Home Lighting Mistakes

9 Common Home Lighting Mistakes

Properly lighting your new home, or even upgrading the lighting in your current home is not an easy task without the help of a professional. Illuminating a home and installing lighting fixtures and outlets takes a lot of planning and knowledge about proper placement.

Here are some of the most common mistakes that homeowners make when installing new lighting in their homes.

1. Poorly Lighting Small Spaces

People often forget that small spaces like closets and pantries should have a light inside. A single bulb light sometimes isn’t enough. You can illuminate your small space by adding LED strip lights or lighting bars for a little more brightness to help you see in these small, dark areas.

2. Not Having Enough Light Sources

Another common lighting mistake is failing to add enough sources of light in a room, leaving a majority of the room in darkness. It’s best to try to balance out lighting through different sources, like accent lights, overhead task lights, or lower-placed accent lights for ambient lighting. You can combine these different types of lighting to create a good amount of light to illuminate your larger rooms.

3. Installing the Wrong Lighting Fixtures

It’s possible to install the wrong fixture for a certain purpose or place in your house. As pretty as you may think a fixture is, not all lighting fixtures are universal. By choosing the wrong fixture, you can make your home feel uncomfortable or maybe even miss the mark on the atmosphere you were trying to create.

4. Ignoring Dimmers

Not only does installing dimmers on your incandescent lights look good, but they also help you save money on your energy bill and increase the lifespan of your bulbs. Instead of using lamps for dim lighting, a professional electrician can install lighting dimmers for you.

5. Connecting Wires Outside of Electrical Boxes

A major mistake you should avoid is connecting wires outside of electrical boxes on a DIY project. Junction boxes, also known as J boxes, protect your electrical connections from damage and keep sparks contained from a loose connection or short circuit.

6. Cutting Electrical Wires Too Short

If your wires are cut too short, you can make your wire connections incomplete and dangerous. To avoid this, measure your wires to protrude at least 3 inches past the electrical box you’re connecting.

7. Incorrectly Installing Cable

When cables aren’t connecting securely with a cable, it can strain the connections and cut the insulation on wires if they’re in a metal box. Small plastic boxes don’t always require cable cutting with a clamp, however, larger plastic boxes must be clamped and stapled within 12 inches of the box. Your cables should be connected to a metal box with a cable clamp.

8. Lacking Control of Lighting

When you’re updating or designing your new home, one thing you should always take into consideration is how you will control the lighting in certain areas. Installing a sensor or timer to help the lights adjust during different times of the day will take your space to the next level and also save your eyes time to adjust to the next change in brightness outside.

9. Failing to Contact a Professional

Unless you’re a professional electrician with years of experience, it’s a bad idea to wire a home, install lighting fixtures, dimmers, outlets, switches, and more without relying on an expert to do it for you. Lighting your home can become dangerous and is a difficult task to accomplish. Our team at Centennial Plumbing, Heating & Electrical can handle any electrical task you need from electrical wiring to upgrading your lighting fixtures and helping you create a plan for a new project.

Give our team a call today at (306) 500-7392 to schedule an appointment with us!