It’s cold throughout MD, VA, and DC now, but the weather will soon start to change. Before you know it, it’ll become warmer, which means you should begin thinking about attic fan installation. An attic fan is a ventilation fan that regulates the heat level of a building’s attic by exhausting hot air. It is similar to a kitchen fan but located in the attic of a home. An attic fan is usually connected to a switch or string that you can access from the top floor of your home. You may be surprised to learn about all the benefits of installing an attic fan in your home.

Attic fans are key to maintaining an energy-efficient home. Your air conditioning unit will have to work overtime if you allow rising heat to stay in your home instead of routing it up and out. This ultimately reduces the unit’s efficiency. An attic fan is an excellent home cooling option that also keeps your energy bill down in hot summer months.

An attic fan helps reduce the humidity, or overall moisture level, in a house. Daily household activities—showering and cooking, for example—create moisture that rises and can build up in the attic if the space isn’t properly ventilated. If you don’t take any action and allow this moisture to sit in the attic for an extended period, it will eventually create mold in the insulation and possibly even in the wood structure of the attic. This moisture can be especially damaging during the wintertime (now!) when cold turns it to ice or frost. The expansion of ice and frost can seriously damage your roof.

An attic fan helps combat moisture and transfers it out of the attic before it can cause serious damage to insulation, wood structure, and roofing materials. Now is the perfect time for attic fan installation—it will help prevent ice or frost from forming and damaging your roof, and you’ll need an attic fan for the warmer months anyways. Contact Kolb Electric for attic fan installation.

Here’s a question: are you currently leaving the windows of your home closed? Doing so could trap gas from your furnace or oil heater in your house. These combustion gases can be removed with the help of an attic fan.

This really is the perfect time to schedule attic fan installation. We’ve been serving Baltimore and Bethesda, MD as well as Alexandria, VA and Washington, DC since 1925. You can count on our experienced electricians to get the job done right the first time. Call us or contact us online for installation.

Lately, I have been coming across lots of photos of cool applications of kitchen track lighting. So this week I thought I would share some of my favorites with you. I hope you find some inspiration below. Or, if not, I hope you at least enjoy seeing how relevant via Pinterest (Marcia Moore)

It’s not a huge, luxurious kitchen. It is something better: Real. Track lighting functions to illuminate kitchen tasks while accenting the wall. All is taken care of with one fixture. It’s the perfect solution in this kitchen full of well-used space.

2. For Gigantic Kitchens, Too

The lighting design pictured above calls attention to the right angles in the kitchen. It’s a metropolitan look that gives the room a sense of cohesion. Track lighting like this can also be used in kitchens with exposed beams. Using tracks to cross gaps or grades in the ceiling can be really cool.

4. Pendants and Spots, Spots and Pendants

Another new trend in kitchen track lighting is the flexible track. While this kind of track is generally not malleable by hand, a special track bending tool allows you to create a custom shape. I’m not sure who bent the track above into that nice curve, but it sure looks good in this real-life kitchen, which is complete with baby pictures on the fridge.

6. Wire Track Lighting

Kitchens like the one above make you see the brilliance of modern design. To put it simply, this kitchen is beautiful work of art, from the brushed metal ceiling to the glass tile to the granite to the smooth top range. To the track lighting! Can I hang out in here? FOREVER?! Muah ha ha. Ahem. Moving on.

7. Very High Ceiling

These very bright track lights look great with their blue glass shades. And they are task-oriented lights, a clear choice for the chef of the house. The aesthetic and functional dualism embodied by kitchen track lighting echoes the aesthetic/functional dualism of the culinary arts. It provides something you need and looks good while it does it.

9. Pendants Done Right

And here we have a lovely kitchen island situation. Notice that the island is dynamic. There’s a gas range for the chef and chairs for the kids. Quite a lot going on. So they had to be very deliberate and smart about the lighting. These white pendants are perfect. What was once utilitarian is now elegant – even graceful.

10. Kitchen Track Lighting Mash Up

Here we have a kitchen doing it all with track lighting. There are spot lights, pendants, and it’s even on a curved monorail. These contribute warm light to a comfortable environment, and they go well with the chandelier. Win.

11. Stunningly Wrong

Before you deck the halls and transform your Florida home into a festival of lights this holiday, consider how your lighting display will affect your winter electric bills. Monthly bills can be especially expensive when you and your neighbors beautifully decorate your homes with holiday ENERGY STAR® qualified LED light strands you will save on your utility bills this holiday. And that’s not their only advantage—Use a timer to automatically turn on your holiday lights at dusk and turn off in the middle of the night. By limiting the amount your lights are on to times when people can appreciate them, you will reduce your energy bills.

There are plenty of ways to decorate your home for the holidays—ways that don’t impact your electric bills! Make use of other decorations like tinsel, wreaths, and jingling bells! Instead of decorating the front of your St. Petersburg home with strands of lights, consider buying a solar powered spotlight with different color filters. There are many ways to enjoy the beauty of the holidays without raising your electric bills exponentially.