Older homes generally have a character quality that can’t be seen in newer houses. These homes offer great value, and renovation improvements can bring new life into them. Unfortunately often enough the electrical wiring is never inspected during these updates for years at a time. To ensure that all your hard work is going to be safe, look for these common dangers that could threaten your older home.

From the 50s to 70s many homes were built with aluminum wiring. This was used because it was cheaper and more conductive than copper wiring. Unfortunately many pitfalls were found with aluminum wiring after it was used. Overheating and cracking are common problems with aluminum wiring. If your home was built in this time period, have your wires inspected. There could be a number of hazardous points behind your walls that may cause major issues. For more information and hazard signs of aluminum wiring, read our blog article.

Knob and tube wiring was used in homes in the early 1900s and even as early as 50 years ago. It is possible that these homes still contain knob and tube wiring in them. This wiring can be dangerous as it is more likely to crack and result in electrical fires.

The dangers of these two out-dated wiring systems are that they were installed without worry and the problems were not realized until years later. The electrical wiring systems in these homes were left untouched and so did the problems that came with them. Electrical fires, are especially dangerous as the fire starts and spreads quickly and out of sight. By the time the fire is visible it is too late and the damage can be done.

Over the years homes can see additions: new rooms added onto the home, new electrical lines added, hot tubs, etc. If a licenced electrician did not perform these additions there can be a mess of wire connecting the additions to the original home. This problem comes to a head at the service panel. If it is not properly maintained the breaker will trip constantly and electrical outlets will be overloaded. This is very dangerous as the electrical panel is in charge of keeping your home safe from electrical hazards. It is very important that the electrical panel is upgraded in order to provide the correct control of electricity throughout the entire house, old and new. This also means the panel is properly labelled so it is easy to maintain if further updates are being made.

While there is nothing wrong with purchasing an older home, we recommend that a licenced electrician inspect the electrical system in order to identify potential electrical hazards. One of our expert electricians can provide you with a list of items that should be handled. This will help you have peace of mind that your family is safe in their home.

Nearly every single person living in the United States relies on the electrical grid. It's how electricity gets from the power plant to your home, powering your devices and appliances. With no grid, none of the electrical work in your home will function – no television, no air conditioning and no electric lights. Our grid is changing, however, taking advantage of evolving technology on both the distribution and consumer side of the equation. Read on to learn more about how our electrical grid will evolve to meets the needs of the 21st century.

How to Balance Supply and Demand

The electrical grid is not a single object, but rather a giant network of power plants and transmission lines that spans the entire nation. In order for electricity to flow from the generating stations into your home’s electrical work, the grid needs to be able to meet the demand at any given time and place. This can be an enormous challenge – if there is too little production, consumers can be subject to annoying and damaging brownouts. Ramping up generation to meet variable demand is expensive and inefficient, however.

Some utilities solve the problem with time-of-day pricing, charging more during the day and less at night to smooth out demand. Smart technology, however, will allow us to fine-tune the grid even further to increase efficiency, improve communication and mitigate blackouts or other power outages.

Smart Meters and Dispersed Generation

Smart meters are one of the first steps toward our new grid. These meters track residential electrical consumption in real time and can communicate with the utility company instantaneously. They can allow producers to better predict demand, respond immediately to dips and spikes, and further refine variable pricing structures that incentivize people to use less electricity during peak hours. Smart meters also give homeowners the power to see where and when they are putting the most stress on their electrical work, allowing them to adjust their behavior strategically.

Changes are coming to the generation side as well. Traditionally, the electrical grid is powered by large, centralized power plants, but residential solar installations mean that generation is becoming more widely distributed. Wind generation is also becoming an ever-larger factor in our nation's energy supply. This means that the grid needs to be updated to become more flexible and adaptable, but there is a large payoff in sight – the more dispersed that power generation becomes, the more resilient the grid will be in the event of an outage, with smaller regions able to supply themselves with emergency power if they are cut off from the centralized system.

Makes Tomorrow's Energy Grid Work for You

No one knows exactly what the power grid will look like 100 years from now, but the nation is well on its way to updating its electrical infrastructure to meet the needs of this century. If you have any concerns about how your electrical work will interface with the power grid of the future, or need any other work done on the wiring and circuitry in your home, call an expert electrician today.

Routine electrical service and maintenance is critical for all home or commercial buildings in the Des Moines Iowa area.   When you have routine electrical service done, it will keep your important electrical systems running longer and help you avoid expensive future repairs. In the event that there is an issue with your electrical system, your electrician can identify it during this routine visit so that repairs can be done before the problem becomes larger or even becomes an electrical fire.  Schedule your local electrician today and have your electrical system checked out.

Modern day living is highly reliant on the use of electricity and the different appliances, equipment and fixtures it powers. Industries are even more reliant on electricity and their profitability is closely knit with how seamlessly their systems operate. They rely on electricity to such an extent that they rarely give it a second thought; well, at least not until something goes wrong such as:

Most of these problems can be attributed to poor power factor. Let’s understand a little more about what that is.

Power factor is essentially a measure of how effectively the incoming power is being used by the electrical equipment on your premises. It is expressed in terms of a numerical value in the range of 0-1. A higher power factor indicates that the electrical equipment is being used more effectively.

For instance, if the power factor is 0.8, it indicates that 80% of the power supply to the equipment is being utilised effectively and that 20% is being wasted. Regardless of what this ratio of effective usage Vs wastage is, the latter is an unnecessary expense. Typically, your power factor should be closer to 1; it indicates that your site is using energy in an efficient manner.

A number of businesses are currently being charged a kVA tariff and not a kilowatt tariff. This means, your service provider is probably charging you for the power they supply to you, rather than that you actually use. Simply put, you are paying for power that is being supplied to you, but which is being wasted. If your business has a low power factor, it means you pay even more for this waste. There is another aspect you should keep in view. As mentioned at the start, poor power factor has the potential to cause power drops and power losses; in turn, these lead to motor failure and overheating and failure of other equipment too.

Installation of Power Factor Correction equipment might just help avoid prohibitively expensive infrastructure upgrades; it does this by reducing the current electrical demand on your system & improving the efficiency stability. Based on which tariff you are on, power correction might just prove to be an excellent way for your business to deescalate its electricity costs.

The power factor can be improved by installing Capacitor Banks. These are PFC (Power Factor Correction) equipment and help correct the inefficiencies in the energy supply. Apart from this, they also reduce the peak demand on the power network. This is an effective and cost-effective solution to reduce your power bill as it helps lower the monthly demand and the capacity charges. Generally, the payback periods for PFC are between 1 and 3 years. Taking the life span of the PFC equipment into consideration & the potential savings, this investment can prove to be very worthwhile for you.

If you feel that you are paying too much for electricity, we at Allround Electrical can conduct a survey of the equipment used on your site and map their electrical consumption against the power your plant is using and is being charged for. We will then provide you a report of what your power factor is; and if it is low, how it can be corrected. For more information, call us at 1300 169 263. You can also drop us a line via email.

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