Electrical materials used in house wiring.

electrical house wiring materials names
electrical materials

Electrical materials used in house wiring, I believe these are the materials that you need to wire your house from start to finish.

I personally have done a lot of electrical house wiring including commercial and industrial buildings. For this reason, I will share with you a list of electrical materials for house wiring commonly used.

First I will list down the house wiring materials name list and later I will explain how each house’s electrical materials are used.

Table of Contents

electrical house wiring materials names.

These are the house wiring materials name list for a house.

  1. Conduit pipes.
  2. Couplings/Female bushes
  3. Adapters/Male bushes
  4. Bends/elbows
  5. Junction boxes/Loop inboxes
  6. Switch boxes
  7. Sockets boxes
  8. Cooker control boxes
  9. Distribution board/Consumer unit
  10. Meter box
  11. Circuit breakers
  12. Cables
  13. Switches
  14. Sockets
  15. Cooker control
  16. Geyser switch
  17. Light fixtures.
  18. Roof shackle.

Conduit pipes.

electric conduit pipes,electrical materials names
Conduit pipes

Conduit pipes are the basic materials needed for wiring a house. Conduit pipes can either be PVC or GI galvanised. These conduits can be flexible as well.

What is the work of conduit pipes? Conduit pipes are electrical materials used in house wiring to create a passage through which cables are run.

Conduit pipes protect the cables from being damaged. If you are doing your house wiring and you want it to stand the test of time, run your cables through the electrical conduit pipe.

Couplings and adapters pipe wiring material.

Electrical couplings and adapters,or female and male bushes  and electrical wiring materials
Coupling and adaptor

These two electrical wiring materials for house wiring, are very important, materials in electrical house wiring.

These are the accessories that make electrical conduit works very easily. What is the primary function of these two accessories?

The coupling or female bush is mainly used to join two electrical conduit pipes. While the adapter or male bush is mainly used to join an electrical conduit pipe with either a loop inbox or junction box.

Bends/elbows

Electrical bends or elbows,wiring materials
Electrical bends

These are pre-made bends or elbows. You use already-made bends when you don’t have a spring bender to bend the electrical conduit pipes.

Bends are mainly used to join electrical conduit pipes at a point where you want to bend your electrical conduit pipe.

Junction boxes/Loop inboxes.

Juctions box,electrical materials names and pictures
Junction box

Junction boxes and loop inboxes have three main functions. First, you use junction boxes at the point where you want to join your cables.

In the second situation, you use a loop inbox at the point where you want to mount your light fixture.

Thirdly you use either a loop inbox or junction box when you want to split the path through which you will run your cable or join two or more circuits.

Sockets and switch boxes.

Light switches that are used to control light fittings in a home.electrical materials list
Switches

From their name, you can tell that these are electrical materials used to mount or install your best-quality sockets and switches.

I feel I should mention here that both sockets and switch boxes can either be flush or surface mounted.

You use flush-mounted boxes when you embed or conceal your electrical conduit pipes in walls. Then you use surface-mounted boxes when you install your electrical conduits on the surface of the walls.

Cooker control boxes.

Cooker control boxes are materials used for electrical installation in positions where you would like to control your cooker control unit.

Usually, it should not be far from the actual cooker unit. These boxes come in various sizes. The choice of size mainly is left to the owner.

Distribution board/Consumer unit

Distribution board/.house wiring materials
Distribution board

The DB is the electric material for the house’s heart. Why do I say so? all your electrical circuits in the house come from the distribution box.

Distribution boxes can either be surface or flush-mounted. This is dependent on the type of wiring that you decide to use.

All the circuit breakers controlling your lighting and power circuits are installed on the distribution board.

Meter box

Meter box that where you install your energy meter.
Meter box

This is a box where the service cable from your electricity utility company connects power to your house via the distribution board.

It is in this box you install your lightning arrester and incomer circuit breaker.

Circuit breakers.

circuit breakers that are used to controll electricity flow in a house.electrical installation materials
Circuit breakers

The MCB is the most used circuit breaker in homes. A circuit breaker is an electrical device that is used to control a circuit in the home.

A circuit breaker can detect an overload in the circuit it controls. It does not only detect an overload but a short circuit as well.

In both cases, a circuit will trip automatically thereby protecting your house and installed electrical appliances.

Cables

Electric cables used in house wiring.
Electrical cables

Cables are conductors through which electricity passes. There are a lot of cables available but for the purpose of electrical house wiring. I will limit my discussion to cables that are used in house wiring.

In electrical house wiring, you use cable types and sizes with the circuit that you wish to wire. I will talk about lighting, power or sockets, incomer, cooker and geyser circuits

LIGHTING. In the lighting circuit, you use 1.5mm squared cables. The circuit should have three cables red black and green.

Red for live or hot, Black for neutral and Green for the earth. I know some countries have different colour codes. Find out from a qualified electrician or technician the correct colour code in your area.

POWER/SOCKETS. In power circuits, a 2.5mm squared cable is used. The colour code is the same as in the lighting circuit.

INCOMER/SERVICE CABLE. The incomer or service cable should be the biggest cable size in your home. The correct size of the service cable is different from country to country.

For those using the British standard, some time back 16mm squared cables were used as the service cable.

Nowadays, most utility companies use a 10mm squared cable for the service cable.

COOKER AND GEYSER.use 6mm squared cable for the cooker and 4mm squared cable for the geyser. Both of these appliances must be earthed.

Therefore, you run three cables. For the live neutral and earth. The colour code is the same as in the lighting.

I must mention that when you are doing cooker switch wiring and geyser switch wiring. All three wires that are the live, neutral and earth pass through the switch.

Wiring materials.

These are electrical materials used to make electrical cables. Gold, Silver, copper and aluminium are good conductors of electricity. Gold and silver are better conductors than copper and aluminium, however, they are expensive and not widely available. Copper and aluminium are cheap and very abundant, that’s why most electrical wiring conductors and cables are made of copper and aluminium.

wiring materials list.

WIRING MATERIALS LIST
WIRING MATERIALS LIST

Best quality Sockets and switches.

Electrical wall charger socket
Socket outlet

Sockets come in various forms but the most common types are double and single sockets.

You use socket outlets to power electrical and electronic appliances in the home.

Good examples of appliances powered through socket outlets are televisions, laptops, refrigerators, and a charger for mobile phones.

Switches also come in many forms. The widely used switches are photocells, one-way switches, two-way switches and intermediate switches. A photocell is used when you want your outdoor lights to light automatically.

A one-way switch is used to control a light fixture from one position. A two-way switch is used when you want to switch lights from two positions. You use an intermediate switch when you want to control a light point from three positions.

Light fixtures.

Pendant

I for one I think that light fixtures make our homes look nice and good. Naturally, light fixtures give the feel and mood of a room.

You can achieve any mood that you want when you combine all the available light fittings in a certain way. Let me mention that there are a lot of light fittings. I will list the most widely used fittings.

You can check the price for various light fittings.

List of common light fittings.

Pendant lights

Pendant light fitting
Pendant

Floodlights

Light fitting floodlight mostly used for outdoors
Flood light

You can check the price for the led flood light.

Chandelier

Chandelier light fitting that is used mostly on high bay ceilings and voids
Chandelier

Downlights

Down lights electrical light fittings that can be installed in the ceiling without protruding.
Downlight

Floor lamps

Floor lamps on of electrical light fittings that can be mounted or made  to stand on the floor.
Floor lamps

The above list is not exhaustive list.

Roof shackle.

Roof shackle this is an electrical material used to support a service cable as it enters your house.
Roof shackle

A roof shackle is an electrical accessory that is used to anchor the service cable to your house. This applies when you are supplied power through overhead.

Do you have questions or contributions regarding Electrical materials used in house wiring? Or you just want to share your experience. You are free to comment in the comments section below.

Electrical materials used in house wiring.

6 thoughts on “Electrical materials used in house wiring.

    1. Hi Kingsley!
      In surface wiring, you use the same materials as concealed wiring, except that you buy materials labelled for surface mounting.
      For example, you want to mount a distribution board on the wall. You buy a distribution board for surface mounting and not flush mounting same applies to switches and socket outlets

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