5 Ways The Art Of Lighting Can Transform Your Home

There are many elements that come together to make a beautifully articulated house. It takes a careful collaboration of color, texture, handpicked objects and a lot more. One element that...

Solar energy: effective and economical

Speaking of solar energy is commonly understood as the electric or thermal energy obtained by exploiting the rays of the sun that, every day, affect the Earth. The energy with...

5 Ways The Art Of Lighting Can Transform Your Home

There are many elements that come together to make a beautifully articulated house. It takes a careful collaboration of color, texture, handpicked objects and a lot more. One element that can take your home’s aesthetic and kick it up a notch is the lighting. The way one curates lights is truly an art and can either make or break a place’s aesthetic and vibe. Here are some ways you can transform your house with just the way you light it.

Accent Lighting

If you have a piece of art or a mantel piece that compliments your home décor, you can install some accent lighting to attract subtle attention to the decoration piece in question. Putting up lights in certain angles can bring attention to the little details that otherwise would have gone unnoticed or create an interesting perspective.

Lighting Ecosystem

Layering the lights in your living space can make a big difference in the overall finishing of the area. If layered in harmony lights can bring a lot of elegance and sophistication to the room. It can make the room brighter but not overwhelmingly so. A trick to layer lights is to put up some ceiling fixtures and some on the floor. This can be achieved by installing spotlights and angling them to create the perfect blend. You should call in electrical contractors perth for the task.

Bold Lighting

Sometimes a bold lighting decision can make a living space come to life. A good example of this is pendant lights. Pendant lights come in so many shapes and sizes that it would be impossible to count if we tried. There is one for any and every kind of aesthetic that one could be going for with their interior design. It is very important that your pendant light complements the existing lights of the room and cannot completely replace the overall lighting of the space.

Drama

Sometimes the goal of a light fixture isn’t to illuminate the room but to create an interesting light pattern in the room. Placing lights in dark spaces in a smart way can give the room many moods. Turning on all the correctly placed lights can make the gloomy room much more preppy and turning off some lights can create interesting contrasts in the room to change the mood, it can vary from day to night or event to event.

Color

The choice of the color of lights that you put up make a very drastic difference, not only in the aesthetics of the area but on your mood too. More often than not florescent lights cause stress and warm lights are deemed to help productivity. Color can change an environment from practical to immersive. Different colors have different effects on one’s mood. Yellow makes you energized and productive, blue and green have a calming effect, red can cause angst and irritation and so on.
Plan out your lighting just as much as you would your furniture or art pieces and it will transform your living space completely. Make sure to choose the correct switches and power plugs to go with the aesthetics of your home.

Common Mistakes Homeowners make while Renovating Houses

You’ve gone through countless listings, outbid your competition and finally closed on a house. Congratulations now comes the hard part: renovations. Whether you go for just redecoration or a complete overhaul of the house, there’s a lot more to renovation that one might think. Not every project comes with financial pitfalls as huge as remodeling projects. With this in mind, here is a short list of the most expensive and most commonly committed mistakes homeowners make during such projects, along with some ton how to avoid them.

Starting the project too soon

If you want to move into the house after renovations, any experienced interior designer will tell you that you need to understand the house a bit before you start with the works. Understand how the sun hits the house throughout the day, where would putting the laundry stuff make the most sense and where would you like the groceries to land, amongst many other things.

Understanding all of this will help you make a more informed decision when you decide to change things up.

Bad design

Of all the bad decisions that can cost you a fortune, bad design is the worst. There’s a couple of such houses in every neighborhood beg you to answer what were they thinking? A poorly designed addition looks like an afterthought at best and most of the times it looks like it just needs to be taken down.

To avoid going down this path, talk to someone who is expert with interior design ballarat and get a feel of what is possible with your house and what will work well. It will help you understand all the options and adjust your expectations

Miscalculating the costs

Most renovation projects end up costing more and taking more time than planned, so make sure to always add 20% to the final estimations of the project when creating the budget. If you don’t feel like you’re lacking funds, cut back on some of the lavish options to bring the projections within your budget.

Going for the lowest bid

You won’t be going around getting your house renovated every second year or so, therefore, don’t go with the lowest bid and try to cut corners. Good professionals strive to provide you with the value for your money. You’ll end up spending a lot of money on the project one way or another. It’s better if you get professional help and be satisfied with your job once it’s done.

Don’t spend on tech

Technology gets outdated very quick. While wiring your house for Internet and video may seem like a cool idea to you, your next buyer may not be as impressed with ageing systems like this. If you still want to, you can limit it to one room, allocating something special to every room.

 

Solar energy: effective and economical

Speaking of solar energy is commonly understood as the electric or thermal energy obtained by exploiting the rays of the sun that, every day, affect the Earth. The energy with which the sun radiates our planet is enormous , even if it is partly absorbed by the atmosphere and partly reflected by clouds. In addition to absorbing a certain percentage of radiation, the atmosphere modifies and alters its spectrum, but the solar radiations that reach the Earth determine the process of chlorophyll photosynthesis , and make the life of animals and plants possible.

Considering the energy potential that is poured on the earth’s surface every day, some methods have been studied to take advantage of it. Obviously, precisely because of the dispersion and the vastness of the earth’s surface, it is impossible to convert all the energy received from the sun in a useful way. However, the various technologies allow excellent results, both in terms of efficiency and in terms of the environment.

A system to exploit the energy of the sun is the installation of solar collectors (or panels) : these are devices that convert solar radiation into thermal energy, useful for heating or for the production of hot water. This type of system can be natural circulation (without electric pumps), taking advantage of the heat characteristic to rise upwards to favor the flow of the heat-carrying liquid in the exchanger, or forced circulation, with the presence of electric pumps speed up the process. Forced circulation, of course, increases the efficiency of the panel, and is necessary in the case of rigid external temperatures, or to produce hot water in the absence of sun and during the night.

The solar panels at a concentration acting through a series of reflecting mirrors, which concentrate the sun’s rays directing toward the heat transfer fluid, generating the steam used to produce electricity. Compared to solar collectors, concentration systems offer higher yields at reduced costs. This is a system that has recently been used for the operation of solar power plants: thanks to the presence of hundreds of mirrors, the heat generated moves the turbines and produces huge quantities of electricity .

Energy-solar-panels

The photovoltaic panels represent the solution for the production of electricity in residential and business environments, with the advantage of a strong reduction in costs with a minimum investment. The plant is made up of panels made of silicon cells which, if hit by the sun’s rays, are able to produce electricity. Placed so as to be constantly reached by sunlight, the photovoltaic panels provide the supply of electricity, varying according to position, irradiance, temperature and other parameters.

Solar energy is in any case a valid alternative way to provide the hot water and electricity needs and to heat the environment with excellent results and considerable savings. The photovoltaic system can be autonomous, allowing the storage of the energy produced and then deliver it at a later time, or connected to the electricity grid: in this case, the energy produced by the plant is “sold” to the grid operator , which in some cases proceeds to count it on credit.

Solar energy Photovoltaic system

Every moment the Sun transmits on Earth’s orbit 1367 Watts per m². Taking into account the fact that the earth is a sphere and that, moreover, rotates, the average solar irradiation is, at the European latitudes, of about 1000 watt / m2.

Multiplying this average power per square meter by the surface of the earth’s hemisphere moment by moment exposed to the sun gives a power greater than 50 million GW.

A GW is the energy produced at full capacity by a large diesel or nuclear power plant.

The amount of solar energy that arrives on the earth’s soil is therefore enormous, about ten thousand times higher than all the energy used by humanity as a whole.

The plant: How it works Photovoltaic system

The panels, or rather the modules, photovoltaics are used to directly convert light into electrical energy and are made up of cells of different materials. The conversion of the energy takes place by means of a photoelectric effect inside the cell and does not include any moving mechanical parts, this gives the plants great reliability. To date, most of the photovoltaic cells produced are silicon (one of the most common materials on earth).

In addition to silicon, which is found in three different layers: monocrystalline, polycrystalline and amorphous, other materials are used such as: indium and copper diselenium (cells called CIS), indium copper and gallium diselenium (cells called CIGS), cadmium teloride (cells called CdTe).

The differences between the various types are identifiable in different efficiencies in photovoltaic conversion, production cost and pay back time. In one system, the modules are placed side by side and connected in series to one another to form groups called strings, which are then placed in parallel to form the photovoltaic field.

The systems can be isolated from the electricity grid, such as some mountain huts, water pumping systems, road signaling systems, etc. Or they can be connected to the network.

To connect them, it is necessary to transform the direct current produced by the modules into alternating current very similar to that used in our homes, this transformation takes place by means of the inverter.

In the plant there is also a device (usually inside the inverter) that serves to check that there are no malfunctions and that allows the connection of the system to the local power grid.