Any professional electricians here?

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iPwnz

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I need to buy good quality electrical wires and sockets for my farm house. And if possible I'd like to buy it at wholesale rate so:
1. What should I buy and from where can I buy them?
2. Which brand should I go for the wires: Havells, Polycab, ATC or Anchor etc?
3. Is 1.5 mm good enough to withstand a 100w-250w filament bulb?
4. Is 2.5 mm good enough to connect the main sockets and main line?
5. How many load can a single socket (traditional one) carry? I made 4-5 room partitions and want to connect one dedicated socket for each room partition to reduce the load.
6. How many MCB's would I need? How do I decide just how many I need?
 
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I need to buy good quality electrical wires and sockets for my farm house. And if possible I'd like to buy it at wholesale rate so:
First of all, do you intend to wire the house yourself? If that's the case, judging from your questions below, you seem to lack knowledge of many basic points. You are strongly advised not to attempt the wiring yourself.

There are lots of things you could do wrong without realising it. You could burn down the house (that's not an exaggeration). Or, things may work fine at first but could keep breaking down later. Even seemingly simple things like the correct amount of force to apply when tightening a joint requires a combination of theory and practical experience
1. What should I buy and from where can I buy them?
That depends on your location.
2. Which brand should I go for the wires: Havells, Polycab, ATC or Anchor etc?
These are all good brands but be aware that there are counterfeits on the market.
3. Is 1.5 mm good enough to withstand a 100w-250w filament bulb?
More than good enough. Even 0.5 mm (actually sq.mm) is adequate for that kind of load, but in certain cases, mechanical strength has to be taken into consideration.
4. Is 2.5 mm good enough to connect the main sockets and main line?
Usually good enough for the average household but it depends on the load.
And what do you mean by "main sockets"?
5. How many load can a single socket (traditional one) carry? I made 4-5 room partitions and want to connect one dedicated socket for each room partition to reduce the load.
Again what do you mean by 'socket' and 'traditional one' ? 'Socket' usually means a wall outlet where you plug in a TV, computer, oven, phone charger, iron, 'fridge, heater, etc. etc. But from your description I'm not sure if this is what you mean.
6. How many MCB's would I need? How do I decide just how many I need?
Depends on other details.
 
First of all, do you intend to wire the house yourself? If that's the case, judging from your questions below, you seem to lack knowledge of many basic points. You are strongly advised not to attempt the wiring yourself.
I'm a novice and can fix and wire the basic home use connections but I've never made a new connection myself. This will be my first time so of course I want to hire someone else. But pros here charge a lot and per point so I want to do as much of the non-complicated ones myself. There's also that problem about the claims made by the hardware store employees regarding the quality. I've mentioned this here on the forum itself some months ago. They are biased and I thought the pros who handle this on a regular basis would know more. The ones employed by hardware stores and companies promote only the products which they sell. Personally I've used a lot of brands but switched to Havells in the last 2-3 years. For the wires I used ATC.
Also I've used only leds and never used such high watt consuming setup before so the dilemma about the wire quality. There are some 250W red bulbs which I want to use but cannot find a proper holder for that. Reviews say that the high heat melts the holder.
Screenshot_20220613-142104_Amazon~2.jpg
Anyway for reference this is a relative's.
IMG-20220608-WA0012~2.jpg

I'm told that one socket/fuse couldn't carry the entire load of some 2-3k watt. Peak is around 4-5k watt. I'll get a more accurate number later.
Usually good enough for the average household but it depends on the load.
And what do you mean by "main sockets"?

Again what do you mean by 'socket' and 'traditional one' ? 'Socket' usually means a wall outlet where you plug in a TV, computer, oven, phone charger, iron, 'fridge, heater, etc. etc. But from your description I'm not sure if this is what you mean.
Oh yeah about that I'm referring to the traditional porcelain fuse lol. We call them "main sockets" here and the other one which you mentioned are commonly and rightly called "wall sockets."
MCB's are well...MCB.
 

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I'm told that one socket couldn't carry the entire load of some 2-3k watt. Peak is around 4-5k watt. I'll get a more accurate number later.
There's two kinds of sockets in my home.

Ones that take 6A plugs so 240x6A= 1,440W or 1.4kW max

and 16A ones for geezer, washing machine, ac, water pump etc or 240x16A=3.8kW tops
 
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There's two kinds of sockets in my home.

Ones that take 6A plugs so 240x6A= 1,440W or 1.4kW max

and 16A ones for geezer, washing machine, ac, water pump etc or 240x16A=3.8kW tops
Can you share some pics of your main connection? Is it a private home or society building with the fuses for all apartments all kept in one place on the ground level? We had one like that back in Delhi and the MCB's for each point were inside each apartment quarter.
 
@iPwnz instead of asking here just call some electrician to inspect your place and tell him your plans it will be too easy and shoot all your queries to him. Even a rural engineer will b able to get the job done. And electricians dont even charge for such consultations or max 50 bucks if ever..
 
There are some 250W red bulbs which I want to use but cannot find a proper holder for that.
You want to use ceramic bulb holders in this case.

I need to buy good quality electrical wires and sockets for my farm house. And if possible I'd like to buy it at wholesale rate so:
1. What should I buy and from where can I buy them?
Check local rates and compare them with https://www.eleczo.com/
I haven't yet purchased anything from this website but rates are mouth watering and I'd be buying from them very soon.

2. Which brand should I go for the wires: Havells, Polycab, ATC or Anchor etc?
All of these are good enough. Again check the rates. Rates have gone up by 100% in a last year or two.

3. Is 1.5 mm good enough to withstand a 100w-250w filament bulb?
4. Is 2.5 mm good enough to connect the main sockets and main line?
1.5sqmm is an overkill for 250W but still go with it because there's not much price difference between 1.5mm and lower.

6. How many MCB's would I need? How do I decide just how many I need?
Usually, usually every line coming off the main to every room gets MCB.

Let's say you have 5 rooms,
1. Each room has standard 1.5/2.5 sqmm line coming in to power TVs, lights etc. That's 5 MCBs of ~10 amps
2. 2 rooms have 2.5sqmm lines coming in to power Geyser and AC etc. That's 2 MCBs of 20-30 amps
3. Each room has another 1.5sqmm line coming in from inverter. That's 5 more MCBs of 10 amps.
 
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Oh thanks. So it's called American style bulb holder. I'll look for it.
Btw I also checked eleczo. I think that website is just for show. Very few items. Filters are not that useful and the price seems to be similar to local ones.
 
So I talked to a local electrician and he recommended these:
1. 2 coils of 8mm/10mm 90m from Anchor for connecting the main lines (house fuse and main line). I talked to a hardware store dealer and he said 6mm will be fine for 4-5kw. It's the most used one. 8mm costs 12k mrp. I cannot imagine how much 10mm ones would cost lol.
2. .75mm or 1mm for general interior wiring. He said it will be more than enough for handling 200w bulbs. He aggressively insisted on Polycab brand because of the "fire resistant" claims lol.
Hardware store said Kia has the highest quality and also the most expensive one. Next would be the likes of ATC/Havells etc.
3. 2m of 4mm wire (I forgot for what it was for)
4. 2x of Kit Kat fuse 200 amp
5. Change-over 63 amp (local brand)
6. 6x of MCB single pole (6 amp). No brand was specified.
7. Isolator 32 amp. I have no idea what this is. Google is showing MCB images.
8. Cabinet 8 way (almec neutral+earthing). For the MCB I presume.
9. 2x power box/sockets. For main and backup.

Any comment?
 
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Buddy, it looks you are way out of depth in this area, no offense intended. I would suggest read up a little bit if you want to do the work yourself. I did the designing of electrical work at my farm myself but employed a guy to carry out the actual work of pulling the wire, which takes some experience to learn. I made the connections myself.

For every wire you want to buy, you will find the specs on mentioned on their respective websites. This gives the wires current carrying capacity. Most 2.5mm wires are capable of 18A and is more than enough for most needs. A 250 W bulb will pull 1.1A, so you can put 16 bulbs on one line. Wires also come in 2-core,3-core and 2.5-core varieties where you don't need to put separate wires for live, neutral and earth. Also in higher thicknesses, wires are usually made of Aluminium instead of Copper and have lower current capacities, which will again be listed on the websites. Please only buy from trusted source as almost all popular companies have counterfeits available in the market.

As for the main line from the pole to the building, I don't know why they said buy 90m wire. You need to calculate the distance and the total load of the building and then buy appropriate thickness and length. Usually this will be a 2-core wire.

When this wire enters the building it will be connected to the meter and the output to two kitkat fuses. These fuses have been superceded by MCB, which has been superseded by MCCB, but people still use all of these in cascading form. From the kitkat fuses, it depends on you. I bought an MCCB which also acts as the main switch and is superior to the MCB. But if you don't have any expensive electronics connected, then save your money and skip the MCCB. Just get the right MCBs for the main distribution box and wire according to the circuit's total load whether it is the bulbs or the wall socket.

I've bought from a few online sources mainly Vashi Electricals and Eleczo.com, Powerfactorshop.com and a few others. Great experiences with all of them and pricing was on par with what I would've got in Chandigarh and half of what I would've paid in my smaller towns.
 
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8mm / 10 mm wire is an overkill for your requirement. My entire 3 BHK (2 AC , geyser and other usual components) run on 8 mm wires. Lol.

How many bulbs and other stuff are you thinking to run on the setup ?
 
Hence the questions lol. I won't be doing the complicated stuff myself. I just want to be sure of the things which I'm going to buy mainly because of the bias by hardware stores like I said. Especially since I calculated the cost to be a good over 10k+
8mm / 10 mm wire is an overkill for your requirement. My entire 3 BHK (2 AC , geyser and other usual components) run on 8 mm wires. Lol.

How many bulbs and other stuff are you thinking to run on the setup ?
I don't know how many bulbs but I estimate the total to be about 4-5kw max. Say a bulb like the Philips above gives 250w. If that does the job of 2x 100w and 1x 60 then I'll pick that single 250w bulb over 3 smaller bulbs.
For the wire mm reading some online comments, looks like the 6mm should be good enough. Which is even better. The 8mm and 10mm ones cost a lot! Like wtf. I honestly never thought they would cost so much lol.
As for the branding preference seems like top tier products and models will be overkill and I can just opt for the mid-tier range ones.
I'll keep this thread updated after I go shopping next week.
 
Let's consider your 5KW as max load.

So at 220 V the max current will be approximately 23 A.

A 6 mm cable will be easily able to take this load. It can carry a max of 50A (approx). Even with your max load, the 6 mm cable should be way much more than that.Even a 4 mm should be enough for your case. But it's your choice. And for cables and other such power equipment it's always better to be on the higher side. So it's kind of your choice.

Also let's consider that the loss is 5%. So 5% of 220V is 11V. Considering a loss of 0.25V/ per metre you can run max length of 44 metres. This should be enough for most cases. :)

In both cases a 6 MM cable should be good enough. One small suggestion is to use 2 separate colors wires for your wiring. One for live and one for neutral. Many people use the same colored wire for both cables which is kind of stupid and might cause accidents too.

Havells / polycab are good brands for wires.
 
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I would say, just get 10sq mm 2-core Aluminium wire for the main connection from the electricity pole to the building. These should be cheaper or at par with 6sq mm Copper wire and Copper Wires get stolen more often, so makes sense to go for Aluminium wire outside the house.
For inside wiring, 2.5sq mm should be more than enough for most loads. But again, calculate the circuit load and use appropriate wire and add an extra 20% to the load for future expansion.
For example, I have 12 LED tubelights installed in 6 individual circuits. So even 0.25sq mm would have been good enough, but I just bought 1 sq mm so I have the ability to add something later to the same circuit. Also, neutral wire will be common for all these circuits, but for every individual circuit, live wire will be extra and will be equal to the distance between the actual point and the box where your MCBs are installed. It would be less expensive if you can install switches somewhere closer to the bulbs, as is done in a house. I didn't have that option because I didn't want the cows to come anywhere near anything electric, so I had to spend extra on wiring. So my shed has no switches and everything is switched on directly from the main distribution box via MCBs.
 
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Copper is quite expensive, yes. We don't use copper in our day to day lives, so we don't realise. But good quality copper wires are quite expensive. Last year I spent over 1k just for the wires for my home theater (Polycab 1.5 sq.mm. for rear and some ill-advised 2.5 sq. mm. for fronts). So 10k for the entire house seems cheap. It will go higher than that.

And unless this is a very purpose built building, keep in mind that electricity requirements increase over time. You might want to put an AC or geyser or some other high power appliance 5 years down the line which you can't think of now. So it is always good to have some headroom.

You can also use double wires in case thicker ones are expensive. So use 2x 4mm instead of 1x 6mm if T works out more economical.

For inside the house, 16A sockets should be connected with 2.5 sqmm wires. Points for bulb, fan, etc. can be connected with 1 or 1.3 sqmm wires. 1.3 might be an overkill for a single bulb/fan, but we generally don't run dedicated wires to each point. We can have a common neutral with dedicated wire for live from the switches. So when connected in series, the load is high on the neutral wire.

Disclaimer: no academic or professional background in this, just learnt some stuff from my dad and followed them up with some Internet reading.
 
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One small suggestion is to use 2 separate colors wires for your wiring. One for live and one for neutral.
Yes. I already planned to get the black, red and green.
Many people use the same colored wire for both cables which is kind of stupid and might cause accidents too.
Oh man I feel you lol. Look at this. I had to use a tape to distinguish between the two.
20220619_220007~2.jpg
Havells / polycab are good brands for wires.
I'll get cheaper of whichever.
So 10k for the entire house seems cheap. It will go higher than that.
Definitely. I'm getting quotes of 6-7k per coil. The shed is 30'*70'. I'll probably need at least 2-3. I'm looking at ~25-30k.
I'll try to draw a sketch when I'm free and share that idea.
 
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Finally bought 'em! The buying experience was such a pain ugh. They were willing to give the discount only if I get the wires in a full coil. There was some 30-40% discount off of the MRP. And the brands which I was looking for like Polycab for wires, they weren't willing to sell it in loose at discounted rate so I took another brand.

I got a 90m coil of Alu 10mm (Elmeck brand) for the main line. 3m each of 4mm R&B (Kei brand) for connecting the KitKat fuse and cabinet box and I also think for the back-up power box. 45m each of 2.5mm R&B (Elmeck brand) which will pass through the entire farm house to connect the individual point connection. A full 90m coil of 0.50mm (Kei brand) for the individual connection of bulbs and switches etc. Also a 10m length of 0.75mm green wire for earthing purpose. Copper plate was available for over 1000rs per kg. And there was no smaller size so I didn't buy it anymore. Will make do with what I have and what I can.

As for the heating lamp I got two of Havells 500W halogen bulb. One farm group member said he uses a single one and it's really good. I was planning on using multiple 200w filament bulbs but that would be really cluttered and I wanted to cut down on the number of the wire connection so I'll see if I can replace three such bulb with a single 500w halogen bulb and see if it can warm up a single partition (farm house size is 68'x24' divided into 3 main partitions of approx 16'x16' and partition walling is about 3 ft high).
The KitKat fuse is 100amp. I consulted the store owner and he said 200amp is mainly used by factories and that 100amp would be enough (my total consumption would be less than 5kw) so I went with it. The 200amp fuse was also really huge so I believed him. The isolator and MCB's are from Legrand. One brand which I wanted and couldn't find was Havells Reo switches. They have a very nice finish. Rest of the components which I bought are so and so.
 

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