Electric cars are the wave of the future as gas prices continue to skyrocket. More and more people are realizing the benefits to owning an electric car and trading in their gas guzzlers in favor of one of these cars that requires charging before it will result in any real savings. Charging stations are becoming more popular, but for the most part, people will need to charge their cars at home. Which brings up another issue—can you plug an electric car charger into your existing outlets?

While the immediate answer is yes, there are a couple of things you need to take into consideration before you unplug the radio in your garage and plug in your car charger. Depending on how you answer the following questions, you may need an electrician in Pasadena.

1-Is the outlet capable of handling a charger? This will depend on the kind of charger you have purchased for your car. The chargers commonly used at home will require a 240-volt outlet. This is probably not something you currently have in your garage. You will likely need the services of an electrician. Pasadena residents can rely on The Electric Connection to install a new outlet dedicated to charging your car.

2-Is the outlet reliable and in good working condition? This is typically not something you can verify simply by looking at the outlet. If the breaker trips when your charger is operating, it is a good indicator you need the help of a professional. Considering how much the charging stations cost, and not to mention the cost of your home, it is best to have an electrician come out and do an electrical inspection to ensure the outlet can handle the charging station. You do not want to risk an electrical fire due to a faulty outlet.

We live in an area where there are many very old homes. Within these homes, as you’d expect, is very old wiring. Even if you have not had trouble with your wiring just yet, and even if your wiring appears to be in fine condition, you should keep in mind just how much the demand for electricity in our homes has gone up over the years. The original owners of your old home were not running whole-house cooling systems and charging multiple phones and tablets while also powering a dishwasher, after all. Overloading the circuits in your home can be quite dangerous, both to your family, your property, and your appliances/electronics.

Even if the circuits in your home are designed to keep up with your electrical demand, the fact remains that the materials composing your electrical and wiring systems will degrade over time. When they do, it really doesn’t matter if your wiring is capable of handling your existing electrical load or not. The degradation of wiring insulation and other materials will render any system unsafe.

While outdated circuitry and degraded materials can lead to a lot of blown fuses/tripped circuits and other issues, the real concern with very old wiring is, of course, the risk of a fire in your home. When it comes to old wiring, you really cannot afford to adopt an “out of sigh, out of mind” attitude. If you are uncertain of how old your electrical system is, but know that your house is quite old, you should give us call to have the system evaluated. We are happy to help.

There are so many things to love about the coming holiday season. Great food, great company, family, festive decorations; we couldn’t be more excited! But there’s a not so great factor attached to it all, too. That hefty electric bill you’ll be seeing. Looking for ways to keep your costs at a minimum this holiday? The expert electricians at Hoffman Electrical can provide some easy fixes!

Our professionals have been proudly serving Tampa and Clearwater, Florida for years now. When it comes to quality and top-tier service, we’re the name to know in electrical! And as  apart of our great service, we’re always looking for ways to help out. If you want to reduce your energy costs this season, we’ve got the solutions you’ll be happy to know.

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.