Electrical Repairs

Our 13 year old house is starting to show its age with several electrical items reaching the end of their lives over the last few months. A bathroom fan, an outside porch light, a dining room dimmer switch and a downlight all gave up the ghost.

When we moved into our house it was only half finished as we needed to save money. We were doing the painting ourselves and my electrician brother was going to finish the electrical work as we completed each room so we moved in with only 3 lights and 2 power points in the whole house. It was a bit like camping but we managed with the adventure. As we painted a room we would get the lights and power points fitted and it would feel amazing to be able to lug things in without an extension cord or turn on a light - it was like magic!

Having things not working we managed just fine but I realised we had got used to having all of these electrical items over the years and I wanted them back. I finally got organised and had an electrician around today - me expecting to have to buy new light fittings to replace the ones no longer working. He informed me he just had to replace drivers and the dimmer switch which was great news. he also changed out a couple of 50W halogens for 8W LEDs that fit into our existing light fittings so less power is needed to run them and money and the environment saved long term. We'll aim to replace the others as they fail. Having the bathroom fan working again is also a relief as I am aware how much moisture in the bathroom can damage paintwork and I didn't want to be repainting this again for a long time.

It is such a novelty to have lights working again that we have been without for a while although it has cost us money to repair them. Money well spent as we didn't have to spend as much as we were expecting to and it feels just like having new things all over again!