In my 27 years, I have heard these questions a lot: “Why is it so hard to find the top electrician for my electrical repairs? There are so many choices and my problem seems so easy, any electrician should be able to do it. Does it matter who I call? Aren’t all electricians the same? How do I find an expert electric man?” – Nick Shaeffer

The answer is no – not all Twitter, Google Plus.

Visitors, potential customers, and employees shouldn’t have to be in fear while going shopping, parking for an event, going to the beach, or even going to work. For this reason, we find that the parking lot can lead to many potential hazards.. if the parking lot owner allows for such vulnerabilities.

The number one cause of crime in a parking lot is caused by low security, and unlit areas contribute heavily to this. A dark parking lot doesn’t allow for cameras to pick up all the activity as clearly as it should, and criminnals know this. Additionally, unintentional accidents can occur simply by not being able to see everything that is going on. Thus, we think it is up to the parking lot owner and manager to prevent accidents (both intentional and non-intentional) from occurring and the first part of the equation to doing so is by ensuring the parking lot is properly illuminated.

As we briefly described above, here are all of the potential dangerous that a dark parking lot can potentially cause:

1. Car accidents. Whether it be with another car, an object, or a human; the odds of crashing are much more likely if you are unable to properly see. For obvious reasons, this is not a desirable outcome for a parking lot; especially if it could potentially bring the lot owner liable to the accident.

2. Crime. Think about it, if you are unable to detect movement due to lack of light; it is much easier for people to hide and move around without you, or even the security team, to know about it. For this reason, having adequate light in every corner of your property that visitors will be in is paramount to the safety and security to all of your visitors. Additionally, car thefts and break-ins can be higher when underlit areas are an issue. To resolve this, you need to improve your parking lot lighting design which will, if done right, will allow you to meet the lighting requirements for parking lots.

3. Personal injury incidents. Not only are other people a potential hazard to your visitors, but your property may be of hazard to them as well. By maintaining proper parking lot lighting levels, you can cross this one potential liability off of your list.

For those of you reading this who own a parking lot, here we will explain a little bit about some benefits you will gain, along with how to start the process of getting proper parking lot light fixtures in your car lot. (Note: If you aren’t an owner of property with a parking lot, don’t forget to share this with someone who does!).

For starters, we recommended a lighting technology that will provide proper lumen output throughout its entire lifespan. For this, LED is the technology to go with. Reason being? It maintains high lumen output throughout its life, unlike other technologies such as metal halide which output much less light near the end of their lifespan. So while LED does slowly depreciate in light output too, it is much slower and overall less. Here are some other main benefits that you will realize by converting to LED parking lot lights.

1. Less energy usage. LEDs are known to be virtually the most efficient lighting technology around. And since parking lot lights typically use a lot of lumens, and thus wattage, by converting to LED you will be able to use much less wattage to achieve the same (if not better) light output. In fact, you can realize a reduction in energy by up to 75% in some cases.

2. Longer lifespan. Since parking lot lights are typically high up in the air, it can get expensive to change them out every time they burn out. With LED you will be able to realize 2-3 times longer lifespans, which will allow you to stop buying so many replacement lights. In addition, you will be able to stop paying someone to change them out as often, which is another commonly overlooked benefit of LEDs.

3. Lower lumen depreciation. Like we discussed earlier, lumen depreciation is an especially important topic in regards to parking lot lighting more-so than with any many benefits of LED car lot lights, but these are certainly the main ones that most parking lot owners have told us were the biggest benefit that made them make the switch.

While the physical conversion process is out of the scopes for this post, we hope you take a look at more information regarding over on our blog!

How old is your home? Has your electrical system been updated within the last 5 – 10 years? If you haven’t asked these questions recently, it’s probably time to examine your options! Older homes with older electrical systems aren’t typically able to handle the stress of modern electrical appliances. So what can you do to make sure your home can safely run all of your appliances and electronics? Typically, a heavy up can be the answer to your problems. But should you install one? Let the experts at Kolb Electric answer!

A heavy up is an increase in the amperage (power) of your main electrical service. But how can you know if your home is in need of an increase of amperage? There are some things you can check to make sure you’re in need:

Depending on your specific goals, you have a range of upgrades available when thinking about a heavy up. Some service upgrades are as simple as adding a few additional circuit breakers to the existing box, or expanding the box with a subpanel. More complex upgrades may include things like replacing a fuse box or an aging panel with one that allows for higher energy capacity. A Kolb Electrician can evaluate the condition of your current panel with any problems you are experiencing to determine how extensive your upgrades will be.

The time depends on the job. Adding additional breakers to an existing panel is usually pretty quick, often taking less than an hour. Installing a subpanel is not too complicated either, often taking no more than a few hours.

Where it starts to take a long time is when you need to make serious upgrades. If you need to replace a fuse box or circuit main, you could be looking at a job that takes all day.

Many older homes have old wiring systems and obsolete switchboards and fuse boxes. These have very poor functioning and are unable to provide proper supply to the type of devices that are used in the home today. Over the last few decades there has been significant advancement in circuit breaker technology and many people are now proactively getting these old ceramic fuse boxes replaced with current-day circuit breakers.

However, as mentioned earlier, there are some older homes that still have these re-wireable fuses. This is largely because people aren’t aware of the dangers these fuse installations pose. Those who have heard it’s important to upgrade to circuit breakers feel that it’s just something people do because their electrical contractors tell them they should.

The rationalisation they have for it is that when they haven’t faced any issues with it for so many decades, there must be nothing wrong with it. They feel it’s just a way in which electrical companies make some money by telling their clients this and getting them to upgrade to newer systems. They couldn’t be further from the truth. Here is a list of all the dangers associated with re-wireable fuses:

Most people, electricians or otherwise, tend to use regular copper wires to replace the melted fuse wire. They aren’t really aware that a fuse wire is different from a common copper wire and that the latter isn’t designed to take the load of the circuit. In many ways, this inappropriate replacement in itself is a problem. And when the fuse blows again, they simply take another wire and replace the older one.

What they fail to realise is that fuse wires generally have very low melting points. Contrastingly, normal copper wires have a very high melting point. In addition, it’s not possible to standardise the current carrying capacity of these wires as that depends on how they have been positioned inside the base and the fuse carrier.

As you can see, re-wireable fuses are a distinct danger and this is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s best not to wait till a catastrophe occurs. Simply call Allround Electrical for an evaluation of the electrical installations and the old fuse box in your home. We will provide objective advice and a reasonable quote for replacing the re-wireable fuses in your home. The number to call is 1300 169 263. You can also drop us a line via email or use this online contact form.

Thanks for reading,1300 169 263