To Tampa residents, power outages are nothing new. We’ve dealt with all kinds of crazy storms and annoying weather in our time here, and it can be quite flustering if you’re not sure how to handle things. But if you’re prepared and know what to do, an outage can become little more than brief annoyance. Find out what to do during an outage with the help of the experts at Hoffman Electrical!

Any time of the year is a good time to save money, especially when it comes to the issue of one’s electricity bill. However, it is very understandable that the summer season is when one’s electricity bills tend to go straight through the roof because of the increasingly hot weather! This summer season, make sure that you end up saving some money on your electricity bill with the following energy savings cost cutting tips.

For starters, make sure that you keep your TVs and also your lamps quite a distance away from your thermostat. You see, both TVs and lamps emit heat, therefore prompting your air conditioning to actually run excessively and more than it really has to! Instead, place your TV and lamps across the room and think hard about switching to compact fluorescent bulbs.

Insulation is yet another thing you should do properly if you want to attend to your energy savings and your summer electricity cost cutting steps. You ought to insulate in an intelligent manner, for one thing. This means that you should look to insulate in some areas more than others, such as the attic. When you insulate your attic, you actually lower the negative effects of the heat that stem from the scorching rays of the sun. If you do this correctly, you are going to stop the heat that tends to build up on top of your home from actually filtering down to the rest of the residence.

Sometimes, your summer electricity cost cutting measures are so simple that they may even seem deceptively…simple! Take for instance the issue of your windows. When days get really, really hot in the summer months, just remember to close either your blinds or your curtains prior to leaving for work in the morning. This will minimize the effect of the sun’s blistering rays from beating down into the various rooms of your residence, thereby warming up your home to unbearable levels. As a sweet bonus, the fading effect of the sun’s rays to your rugs and your furniture will also be minimized.

Finally, you should use your microwave more than the oven for when you are preparing dinner. If you utilize your microwave, you can efficiently get your dinner ready in just a few minutes rather than an hour, and you will also be generating a lot less heat than if you utilize your oven!

So as you can verily see, there are a lot of things that you can do with regard to saving some money on your electricity bills over the summer. All that matters is that you have to be committed to adopting some of these money saving tips over the summer.

Early Christmas morning in Stamford, Connecticut, the fire department rushed to the aid of Madonna Badger’s family as their home was engulfed in flames. The simple act of discarding ashes from the fireplace turned deadly when those ashes were not fully extinguished, sparking the blaze from outside the home. The heartbreaking news that both of Badger’s parents and her three young daughters perished in the fire turned what would normally be a joyous holiday into a time of mourning for friends, family, and community members in Stamford. Our hope, at ElectricMan Inc. is that this sad story will help drive home the message that smoke detectors are the most important safety feature that you can have in your home.

“Stamford’s team of fire investigators have stated that the now-demolished mansion at 2267 Shippan Ave. did not have an operational smoke detector system, and the second floor of the home was lacking building certificates” – SouthburyPatch.com

Madonna Badger’s older home was being renovated at the time of the fire, with scaffoldings still in place throughout the holiday, and authorities speculate that the main reason the family wasn’t able to escape is because their home was not equipped with an operational smoke detector system. A new smoke detector system was probably in the plans for this home renovation, but the work had not been completed yet, leaving the family who was still occupying the home unprotected. Even if you are in the process of a smoke detector replacement project, it is vitally important to ensure that your family is protected throughout the process if you will be living there during the renovation.

Had the home been equipped with a functioning smoke detector system, the family’s chances for survival would have been greatly increased due to the vital moments that an early warning can provide. However, simply having smoke detectors isn’t enough. Annual battery replacement, testing twice a year, and smoke detector replacement every 5-7 years are essential regiments to ensuring your system is consistently functioning as designed. For more guidelines for smoke detector replacement and maintenance, please read our comprehensive smoke detector replacement and maintenance blog.

No matter how new or old your home is, you can never assume your smoke detector system is working correctly. If you have concerns, or your home hasn’t been updated to a modern, interlinked, whole house smoke detector system, now is the time to take action and ensure your family’s safety. Contact ElectricMan Inc. today, by phone at 972-792-7270, or through our website at www.electricmaninc.com, to discuss your options and receive a free quote to bring your home’s smoke detection system up to date. Nothing helps you sleep soundly at night better than the knowledge that your family is safe, and we would like to help you achieve that today.

As a Dallas Electrician will be familiar with standard wiring practices and will know the proper way to test the circuit that they will be working on to ensure that it is safe.

Another huge benefit to using a licensed electrician for your home electrical work is that they will be well versed in all of the building and safety codes required to make sure the job is done right. The reason that this is important is two-fold. First, it is legally required to adhere to all building and safety codes, and if you ever intend on selling your home or having it inspected for any other reason, a DIY Electrical repair or addition will cause your home to fail inspection if building and safety codes are not followed to the letter, generally costing you more money later down the line to have an improperly performed job repaired. Secondly, and even more important, is the fact that building and safety codes are put in place for a reason. If you are not familiar with these codes or do not follow them, you are putting yourself and your family at risk of electrical shock, electrical fires, and injury or death due to a faulty repair.

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Strips with more LEDs per foot will consume more power.

In short, if maximum energy efficiency is what’s most important to you, choose a light strip with smaller LEDs and fewer LEDs.

In order to ensure your LED power supply doesn’t overheat and fail prematurely, we use this general rule of thumb:

Make sure the total wattage of your LED strip lighting is at least 20 percent less than the power supply’s rated wattage.

For example, if you have an LED strip light that requires 80 watts of power to run, you’ll need a power supply that’s rated for at least 96 watts.

The vast majority of our strips include wattage per foot right on their product pages.

power supplies range from six watts to 1,500 watts for compatibility with a wide variety of LED strip lights.

Let’s take a look at an example:

It’s important to verify that the voltage of the power supply you choose is compatible with the voltage of your LED strip lighting. Also, be sure that the power supply’s input voltage matches that of the location it will be installed in. If you have an LED strip with 12-volt DC operation that you wish to use in a 120-volt AC home wiring system, you’ll need a power supply that includes 120 volts in its input range and has 12-volt DC output.

Another factor to take into account for longer runs is voltage drop. A significant voltage drop is present after a certain distance of LED strip. After this distance, there will not be enough voltage present to light the next length of strip. This varies depending on the type of strip and length being used. Usually, a single-density strip (nine or less LEDs per foot) will need to run back to a power source every 32 13/16 feet (10 meters). A high-density strip (18 or more LEDs per foot) will need to run back to a power source every 16 3/8 feet (5 meters). Please refer to “Max Run” in the specifications table of the strip light to determine how many can be run continuously without a parallel run back to power.

3) the 4) if you want your strip to be dimmable

power supply calculator on the product pages of all of our LED strip lights!

There are a few steps involved:

Step 1: Select your strip and the length you need.

Step 3: Click the green “Power Supply Calculator” tab, and select your product by choosing it from the list OR by pasting the exact part number in the search bar.

Step 4: Enter the number of strips at the desired length you’ve selected and voila! You’ll see a list of all compatible power supplies with the best match at the top of the list!

When dealing with electronics, safety is paramount, and you want everything to work like it’s supposed to. So if you’re still not sure which power supply to use for your LED strip lighting project, just reach out to our technical support team or customer service department at 866-590-3533. Our teams are available from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. CDT Monday-Thursday and 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. CDT on Friday.