room (examples include TV’s, computers, radios, stereos, video games, VCR’s, and DVD players).
• When you go away on a trip, be sure to unplug these same machines because they have stand-by functions that consume electricity even when they are turned off.
• Unplug appliances when you are not using them. This can be a fantastic energy saving idea, especially around the living room where most of the entertainment appliances are kept. Some appliances take up energy even if they are not being used particularly the Television left on standby. You are able to now get cheap devices that switch the power off at the wall as opposed to the appliance.Rather use a gas heater or a temperature-controlled oil heater for space heating and switch of the heater if you leave the room.
• Put in a programmable thermostat which will keep your house at the right temperature day and night.  Programmable thermostats can reduce cooling and heating bills up to 10% because they lower the heat or raise the air conditioning when you are not at home.

• Curtains help to retain the heat, so draw them early in the evening.
• Don’t put furniture and other things in front of heating and air conditioning vents.
• Keep doors and windows closed when heat or air conditioning is on.
• Change your furnace filter at least once a year or even more.  Filters get clogged up with dust and dirt that circulate in a house. This means that air has a more difficult time passing through the filter, and then your furnace has to work a lot harder in order to heat the house.
• Take a look at the insulation in your attic.  Heat rises, which means that warm air rises into your attic. If you don’t have good enough insulation, heat will be wasted.  Insulation should be 6 inches to 1 foot thick.
• Close doors and vents in rooms you are not using.
• Hold a ribbon or feather up to windows and doors to see if there are any drafts.  If there are, put in weather stripping or caulking to keep the outside air out and to keep the air conditioning or heating in.

The Swimming Pool:

• The swimming pool filter pump is one of he largest consumers of electricity. So try to use the pump only when necessary. There are a number of timers available that can be fitted to the pump.
• During winter you can use the pool filter even less, as algae growth is limited, so the cleaning filter can be reduced to once every few days.

All was the best tips to reduce your electricity bill. But there is some special Device to throw your electricity bill Out the Window.