A woman came up to the signing table, thumbed through my book, Designing Your Perfect House, and complimented me on it. Then she asked, “Do you design houses that protect people from radio waves.” My answer was the same as yours probably would have been. Total silence. I had no idea what to say.

    Not put off by my dumbfounded look, she asked if I covered that topic in my book. Finding my voice, I said that I did not, but was terribly sorry for the careless omission of such an important matter. Of course, now my mind was racing wondering what peril she felt radio waves presented to body and mind. She volunteered an answer…I think. She said something about a friend who built a concrete house to keep his neighbor from doing some electronic mischief and fouling up his audio and computer system. I admit wasn’t paying close attention, though. While she was speaking, I was looking at a man adjusting the ear buds to his iPod and thinking of all of the radio waves that were zipping through my body at that very moment. Do you think some aluminum foil underwear and hat would help protect me?

   This peculiar conversation reminded me of a man I know of who outfitted his house with a master switch to sever all of the electricity from his house during the night so as to protect himself from electromagnetic fields while he slept. His paranoia prevented him from accepting the simple fact that if no lights or appliances are operating, there is no electric current in the wires and with no electric current there is no electromagnetic field being produced. Alas, science can not compete with hysteria, I suppose. Witness the persistent news stories of the dangers all around us. It seems that nothing is safe any more.

   Isn’t intense worry and anxiety debilitating to your health? Shouldn’t we be worried about being worried? And then they could worry about worrying about worrying, and so on and so on. It’s a downward spiral from there. Incidentally, my Mother has already gained world class status in worrying. You’ll be hard pressed to out-worry her.

    I welcome and comments or questions you might have. Click on the comment bar to tell us your story.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

      Natural day-lighting is something that has been under appreciated and undervalued in recent decades. But the current renewed concern about green building and high energy costs have changed that thinking. A good architect can help you orient your house properly on the land to maximize the benefits of free day-lighting without resulting in overheating of the house in summer months. In a well designed house, you should not have to turn on your electric lights during a sunny day. Simply placing windows on the southern walls (in a northern hemisphere site) will gain significant daylight, but the costs to cool the house will soar as the house will overheat badly. You will give up more energy money than you will save. Properly designed overhangs are needed, deciduous plantings, and sometimes shutters or shades can be used to maintain control over the natural lighting in your home. Indirect, reflected daylight is best. Direct sunlight is to be avoided. In addition to the heat gain direct sunlight can give, fabrics and carpets can fade under the intense rays of direct sunlight.

      There are many types of artificial lighting to choose from for your home. And without some training and experience, making the right selection can be tough. Fortunately there are many good lighting stores owned and operated by well trained, knowledgeable people. You can take advantage of their training and experience for free. Most of them will spend a considerable amount of time with you working out a lighting plan for your home, helping you select the best fixtures based on looks, style, type of light the fixture provides, cost of the fixtures, and energy efficiency.

      Having a good, well thought out lighting and electrical plan before you begin construction of your remodeling or new house construction project is one of the keys to controlling homebuilding costs. Costly extras often come from changes people make to the electrical work when they discover things they failed to consider before signing the contract with the builder. The more you can think through your electrical and home lighting plan, the more money you will save and the better lighting your new or remodeled home will have.

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If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

      Many electricians base their price on the number of junction boxes they install. Each switch, each electrical outlet and each light fixture counts as one box. So if you add an overhead light and a wall switch, this counts as two boxes. Usually, the location of the boxes does not matter. It is the number of boxes that is critical to your homebuilding costs.

      The preventive medicine to avoid this cost calamity is to have a good, well though through electrical plan drawn up prior to the builder preparing his price. Your architect or residential designer can help you with this. They can show you what you need and help you avoid “over-lighting” your house. Over-lighting is a real peril and can really add homebuilding costs quickly. Many times I see people put a light above the vanity in a powder room and also include a ceiling light. In real life, the light above the mirror will light the small powder room quite sufficiently. The ceiling light will never be used. Be sure every light is essential before you toss it in to the plan. These things add up. If you really want to control your homebuilding costs, you need to place lights with care.

      Also, try to avoid over-controlling the lights. It’s easy to start adding switches to control every light from every entry point to a room. Try to be prudent about this. You will want to provide what is called a lighted “path of travel.” This is a path that takes you through the house with switches along the way so you can turn on the light ahead of you and turn it off after you have passed. A simple example is a hallway with a switch at each end that operates the hall light. Rooms like dining rooms that have two entry points should have one of the light in the room operated from both entry points. These are called three-way switches in the construction world. But the other lights in the dining room do not have to have three way switches. Only place those switches near the primary entry point. If you come into the room from the other direction, you will have to walk across the room if you want to turn on the other lights, but you will save a lot of construction money by using this switching strategy in every room and you also won’t end up with a bunch of unsightly switches all across your walls.

      Control your lighting impulses and prepare a good lighting plan and you will gain control over your homebuilding costs.

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If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

    You’re in luck. There is now a solution. Replace those old-fashioned fluorescents with “full spectrum” fluorescents.

    These lights mimic the spectrum of light that the sun emits. Colors look right. They are accurate enough that designers are using them to illuminate color samples, just to make sure they can see the correct hues.

    As you may know from an earlier post, I am not a fan of the compact fluorescent bulbs due to the mercury they contain and the as-yet disposal issue. But for standard fluorescents, the long tube type, try replacing them with full spectrum bulbs and see if you agree that there is a noticeable difference.

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If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

    If you are placing a ceiling fan in the ceiling of a room and you plan on using recessed lights in the ceiling, make sure to keep the lights well away from the blades of the fan. If you don’t do this, the turning blades of the fan will produce a strobe light effect. Of course, if you’re really into disco and yearn for the 80′s, this might be a great thing. but for most of us, this kind of flashing light situation isn’t very good.

    So my general rule is to keep the ceiling lights at least a few feet away from the ends of the fan blades and even more if the fan is suspended farther away from the ceiling.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

Bill Hirsch

www.designingyourperfecthouse.com

www.williamhirsch.com

    One question was whether or not the Decora style switches, those are the ones with a wider, flatter, rocker type of switch, were “expected” in a high-end house. I told them that I have some clients who like the Decora switches, but I could not say it is the majority opinion. I don’t think there is any expectation of them in a high-priced house.

    They also asked about the color that switches, outlets and switch plates should be. I said that it’s usually best to keep all of the switch and outlet plates the same, except in a room with dark paneling. In those locations it might be a good idea to go with brown or black. Otherwise, we usually use white, if the wall colors are bold and primary (that’s not too often). Ivory is probably the most often used. It is nearly white and often matches the trim color, pretty much. Sometimes we choose alabaster in case there is a nuance in the trim color that makes that a better choice. Matching the trim is probably the best rule for electrical device color.

    They asked about transparent switch plates. But transparent plates won’t work since the purpose of the plate is to cover the ragged edge of the drywall and the screws holding the switch into the junction box. Transparent would just let those unsightly things show through.

    Dimmers, also called rheostats, are a great idea nearly everywhere. Not only do they save energy (a light dimmed by ten percent will not appear noticeably dimmer but saves ten percent on electricity), but according to Cooper Lighting, simply having the dimmer will nearly double the life of the bulbs. It does this by preventing the power surge when you turn on the light. After all, this is when most bulbs turn out.

    Dimmers don’t get installed until you are about to move in. this is because they can be easily damaged during construction. So it’s common to put plan switches on and then change them out later. I like the dimmers with a little slide tab along side of the switch. Check out the Lutron catalog to see what’s available in other lighting controls. I don’t know the costs of some of the fancier ones. They also have a cute little dimmer demo at Lutron. It will demonstrate the energy savings and extended bulb life.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

Bill Hirsch

www.designingyourperfecthouse.com

www.williamhirsch.com

    What to do? In rooms where this is an aesthetic issue, like Foyers or Dining Rooms, I often will locate the electrical outlets horizontally in the baseboard, just above the floor. This makes the electrical outlet nearly “go away” visually since it no longer contrasts with the wall color and doesn’t present itself as an object intruding on the wall.

    Putting the electrical outlets in the baseboard costs a bit more than placing them in the normal position in the wall, since the carpenters have to make extra cuts when they are installing the baseboard. But the cost is not a lot and you don’t need or want this detail everywhere. In rooms where you will have furniture that will obscure the view of the walls, the outlets are not too much of a visual problem. Also, in bedrooms or offices, having the oulet in the baseboard might actually present a problem since the cord of the lamp or clock will have to stretch farther to get to it. An outlet that is up a bit on the wall behind the night table would be more accommodating.

    Electrical outlets in the baseboard are a nice, not too costly luxury you should consider.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

Bill Hirsch

www.designingyourperfecthouse.com

www.williamhirsch.com