Hi
Renovating my house and after a good but easy to follow book to help me with the electrics.
//www.diynot.com/wiki/electrics:books
This is a good free online resource:
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Book/1.1.htm[/list]
I suggest you get stuck into it right away - it won't give you design ideas, and unfortunately it doesn't refer to the current edition of the Wiring Regulations, but it's free, and will still give you a good grounding which you can augment with more up to date publications.
Completely re-wiring everything and being geeky want to know and design before getting the experts in
If you do decide to DIY anything, be aware of the legal implications:
//www.diynot.com/wiki/electrics:part-p
Be aware that if you are in England or Wales the plan of DIYing and then getting an electrician to "sign it off" won't work.
And please make sure you learn everything there is to know about any job before you start it - don't try diving in hoping to learn what you need to know as you go along.
If you are going to be doing any serious work then you should look into getting some test equipment - see this recent topic about that:
//www.diynot.com/forums/electrics/recommended-mfts-for-diy-use.341347/
If you aren't going to be doing anything which requires testing, then you still need something more than a neon screwdriver (you don't need one of those at all).
A multimeter, at least, is an essential tool to have if you want to work on your electrics. It is just as important to have that correct tool as it is to have screwdrivers to use on screws instead of the point of a vegetable knife, wirecutters to use instead of nail scissors, wirestrippers to use instead of teeth, and so on.
Neon screwdrivers are questionable from a safety POV as they use your body as a current path, and they are desperately unreliable - to safely check for voltage you must use a 2-pole tester, such as a proper voltage indicator or a multimeter.
This looks ideal for a household starter set - multimeter, voltage indicator and dedicated continuity tester, all in a handy case:
http://www.amprobe.eu/de_DE/showproduct/115/Junior-Set/
PDF brochure:
http://www.amprobe.eu/de_DE/downloadfile/115/beschreibung_1/
All in German, unfortunately, as is the blurb on each product:
Multimeter:
http://www.amprobe.eu/de_DE/showproductdata/487/Hexagon_55/
Voltage indicator:
http://www.amprobe.eu/de_DE/showproduct/116/2000_α_(alpha)/
Continuity tester:
http://www.amprobe.eu/de_DE/showproduct/481/TESTFIX/
but it is sold in the UK - the company is now owned by Fluke, and I guess they haven't got all the websites sorted out yet - contact them (
http://www.fluke.co.uk) for info on where to buy.
Right now the English specs are still lurking on the Internet Time Machine from when Beha was an independent company:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060920022629/http://www.beha.com/files_uk/multimeter/93549.pdf
Also see another discussion here:
//www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=26282 It's a few years old, so specific model number advice may be obsolete (and prices will be higher), but the generic advice is still sound.
