BUILDING WIRING QUOTATION AND ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HOUSE WIRING
Considering the recent question regarding the cost of roofing standard four-bedroom flat raised by Mahmud Sulu-Gambari about a month ago (we are sorry for the late response).
The answer to the question will depend on many factors such as:
- Location of the building
- Standard of the electrical installations for the building
- The actual size of each room and the parlor of the building
- Sizes of wires to be used
- And many other factors.
Meanwhile, the question dropped the detail of Sizes of electric wire that will be used. Electric wire comes in different sizes ranging from 1mm in thickness to 5mm thickness and are mostly made with pure copper. The size of electric wire to be used depends on the standard the builder want. Using electric copper wires with thickness of 1mm and 2mm to wire a building seems to be normal for local buildings that will not bear any heavy electronic inside such as air condition, deep freezers, refrigerators, washing machines, electric cooker, and lots more.
The electrical equipment mentioned above are power consuming electrical devices and bear high voltage which could generate lots of heats for 1mm wire leading to melting of its insulation and possible fire outbreak. The safe wiring thickness ranges from 2mm thickness and above.
When checking the cost of wiring, we need to know the cost of each wire and how they exist in the market in terms of physical appearance.
The wires use in house wiring are either Doubled/multiple-line-insulated-wire or single-insulated-wire.
Doubled/multiple-line-insulated-wire has three or two insulated electric wires inside it which is usually wrapped together and insulated again with a thicker layer of polymer material. This wires inside this type of house wiring cable consist of red color for live terminal and black for neutral terminal, a naked wire usually make up the number 3 wire in the whole wires wrapped together and it serves as an earthling wire. If the wire is the low grade or range, the naked wire or earthling wire will not accompany it. However, same wire with about 1.5mm thickness of wires inside usually have earthling wire non-insulated inside it.
Advantages and Disadvantages of three-in-one-insulated wire
The wire can serve a long life span in wiring that will not bear heavy electric loads.
The wire is good for surface wiring or external wiring where people could possibly have contact with wire running through walls.
The wire can be used to connect lamp holders and other installations directly during wiring.
It reduces space and scattering of wires after wiring.
It makes external wiring to be neat, simple, and safe.
However, the wire has the following disadvantages;
It can easily melt and bridge inside causing fire outbreak if heavy load is introduced into it.
One of the wires inside it can break unnoticeably making it difficult to conduct electricity this problem could lead to removal of large length of the wire and serious difficulty troubleshooting before it location involve could be detected.
It is not good for conduit wiring because of difficulty in dragging it through the conduit pipes.
It cannot be used extensively like the single-line wires because of the low thickness except those of 2mm and 2.5mm thickness which can withstand any load that singled-line wires could withstand.
Single-insulated-wire is another type of electric copper wire. It usually come out as a single line wire either as red color or as black color. The both are sold separately and are lined separately during house wiring. The good aspect of this type of wire is that it has less chance of causing fire outbreak and it usually in the range of 2mm and above making it possible to withstand heavy load.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Single-line-insulated wires
The wires are very flexible making it easy to be dragged through the conduit pipes, hence it is god for conduit wiring.
The wires have the least thickness to be 2mm making it possible to bear heavy household electrical appearances loads.
The single line makes it easy to manipulate any wiring problem where there is difficulty in passing the wires.
The separate colors serves as wiring signal to other electricians in case of repair or fault ratification.
It has low risk of causing fire outbreak.
However, it has the following disadvantage;
It is costlier than using the three-in-one electric wire.
It usually leaves the ceiling scattered with lines of electric wires.
You may need smaller wires to connect the lamp holders and other installations to it.
It is not good for surface wiring.
THE COST OF ELECTRIC WIRES
In terms of cost, the multiple or three-in-one-insulated insulated prices are below:
1mm thickness = N70 per yard
1.5mm thickness =N100 per yard
2mm thickness = N200 per yard
2.5mm thickness = N250 per yard
The thickness mentioned above means the thickness of each individual cable inside the wire.
For the single-line-insulated wire, the thickness ranges from 2mm up to 4mm and it is usually sold in bundle instead of yards. Each bundle is made of 100 yards though some bundles are not up to 100 yards. The cost for the bundles are:
2mm thickness (red or black) = N5500 – N6500 per bundle
2.5mm thickness (red or black) = N7000 – N8000 per bundle
3mm thickness (red or black) = N8500 – N10, 000 per bundle
The prices mentioned above depend on the location, the dealer (wholesaler or retailer), brand name of the wire, the quality of the wire (pure copper wire or not), etc.
The cost of recline wires had been discussed in the past in one of our post, click the link or searching and reading it will enable to comprehend the total cost the whole expenses could be.
THE COST OF WIRING A FOUR-BEDROOM FLAT
To know the cost of wiring a four-bedroom flat, you have to use a long tape for measurements. Considering the prices mentioned above, you need to measure the distance from one from to another. Get the length of all the locations in the house and use it to evaluate the number of bundles of wire you may need. Check the number of installations such ceiling fan, wall sockets, lamp holders, thunder arrestor, switch over plug, meters, safety alarm, smoke detectors, and others.
Knowing the exact cost will really require great measurement and calculations from your own end based on the standard you want and how much the items in the standard will cost. Some lamp holders are just N100 while some are about N2000 it all depends on what you really want.
But bear in mind that the overall cost of wiring the four-bedroom flat will not be less than N150,000 for standard wiring of four-bedroom flat. It could be up to N1000,000 depending on what you want to install, types and quality all matters a lot.
I really appreciate your efforts on enlighten me in my electrical field, thanks very much and please keep the good work
okay,this is the thing. I am in the process of building a 4 bedroom bungalow in Owerri and approaching the wiring level. I’ve already done the conduit piping.
Without the exact measurements, what would be your ballpark/rough estimate? Would immensely appreciate your thoughts.
Sunny.