Two Major Types Of Electrical Wiring

Hey stemsocial!

Definitely, a lot have to be said while developing this topic into a more complete one. But, I am just focusing on the area that we practice mostly within our geographical domain in Nigeria. Although Nigeria is not that timid in terms of development but, in a way we are still underdeveloped due to some bad leadership and uneven development. I wouldn't go further into it as that's not my main focus here today. So, I'm just focusing on the two types of wiring by which we put electrical wires in our various homes here in Southeastern part of the country called Nigeria.

Introducing you to the topic, let's look at some basic terms for example, electrical wiring and wiring for a start.

Electrical wiring: in general, it is making use of all necessary electrical gadgets like: switch, light, socket, junction box and change over or distribution boards to install cables in an apartment, a house or an Estate.

Wiring is same as installation of cables but there's no use of fittings. Example of fittings are bulbs,sockets, switches etc.

SURFACE AND CONDUIT WIRING
Like I said in Nigeria here, we mostly practiced these two basic types of wiring to my best of knowledge. Thoug, I am not in the field fully but, I have little knowledge about this thing called wiring and have learnt some basics already. Thus, ***CONDUIT and SURFACE WIRING**** are explained below.

SURFACE WIRING
One would ask the following questions:
-What is surface wiring?

Is wiring on the surface the best?
Why surface wiring? Etc. The following is going to be answer correctly in the lines below.

As the name implies "surface" It's the type of wiring that's carried out in a surface or over a layer of something like walls,boards, plywoods and shelves. In this type of wiring,the cables used are visible to the human eyes as you can see it and even touch it. Surface wiring isn't the best but it's advantages isn't to be forgotten. It's cheaper and easy to trace errors. We also use surface wiring in some laboratory experiments for easy and transparent backgrounds.

The image above is a typical example of a surface wiring.

CONDUIT WIRING

The following questions may arise from readers who has little or no knowledge about electricity like, if actually surface wiring can have an opposition party or what would conduit wiring stipulate? What is and why conduit wiring?

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Source:wikipedia
In conduit wiring, cables that passes electric currents are not visible to the human eyes after installation rather, it passes through a pipe(either a plastic,rubber or metallic one based on the type of current applied)

(This is an example of pipes installed in a decking before casting cement)

installed inside a decking or wall of any structure or building. It's only attached the visible sockets,switches, bulbs and some other electrical fittings. Here, you can only see actions(lights On and television On)but not the performer(cables carrying the current that powers those gadgets) of the actions. Conduit wiring is regarded as the best form of wiring and that is why it's more expensive.

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Source:wikipedia

Also one may ask these questions, "How can wire pass through the pipes smoothly"? And "how can it be maintained if it breakdown or maybe an error occurred"?

Alright, in terms of passing the wire, there is a tool called Fishertape. Its a Long,smooth and tin iron which can easily pass through the pipe. The cable is tied to it. Once the Fisher is fished through the pipe then, you can tie your wire and easily draw it until it comes out from where you want it to appear. An image of a fishertape is shown below

If there is a problem,it can easily be traced by checking on the particular socket, switch or light it's from or check if it's from the distribution board. Sometimes it also occurs from the wire type used.

In summary, I hope to have satisfied you with the following information I dropped above. It's not just about putting lights in your houses, apartment or estates and paying the electrician money and that's all. It's also about knowing some basics as they say "No knowledge is a waste". Let's keep touching lives because, One day,our own might be the one to be touched.

Source:unsplash