Electrical

    As I said before I saved a ton of money by not hiring a business to do my electrical.   Yes I had to submit my own permit and buy all the supplies.  But I got to buy the supplies for the best price and not what the company was going to charge me.  I also saved on what the company would charge to make a profit.  Wire is wire and you do not get a huge discount on it, but you save big on lights, fixtures and outlets.  Some of my family actually own a electrical company.  The bid  I received from them was much higher then expected for reasons stated above.  When doing it yourself you get to pick much higher quality items then would be used by a company.  The savings are huge.  I installed all led lights in my house and still saved thousands of dollars on just lighting.

Now I could not have done this without the help of a experienced electrician.  Luckily my Cousin Jeff and Uncle Jay are electricians.  They helped me create a supply list of what was needed.  We used the design of an electrical co. (thanks Kyle) for light placement and switches.  This would be something you could ask a company to do when they are giving you a bid.  Hopefully you have a friend or family member that is willing to help you wire your house for a side job.  Meaning you will donate money to them for their expertise.  Both my cousin and uncle were happy to take my donations for there time.  Its a win win situation.  Along with this you can install many more items that a company would charge extra.  In the picture below I am actually running security camera wires for my house.  The inspector explained to me that if  I had cameras that moved I would have had to pay for cameras on my permit.  Since my cameras were stationary I did not need to pay extra on the permit.  Check your codes in your area before installing.  I did have to add speaker wire to my permit.  The speaker wire has to be rated for in wall use.  You can not just install normal speaker wire in the walls.  A couple other additions were under cabinet lighting, extra outlets in garage, lights in closets, crawlspace lights, and Christmas light outlets under roof eaves.  I also had my cousins install a generator panel for when the power goes out.  All of these extra additions would have cost me a fortune if a company had done it.  Instead  I got all of this plus a security system, all Led lights, motion lights and a hot tub hookup for thousands less then what a contractor wanted for standard installation.  Even if you don't have the money to buy all equipment at least your house is wired for it.  I still have not bought my under cabinet lighting or ceiling fans.  I have volume knobs for speakers that are not installed yet and I still have no hot tub.  But my house is wired for it when  I need it.  These are the things you need to think about when wiring your house.  You will not have another opportunity to install it this easily.  One thing  I wish I had done was wired my down stairs television with Ethernet.  Most television now are smart TVs.  I wired my upstairs TV for Ethernet but not my living room.  I have to have my living room TV connect through WiFI to be online and it is noticeably slower.  For me to fix  I will have to run a line down through the wall to my crawlspace and crawl the wire to far end of house to fish back up through wall.  Make sure you take the time to think about what you want.  Another thing  I am glad I wired for was a fan for my fireplace.  Now my gas fireplace has an output fan that heats the house pretty good.  It actually is useful and not just for looks.  It is a good time to start looking at prices for the types of light fixtures you are going to buy.  I found that amazon has the best pricing for light fixtures.  They are always reviewing their prices and beating big box stores.  Most the time you can find packages where you get a couple free lights at the same price of other stores without the extra fixtures.  Check it out here.