Things I Like...

One of the things I REALLY like - timed circuits. Feel the love, people, 'cuz this stuff makes life so, so, simple.

One of the benefits of a whole-house rewire is getting the opportunity to plan out every switch, every circuit. And we designed three timed circuits for the Academy - one dedicated to the pool filter pump, and two dedicated to timed lighting.

Pool Filter
This circuit controls the, well, pool filter. It shuts off pretty much all night, which allows for water circulation during the hot, daylight hours, and conserves energy at night.

Low-Voltage Lighting
This circuit controls all the landscape lighting in the East and West campuses. This consists of staked walkway lighting, staked up-spots, and suspended down-spots. I set the timer, and forget it.

Line-Voltage Lighting
This circuit controls all the spotlights on the campus, and the entryway sconces. Some are switched, some are not. This allows me to switch certain sconces and spotlights off when I want. Some are also on motion-sensors. The sensors stay off during the day, and come on with the timer, at night. And some are on a dual-motion sensor - this means they come on at half-wattage when the timer activates, and then come on full-wattage when the sensor detects motion. You gotta love that.


My life is so much easier now. I only wish I'd spent some more time designing the timer unit into a subpanel, so that I could run ALL that stuff off one timer, rather than three. Then, they'd all be precisely coordinated, and when the power went out, I'd only have to reset one timer. Live and learn.