As we transition into Fall and Winter, there will be plenty of new outdoor activities for everyone to enjoy. It is important to remember that, there will also be new challenges associated with outdoor electrical safety. The piling of up leaves and falling of snow can create unpredictable electrical hazards around the home. Keeping safe while outdoors doesn’t have to be complicated. Practice proper electrical safety by following these 4 Expert Electric outdoor electrical safety tips:

It’s always a good idea to semi-annually audit your home’s outdoor electrical equipment, especially in between Winter and Spring and then again in Summer and Fall. This ensures that your home is fully prepared to take on any electrical hazards that could occur during severe weather and temperature fluctuations. A licensed electrician can can easily complete this audit for you; however, it’s also possible to undertake this task on your own if preferable. During this audit, ensure that all outdoor electrical equipment is not only functioning properly also stored properly.

Loose or damaged electrical wiring can pose a serious electrical threat to your home, especially if it comes into contact with snow or leaves. A thorough inspection of all wiring and electrical cords should be completed and followed up with a replacement if necessary.

Melting snow can often result in large amounts of water pooling on the ground. If this water comes into contact with electrical equipment and wiring, the equipment and entire home can be at risk. It’s best to plan ahead and ensure that all electrical equipment, wiring and cords are placed and stored so that they won’t come into contact with water sources.

When in doubt, it’s best to contact your local licensed electrician to ensure that your home or building is safe from outdoor electrical dangers. The team at Expert Electric can inspect all of your outdoor electrical equipment and appliances such as hot tubs and pools, ensuring that all of the necessary outdoor electrical safety requirements are met.

Have any questions about outdoor electrical safety or and of our electrical services? Please fill out one of the forms on our website. We are happy to answer any questions you may have. The Expert Electric team of licensed electricians is here to ensure all of your outdoor projects are handled safely. Call us today at 604-681-8338.

Many backup power systems rely simply on a single source of energy for emergency power.  Whether it’s a backup power generator, a backup battery system, or solar backup power, the system is usually flawed because all of your emergency power is resting on a single source.  If we’ve learned anything from Murphy’s Law, it is that a single backup plan has the potential to easily fail in your time of need.

In order to have a truly reliable backup power system, it must have several options for recharging in the event that one or more of your power sources fail.  Here are some of the recharging options available to easily integrate into your Indoor GeneratorTM backup power system:

Clearly, having recharging options at your disposal for backup power systems will be essential to their success.  Among these options, solar backup power is perhaps the most reliable, convenient, and clean.  However, the other options are certainly viable as well to ensure your backup power system is able to maintain power indefinitely.

If you have yet to install a backup solar panel to recharge the backup power system in your home or business, contact a reputable Dallas electrician to take care of the job correctly.

Your computer system is essential to your business. But are you protected in the event of a serious power surge? Most companies aren’t, which means they’re playing with fire when it comes to the essential system that powers their company.

A serious power surge can severely damage your computers, causing thousands of dollars in repairs and replacement—and that doesn’t even account for the priceless data that you could lose. And even aside from serious damage to your computer system, your computers require a lot of electricity, which can cause frequent tripped breakers and power outages, and damage productivity of your office.

The most reasonable solution is to install a dedicated circuit breaker for your computer system. Not only will this protect your computers and your business, but it will improve productivity and give you ease-of-mind. Our licensed, trained electricians can install dedicated circuitry for the computers in your office to prevent slowdown and correct any electrical problems you may experience throughout the day.

Like in any other building, all electricity that enters your office travels through your circuit breaker before being fed into the different parts of your business. Each circuit is protected by a breaker, and to protect against electrical hazards, certain medium and heavy duty appliances require their own circuit or a “dedicated circuit.”

Too many items plugged into the same outlet, or several outlets connected to the same circuit, creates a lot of “noise” that consists of fluctuations in electronic current. This noise can cause problems for sensitive electronic equipment that can be damaged by mini-surges and fluctuations in power.

Without an appropriate dedicated circuit, an appliance may draw more current than the circuit can handle. This can lead to a number of problems, including causing the wiring to overheat and potentially start an electrical fire. Dedicated computer circuitry reduces this danger, allowing you to run your computers without risk of outages or worse.

Whether you’re doing industrial wiring or residential wiring for electricity, you’ve got a complex task ahead of you. Needless to say, industrial wiring is essentially a much more complex form of residential wiring. This article will assume that you have some elemental electrical wiring knowledge or aptitude, and it will simply provide you with a very basic overview of what you need to understand with regard to residential wiring and industrial wiring.

It will be up to you to look up your local building and electrical codes for your home or office space. Also, check your local laws to see if you are even permitted to do your own amateur wiring before you proceed. Above all things, approach any wiring project with this knowledge at the forefront of your mind: “electricity can be deadly.” Put your safety ahead of all other concerns.

Red wires and black wires are usually “hot”. This means that there is a current (amps) flowing from the circuit breaker to the electrical box or the appliance in question.

The white wires usually are “returns”. This means that they allow current (amps) to flow back to the circuit breaker after the electricity has passed through the load or appliance in question.

White wires should not be connected together with ground wires, with the exception being back at the circuit panel bus bar. If you fail to observe this rule, then every single time the load is energized (such as turning on an appliance), electricity will flow through the ground wire and the return wire simultaneously. This is very dangerous.

A ground wire is usually bare and attaches to an appliance’s frame. Under normal circumstances, current should not be passing through it. Only when there is a short circuit should electricity pass through the ground wire; this happens so that the circuit breaker will kill the flow of current to the site or appliance.

Smart industrial wiring is based on 3-phase electrical power. 3-phase electric allows less workload to be placed on each wire involved while at once allowing them to work together to give you maximum results. With 3-phase electric, the wires are smaller and the motor is smaller than a typical single-phase motor. These factors allow greater efficiency and longer lasting motors and wires.

There are four types of 3-phase electrical power:

No matter which type of 3-phase electrical power you choose to use, you’ll need a voltage meter in order to determine the actual voltages that are available to you. The type does not determine this.

Industrial wiring typically runs through metal conduits, armored cable, or a raceway. These enclosures are the safety ground–never the neutral wire.

The above information should give you a nice guidepost for doing more research into and getting more practice with either residential wiring or industrial wiring. Again, safety comes first!