How to make safe lighting in the basement?

What is the difference between a cellar and a basement?

So that you immediately understand the difference between the two rooms, we will consider what their main difference is. The basement is usually below the ground level of a private house. In this building, it is customary to store garden tools and tools. If the basement is in the garage, a small workshop or even a relaxation room can be equipped here (some manage to make even a billiard room from the basement of the cottage). As for the cellar, its main purpose is to store the blockage, fruits and vegetables. Like the basement, the cellar should be below ground level, but not necessarily this building should be directly under the apartment building. Sometimes a cellar is built on the territory of a summer cottage near the housing itself.

As for lighting, in both cases, the rules of the PUE impose one main requirement - the wiring must be reliably protected from dampness and mechanical damage. Next, we will consider in detail how to make light in the basement or cellar with your own hands.

Choosing safe components

Before conducting lighting in the basement, it is necessary to correctly approach the choice of lamps, wires and switches. The fact is that all components must not only be protected from moisture, but also from mechanical damage, corrosion and even the negative influence of aggressive materials (for example, fertilizers or insect poison).

Given this moment, in order to independently carry out lighting in the basement, you need to use the following accessories:

1. Cable in double insulation, preferably non-combustible. In this case, the best conductor would be VVGng cablecross section 1.5 mm² (in the event that you are going to only conduct light into the cellar).
2. Lamp with waterproof cover, as shown in the photo below (degree of protection IP at least 44).
3. Step-down transformer 220/36, and preferably 220/12 Volts. Lighting should be safe, especially if the basement is damp. If the room is completely dry, you can connect light from 220 volts.

In addition, the lighting line must be protected with a 10A circuit breaker and RCD 10 mA (if the humidity in the basement is high). Protective automation is recommended to be placed on the distribution panel in the house.

We carry out electrical installation

Well, finally, we came to the main question of the article - how to make lighting in the basement of a residential building with our own hands.To begin with, we will highlight several important points, after which we will consider step-by-step installation instructions.

1. If the ceiling is low, it is better to place the lamp on the wall so that it does not interfere, and the risk of damage to the ceiling is minimized.
2. Be sure to protect the cable with a special plastic box or metal pipe with a wall thickness of at least 2 mm. About, how to conduct wiring in pipes, we spoke in the corresponding article.
3. If the cellar is a separate building, we recommend that you make street lighting of the entrance so that you can safely go down for food or tools at night.
4. If the basement of a residential building or garage is damp, it is better to bring the switch upstairs by installing it at the entrance to the structure.
5. The lighting line is recommended to be opened in an open way, at a height of about 2 meters from the floor, to minimize the likelihood of mechanical damage. More details on how to be implemented basement cable routing, we told in a separate article.
6. The power of the step-down transformer must be no less than 30% higher than the power of all the lamps that will be connected to it.

If you follow all these requirements and recommendations, a complete basement lighting system will be safe and durable. It is actually easy to pass the light, even to an inexperienced electrician. All you need to do is stretch a separate line from the entry shield in the house or cottage, protected by a machine gun and, if necessary, an RCD. Connecting fixtures is not difficult, in fact, like light switch installation. The finished lighting system should look something like the video below.

That's all I wanted to tell you about how to make lighting in the basement of a residential building or garage. As you can see, there is nothing complicated in electrical work, the main thing is to take into account all the requirements and recommendations provided!

Related materials:

• How to drive light into the garage
• What is IP protection?
• Low voltage - what to do