Somehow imperceptibly in the field of electrical installation, a new era has come - the era of modular equipment. “Modular” means compact, uniform in size and easy to install. Well, with compactness and unification, everything seems to be clear. And ease of installation - what is it?

In the same apartment switchboards today there are so many different equipment! Dozens of units. So let's try to imagine that each such unit is mounted in the old fashion, with screws.

So: we take the first circuit breaker, mark the back wall of the shield, drill according to the marking, insert the screws into the circuit breaker case, - catch the screws on the back with nuts, tighten the screws, holding the nuts ... Uff ...! It seems that one machine with a sin was fixed in half. There is nothing left: a dozen machines, a pair of RCDs and an electric meter ...

Electricity entering the living room (for example, the apartment) must be distributed. It must be routed to lighting circuits, to outlets, to stationary consumers such as a hob or air conditioner. In addition, it would be nice to take into account the same energy, to calculate.

But, of course, this is not enough. After all, electricity can be not only “good”. Overcurrents of short circuits and overload currents do not spare the wiring and can cause a fire. Electric current itself is dangerous for human health and life. Therefore, to "tame" the electricity at the input, it is necessary to install protective devices.

Well, where is all this to be realized? What is this complete device that can accommodate all these devices and numerous wires and cables? Of course, this is an apartment distribution switchboard ...

Reliability in the arrangement and installation of electrical wiring depends on many factors, first of all, on correctly selected wires and cables, electrical products, installation quality. Here are a few important rules that you must follow, since the reliability of the wiring performed depends on them.

Reliability of electrical wiring is determined by a number of factors and, first of all, by the correct choice of wires and cables in accordance with environmental conditions and load current. Do not use hidden and open wiring on heated surfaces, since heating the insulation above acceptable sharply reduces its service life. Wiring should be fixed to the building structures of buildings without reducing their strength. Incorrect wiring fastening ...

With a switch, light or socket, each electrician searches for the shortest path to the nearest branch box. This is understandable: I want to save on the cable, and nobody wants to do the extra work on laying it. Therefore, boxes in each apartment are usually enough: up to two or three in one room.

But still, the main purpose of branch boxes is not to save materials and working time. Their most important function is to protect the cable core connections from external influences: from dust, moisture and mechanical damage.

In fact, no matter what we use to connect the cores of wires, all the same, the places of these connections look so defenseless - the factory insulation is stripped, both internal and external, and the integrity of the conductors is broken. Without proper protection, dust or moisture can block the connections ...

About the main and additional potential equalization systems and their functional purpose.

Residential building.Many floors and apartments. Entire kilometers of communications: wires, metal pipes, ventilation ducts, metal hoses and the like. In our apartments there are various metal bathtubs, sinks, heated towel rails and you never know what else. In other words, the whole house is simply full of elements and structures capable of conducting electric current, but often not intended for this.

However, each conductor has electrical potential. This is just the law of physics. Potential is a relative value. This means that the electric potential of, for example, the metal surface of the refrigerator in itself does not matter at all. It is important how much higher or lower the potential ...

How many outlets in your apartment? Five? Ten? More? And how many of them are always free? I bet that at least half. What are they for?

These sockets are most often used to connect various portable power consumers. To distinguish them from the rest is quite simple: they can be connected anywhere, without really bothering - there would be a 220-volt outlet.

The most typical portable power consumers are hand-held power tools: a grinder, a drill, a hammer drill, and the like. Something needs to be done somewhere: they picked up the tool for carrying and worked in any conditions. The work is over - the tool is carried away in a long time, al will soon come in handy in a completely different place. But portable power receivers are not only a power tool ...

For most of its inhabitants, the electrics in an apartment are, first of all, numerous switches and sockets. As a rule, there are too many of them. But neither sockets nor switches are hanging in the air - they need to be somehow fixed to the wall.

Sockets and switches are of two types: for hidden and for open wiring. Accordingly, the method of installing sockets and switches depends on the method of wiring. The final choice of devices for installation, that is, reinforcement, also depends on the material of the walls on which the installation is carried out. Under certain conditions, it is even possible to install, as they say, “without everything,” that is, simply onto a wall.

So, we will consider how to install sockets and switches depending on the type of wiring. For hidden wiring the main thing - the material and quality of the walls. If the wall is flat and non-combustible, such as brick or concrete, or if it is tiled ...

The kitchen in a modern house, if the hostess likes to cook, is increasingly reminiscent of the control room from the movie "Stargate". To ensure comfort in your home and not to burn wiring, when organizing kitchen power supply, you need to take care in advance that the total power of electrical appliances corresponds to the cross-section of the electrical wiring, the presence of correctly selected protection devices, the number and location of electrical outlets and switches.

Now let's discuss everything in order. As always, the power supply to the kitchen should begin with the project and think about what you have at the moment and what you want to see in the future. You should always set reasonable requirements according to your budget. It is one thing if you want to make a complete repair in the apartment, with the replacement of the old apartment wiring and quite another - this is a partial modernization of the wiring. In the first case, the posting money is leveled ...