It’s not just a desk and a chair that facilitate effective home workspaces. With power and lighting making the difference between continuous annoying malfunctions or, worse, a fire hazard, effectively planning your electrical needs will avoid future problems and make for an environment conducive to actual work.
Understanding Power Needs
Home workspaces use multiple devices at once. Computer, monitor, printer, phone charger, desk lamp, and perhaps a space heater or fan. A lot of power for one plug. A standard outlet shouldn’t support such continuous load. However, plugging multiple power strips into the same outlet creates trip hazards and overloads that could blow fuses, if you’re lucky, or cause more damage if you’re not.
Having dedicated circuits for work-space areas avoids this nonsense. A specific circuit dedicated to the office space means no one else in the house can interfere with its power. No more unsaved work lost because someone decided to vacuum and tripped the circuit breaker in the other room. This makes life so much easier.
Professional Assessment is Needed
The best way to get your workspace’s electrical needs met is to work with a professional who will assess your needs and adequately accommodate them through installation. An electrician in Burwood can ensure that your electrical plans meet all necessary safety and practical requirements. Whether your home requires an assessment of existing power capabilities or needs a significant upgrade, a professional can access what’s in your best interest and follow through with the installation.
For example, this includes existing circuits, the locations of any outlets, lighting needs, any specific machinery needs, etc. Without planning ahead, you may find that mid-project you’re short on certain outlets when everything is already taken apart to accommodate their installation.
Outlet Locations That Make Sense
The average residential outlet location does not consider workflow needs. For example, if there are outlets every few meters along a wall, this works for a lamp or two. However, if desks are overflowing with devices that require power at all times, the need for outlets at specific locations becomes even more critical.
In addition to under-the-desk power locations and power boxes mounted in the floor where no cable can be seen, either options that accessible should be available for aesthetics and convenience. Wall-mounted outlets at desk height eliminate the need to crawl under furniture to plug in your printer just as easily as they’ll facilitate plugging your device in when charging under your desk.
USB-capable outlets help save on standard plugs that would otherwise have to supply power bricks for phone/ tablet chargers — extra space no one really needs when they can charge directly to another device.
Lighting for Various Needs
Not all lighting is created equal. The light necessary for your overhead lights is not good enough for your computer screen or craft table. Proper lighting is necessary for various tasks and layered lighting from different angles can direct where lighting needs (and glare-less applications) exist. Your monitor may need task lighting at an angle so its brightness doesn’t blur your eyesight or create excessive glare on your work paper.
Decreasing eye fatigue means allowing adjustable desk lamps the opportunity to direct light exactly where it’s needed. Likewise, ambient light is necessary to fill excess space but without making it too harsh.
Then there’s natural light. A double-edged sword of the 21st century workspace. Windows are great. But windows also create glare and unnecessary heat gain that render spaces uncomfortable. Manual or automatic window treatments help mitigate the effects as does supplemental lighting depending on the time of day.
Circuit Load Needs
In addition to understanding what’s on each circuit in the home — from various large printers and scanners to multiple monitors and specialized pieces of equipment — learning which equipment needs a dedicated circuit helps electronic overload from occurring.
A professional assessment proves needed here; understanding what’s going on for circuit capabilities is often beyond the knowledge of most homeowners. Getting this wrong equals frequent trips for ACs serving cool rooms or blowing fuses that cause frustrations to compile themselves over days upon weeks upon months instead of simply establishing ideal working standards from the start.
Safety Considerations
Safety measures go beyond capacity needs. Everything from surge protection for sensitive electronics and quality adjustments (a good surge protector will cost more than a basic power strip) goes a long way toward protecting expensive equipment from voltage spikes.
Cabling maintenance keeps cords out of the way (and helps eliminate trip hazards) as well as reducing fire hazards by not allowing cords to get pinched or damaged via a tight corner. Whether cable routing is solely aesthetic or legitimate concerns of people who must operate around their equipment, it’s clear that safety matters.
If there’s moisture to contend with — inevitably in these types of workshops whether they’re on concrete floors or outside — ground fault circuit interrupters are your friends (and allies!). GFCIs stop working instantly should they detect an electrical fault, killing power before anyone gets shocked. Building code may require them in various places; however, they’re a benefit in workshops and basements even when unnecessary.
Workshop and Studio Areas
Not all areas are meant for office use; some home workshops — whether craft studios or carpentry spaces — need different kinds of electricity than what will suffice for things like computers and basic phone chargers.
Power tools take amps when starting up; table saws, compressors, welding units need dedicated circuits with appropriate amps while running standard household circuits do not have appropriate safety features.
Workshop lighting needs different levels to avoid shadows; task lighting above worktables or equipment stations is essential for critical real (or dangerous) work; this is NOT convenience lighting; it’s safety lighting.
Dust collection equipment helps maintain cleanliness but also requires proper electrical access; this works at limited capacity in conjunction with normal woodworking tools running on dedicated circuits so understanding their requirements during planning will help prevent job accidents during normal use.
Planning Ahead To Avoid Future Frustrations
Your space may not grow now but growth means you’ll avoid having to call in an electrician later down the road for additional upgrades because charge capacity now takes into account future changes. It’s cheaper — during new installation — to create excess capacity than it is to upgrade afterwards.
Conduit runs between walls and spaces where upgraded circuits might develop help facilitate whatever is needed down the line. Particularly for data cabling or wiring that’s likely to change over time, making things easy on yourself prevents destruction later when you decide to create an efficient workspace without consideration of what else might need looking into from the start.
Getting It Right From The Start
It’s important to approach workspace electricity from capacity, connection and safety all in one. If any one element falters then productivity will degrade as frustration mounts along with concern for safety. By taking the necessary steps from the start without having everything established prematurely, people are more likely to get it right than have an unfinished project serving as a reminder of lost productivity potential! Whether building a new workspace or upgrading an existing one, getting the electrical framework right will make everything else work better.
