When to start electrical and plumbing works

After roofing his house, David Agaba, a resident of Kyengera, says his engineer told him it was time to do conduit work. According to Henry Kajubi, a plumber, conduit work refers to the process of wiring and plumbing a house.

DAVID AGABA’S EXPERIENCE
With a temptation to postpone the process, David Agaba says his engineer warned him that doing it later would mean demolishing some of the walls and part of the floor where the wires and pipes would pass.

Heeding the advice, he hired an electrician who came in with a team to wire the house.
He recalls the team drilling lines in the wall through which the wires were fixed. A metre box was then put and from it an earth load connected underground. Then plastering was done.

All the wires were covered properly that you could not tell where they were passing. After wiring, he was given a certificate which he later took to Umeme for the power connection. Later, a main switch was put inside the house and before he knew it, the wiring was done.

While he did not record the costs, he says wiring was easier and cheaper than plumbing. “The plumber kept asking for many things and it was done on almost every stage until the house was fully built. He says the plumber first fit the pipes and when the house was almost complete with tiles, the plumber fitted in the water taps, bath tab and the outside septic tank.

Now happily staying in his four bedroomed house, Agaba says doing the conduit work earlier helped him save costs.
“If I hadn’t done the conduit work earlier, the electrician and plumber would have had to break walls and the floor to fix the wires and pipes. That would have required me to spend more money on rebuilding the broken parts.”

However, most people are not as lucky as Agaba when it comes to doing the conduit work.

So, they end up incurring double costs when they finally decide to do the wiring and plumbing.

THE WIRING PROCESS
Augustine Matovu, an electrician with Cluster Investments on Mawanda Road, says once you have determined your new home’s electrical needs and planned for the electrical system, it’s time for the rough-in stage.

What it means
Matovu defines wiring as the initial installation of all the wiring, electrical boxes and other elements needed to circulate power throughout your house. Done just before plastering, Matovu says wiring is safer when performed by a professional electrician.

How it’s done
But wiring does not have a particular formula as Matovu reveals that the plan depends on where power is being tapped. “The longer the distance from the electric pole to the house, the longer the wire one will need to tap the power. Also the position of the house and line of the metre box wire determine how much one has to put in to bring the power to the house.”

Most gadgets are determined by the size of the house. He explains that in case of a three bedroomed house, you need a line for sockets, lights, the cooker and an emergency line. “It is wrong to use a metre with less capacity for a big house because a line for sockets is too weak to multi-task as a cooker.”

“When doing wiring, get an authorised electrician with a permit because after wiring, they have to offer you a wiring certificate which you will take to Umeme with a request letter for power installation,” Matovu explains. The entire process varies from person to person but Isabirye estimates that for a three bedroomed house, you will need Shs800,000 for the wiring process.

Rules of wiring
Admitting that most of the rules are broken, Matovu says the following need to be observed.
Always put the earth load which runs from the meter box underground. This process called earthing helps in prevention of electric shocks and lightning striking the house.

PLUMBING WORKS
Meaning of plumbing

Henry Kajubi, a plumber and owner of a hardware in Nakasero, explains plumbing as the system of putting pipes, tanks, drainage fittings and devices installed in a house for the distribution of water, removal of waste and sanitation in a building.

Plumbing stages
He says it is done in two phases. “The first stage is putting of pipes and it is normally done before plastering while the second one is the building of the drainage system which is done before fixing the tiles.”

He says it’s better to start building the septic tank before building the veranda lest the veranda will be demolished to find where the pipes can pass.

Richard Isabirye, a plumber with Ceramic Tile Market (CTM) Uganda, says the type of material used in plumbing matters. For instance, he recommends clay bricks which are 225 milimetres and inches while building a septic tank. In plastering, he says you should always use waterproof cement and aggregate iron bars.
For a three bedroomed house with two bathrooms, a kitchen, sitting room and dining room, Isabirye estimates between Shs7m to Shs10m on the plumbing system.

caution
Quality matters. The materials used when wiring matter because if you use poor quality wires, the house might catch fire and for the plumbing system, using low quality materials might lead to either a leakage or a pipe burst.

Use professionals. The person doing the work matters because an inexperienced person may do shoddy work which might either lead to financial losses or loss of life.

The numbers
Shs800,000: Amount of money to be spent on wiring a three-bedroomed house.
Shs7m: Amount of money to be spent on the plumbing system