Everything seems fine, then POOF–your power goes out. Chances are, you tripped a circuit breaker. Electrical problems are one of those things that tend to make a homeowner’s stress level skyrocket. You’re not sure what’s wrong, but suddenly you’ve lost access to the power you depend on in your DC area home! 

A breaker can trip for many reasons. Below are the tops 5 causes of an electrical breaker tripping in your home.

Looking for electrical repair in Washington, DC? Contact Kolb today!

A breaker trip comes as a result of a circuit tied to your circuit breaker exceeding its safe parameters. They can be identified by a sudden loss of power to specific appliances (those that used a dedicated circuit, like a fridge or microwave), or a loss of power in your home that is limited to a specific area.

There are a lot of issues that can result in breaker trips, but there are the ones our DC electricians address most often during electrical repairs in Washington, DC:

Looking for superior service and quality from your electrician? Contact Kolb Electric for electrical repair in Washington, DC!

By Clarissa Allison | December 11th, 2015

If you are lucky enough to have a large family room or “great room”, you may encounter some exciting challenges when choosing home decor and lighting that complements and balances your space. A great room is a large room typically found in modern homes that combines the features of a living room with those of a dining room or family room.

Large, open spaces are very common to find in floorplans these days. The dining room incorporates the kitchen, which is part of the living room and leads into the den, etc.  This trend sees walls to separate activity spaces removed. You’ll find that the kitchen is no longer segregated from the rest of the home but may easily become a main focal point. As you’ll see, the key to lighting these types of spaces is variety. You’ll want to utilize ambient, task, wall, and spot lighting to eliminate a “cave-like” atmosphere and maintain a feeling of spaciousness and height.

Read on for tips on how to set up the perfect lighting scheme for functionality, elegance and entertaining.

Update Your Kitchen Island As An Activity Space

Depending on the size of your warehouse, as a manager (or owner) of that facility; you probably know that your building consumes a considerable amount of energy.

From your lighting system to your heating and cooling, to make such large buildings meet “workable” conditions can be tough and expensive. Although, this post is here to gather 5 critical ways on how you can meet green initiatives for your companies warehouse operations, all while maintaining those workable conditions your employees require.

By implementing the following ways, you will be able to realize a great reduction in not only energy waste, but also overhead costs associated with powering that wasted energy month to month. So there are two major benefits from all of this; one being you will create a more sustainable warehouse all while secondly reducing month to month expenses associated with operating your warehouse.

Without further ado, here is the first of many on this list of ways to save energy in your warehouse facility…

Imagine how great it would be to have the same amount of light that is outside, inside. Best part? It won’t be coming from artificial lights which cost money to run, but rather a natural light source that costs nothing other than installing skylights for that light to come in. This will easily and greatly reduce the amount of time that you need any type of light on in your warehouse.

Allow sun to illuminate your facility by installing skylights throughout your building!

These days HVAC is nearly installed in every building, including warehouses. Multiple things could be messing up your efficiency when it comes to heating, ventilating, and cooling your warehouse, and they all go back to that HVAC system.

For starters, ensuring that your professional building commissioning company to run a full audit of your warehouse, and they will tell you exactly what you need to work on for your building to be running exactly how it was built to run.

Conclusion

The process of addressing (let alone fixing) these issues and areas of concern may seem overwhelming, but keeping the end goal in mind will make the efforts to make these changes in your warehouse much easier. Taking it one at a time will make all the difference, but ensuring you are working on them overtime will be all that is needed. Just remember, all of these critical ways to reduce energy are going to not only make your company more sustainable, but it will also save you tons in overhead.

Have any other ways to save energy specifically in warehouses? Comment them down below to help out other warehouse managers / owners alike!

Why is a bad GFCI outlet such a big deal? To put it simply, they exist to protect you from electrical shock. As required by electrical code, these outlets are in places within your house where there is an increased risk of electrocution. These include bathrooms, kitchens or outside (wherever water is likely to be present).

GFCI outlets come with a sensor designed to identify changes in current, which can indicate unsafe conditions or the risk of shock. There’s a breaker inside the outlet, which trips when there is a surge in current. This shuts down the power supplied to the outlet and any connected outlets, protecting you from electrical shocks.

GFCIs come with two buttons on them (usually black and red), with one serving to test the outlet and the other for resetting it after the breaker inside has tripped. A bad GFCI is a serious problem, as they are too important for you to ignore them for any amount of time. It is, therefore, crucial that you stay aware of when you might have an issue with one of yours.

In the majority of cases, a GFCI outlet protects you by not providing power. If there is an issue with an appliance plugged into it, the power would likely cut off long before you even get the chance to use it. When this happens, it can be easy to assume there’s something wrong with the outlet itself. But in many cases, its breaker tripped for a good reason. GFCIs are also designed to shut themselves off in the event of a person getting shocked, which isn’t always easy for it to determine with much accuracy. In other words, your GFCI outlet breaker might trip when you’re not actually in any danger.

The GFCI detects current that branches off from the intended circuit, even if the branches are small and harmless. This can include instances of a wire making contact with another component of the receptacle, which can be completely innocent. When the cause of a trip is a passing occurrence, you should be able to reset the outlet breaker with a simple push of the correct button.

Outlets can get worn out and lose some of their effectiveness over time. This also applies to GFCIs. If your GFCI outlet is tripping much more frequently than it should, it could mean it’s nearing the end of its lifespan. This is due to GFCI outlets losing the ability to adjust to changes in current as effectively as they used to. The result is that trips begin occurring for reasons that were never a problem in the past.

If your outlet breaker is tripping every time you use a hair dryer, and it never did that before, it’s a sure sign you have a bad GFCI outlet. If this becomes the case, it’s important to get it replaced as soon as possible! These outlets are too crucial a safety measure for you to delay on getting a new, functional one.

Lights are one of the greatest things about the holidays. You’ll find them in trees, colorfully decorating home exteriors; you’ll even find them on vehicles. And honestly, we love it. Lighting is one of the keys to the spirit of the season and an integral part to this time of the year. But, as we’re all well aware, they aren’t exactly the easiest thing in the world on your energy bills.

Looking for ways to keep your holiday lighting costs at a minimum this year? With more than 25 years of experience and knowledge, we can give you a hand! Sit back, relax, and let the certified electricians at Hoffman Electrical show you some quick and simple ways to lower holiday lighting costs!