Is your outdoor lighting helping or hurting your home? At Kolb Electric, we believe that outdoor lighting is an important part of the overall look and function of your Washington, DC area home. From adding to your home’s security to making it look its best no matter what the time of day, outdoor lighting is an important part of your home. If you’re considering installing outdoor lighting in your home, here are some thoughts you need to consider.

Ready to install outdoor lighting in Washington, DC? Contact the Kolb Electric team now!

Are you considering ways in which you can improve your home’s appearance and security? Outdoor landscape lighting in Washington, DC can do both. By combining beautiful outdoor lighting with your home’s landscaping and adding lighting to areas that are dimly lit, you can increase your home’s value and appeal while decreasing the risk of theft.

Outdoor lighting brings several benefits to your home. Some of these include:

Kolb Electric understands how to design lighting plans for your Washington, DC home that provide all three of these benefits. If you’re looking to improve the look, safety, and security of your home then outdoor lighting is the way to go.

Before installing landscape lighting you will need to know the different types available to you. Here are some common options to consider:

LED lights are low-voltage lights that can illuminate small areas, like individual stairs, garden plants or railings. They don’t use much electricity and last a long time, making them an economical investment. They are available as individual lights, spotlights and rope lighting.

For homes with a pool, pool lights improve nighttime swimming by illuminating the water from below the surface. They can also be installed in outdoor hot tubs.

Pathway lights dress up a path and help reduce tripping hazards. These are often low to the ground and can be solar powered, drawing energy from the sun during the day and then expending that energy with a subtle glow at night.

Security lights light up dark spots in the yard to protect against intruders. Some security lighting is triggered by motion, while other lighting stays on all night long.

Which type of outdoor lighting is right for your home? The answer will depend on your goals. Whether you’re looking for additional safety and security, want to spruce up the look of your outdoor space or simply want to highlight a part of your outdoor space, you can find a landscape lighting option that will fit those needs.

If you’re looking to improve your home with outdoor lighting, you are going to need to make some considerations before you invest. Choosing the right lighting starts with understanding how you want to use it. Here are some considerations you can make.

First, decide if you plan to illuminate a dark area of your yard constantly or if you want to turn the lights off after enjoying them. If you’re going to leave the lights on all night long you may wish to invest in an energy efficient lighting option. The more efficient the bulb is, the less you will be spending on energy bills. Remember that you won’t need much light at night so low-voltage and efficient lighting is a great way to keep the energy bills in check.

If you feel that the high energy cost of leaving the lights on is a bad idea for your budget, consider using motion sensors in areas where you need lights for security or safety. Motion sensors will light up the space when someone is present, adding the safety you’re looking for in your home.

Finally, consider what you’re looking to illuminate. This will help you choose between the two main types of outdoor lights – uplighting lights and downlighting lights.

Uplighting lights shine from the ground up on a surface, like a landscaping feature or a tree. Downlighting lights shine down onto the ground, which can illuminate an unsafe area or highlight a plant you wish to show off. Both can be incorporated into your design as you work to illuminate your yard.

When you have a basic idea of what you want in your outdoor lighting, then the real fun can begin. The Kolb Electric team is ready to help you with the design process, so you can be certain your final project will do exactly what you want and need it to do. As you consider your design options, make sure you take these factors into consideration:

If you are ready to transform your home with beautiful outdoor lighting, Kolb Electric is here to help. Our design team and licensed electricians can help you with the entire process, from choosing the lighting that best fits your needs and tastes to installing it expertly. Let us help you create an attractive outdoor lighting scheme in your Maryland, Northern Virginia or DC area home. Give us a call at 877-287-1179 today, or you can contact us online.

If you are planning to start working out of home, it’s crucial that you have a designated work space. The best way to create a home office work area that’s productive and functional is to update your home office wiring. Turning that spare bedroom or a new room over the garage or even an extension into a home office is something that you would have to plan well.

Even the simplest of work spaces have some or the other electrical equipment and appliances and you would need appropriate electrical wiring, powerpoints, and circuits and plug points etc. for it. Aside from this, you would require Internet connectivity as well. Most homes have Wi-Fi, and even if all your office equipment like the PC, printers, scanners, phones and tablets are Wi-Fi enabled, it’s best to have a hardwired Ethernet connection in your home office.

That increases the reliability of the service and you won’t be inconvenienced due to an erratic Internet connection. While it may seem like a very simple job, the fact is that installing home office wiring isn’t an easy job and has to be done with care.

As a California homeowner, you know that this is not the best time to put your house on the market, which may be why so many people are opting to upgrade their existing homes instead of seeking a replacement. One of the improvements you should consider is an electrical make over.

Electrical wiring can suffer wear and tear, and older homes were simply not built to meet today’s electrical needs, but these deficiencies can be overcome by hiring an experienced electrician. Santa Monica, CA building codes have changed over the years as well, and companies like The Electric Connection that specialize in rewiring older homes can bring your house into compliance with the latest regulations.

If your home was built during the 1960s and 1970s, you may be living in a fire trap. During that time approximately 2 million homes were built or remodeled using aluminum wiring before it was discovered that this type of wiring poses a significant fire hazard. The problem occurs at the electrical connection points where the wiring is spliced to connect to a switch, outlet or circuit breaker. Aluminum expands and shrinks in response to temperature changes, a process which can cause breaks and frays over time. The US Consumer Product and Safety Commission (CPSC) has expressed grave concern over this issue stating that homes with aluminum wiring are up to 50 times more likely to have a fire than homes with copper wiring.

How will you know if you need to have all of the electrical wiring in your house replaced? Fortunately, you may not necessary need a complete rewire in your home or business. A licensed electrician in Santa Monica can evaluate this for you, and tell you to what extent you’ll need to go in order to make your home safe. The Electric Connection, which specializes in house rewires explains that depending on the situation, there might be a fairly inexpensive solution. For example, you may simply need to replace the connection points in your home or business with copper electrical connectors. Not every Santa Monica electrician is trained in this type of retrofit, so you when you’re searching for electrician Santa Monica, it’s important to find a highly trained and fully licensed electrician to perform aluminum-to-copper retrofits.

Older homes, those built prior to 1950, may have a different electrical safety issue. During this time many homes used cloth insulated wiring, something which can appear similar to the insulated wiring used today. The danger builds over time; as the cloth ages it dries and can begin to flake off. Once portions of the wire are exposed, they pose a serious shock and fire danger.

Another challenge presented in older homes or buildings with cloth insulated wiring is that this wiring was frequently not grounded. At the time there were a limited number of electrical appliances and no home computers, so grounding was not considered a serious issue. Today all new homes are grounded so that excess electrical charges caused by electric surges are routed out of the house and into the ground, protecting electronic devices, computers and appliances. An electrician from Santa Monica can replace cloth insulated wiring with a grounded system, making your home and belongings safe from electrical fire and damage caused by power surges.

Another problem with older homes is the lack of three-prong outlets, something that is necessary for most modern appliances. Many homeowners mistakenly think they can simply purchase the three-prong version at the hardware store and swap out their existing two-prong outlets, but doing so can create additional fire risks. Properly swapping out these outlets requires some rewiring so that the three-prong version is grounded. Your Santa Monica electrician can do these quickly and inexpensively for you, and can make certain that any existing three-prong versions have been installed properly.

So how do you determine what type of electrical wiring is in your Santa Monica CA home? The first step is to check the build date. If your home was built before 1950, you can call the Electric Connection for a free electrical estimate by a licensed Santa Monica Electrician. They will be able to quickly evaluate any electrical safety issues that you might have in your home or business electrical system.

Almost everything nowadays operates on electricity. The modern conveniences that drive our world depend on electricity. Without a constant supply, our world grinds to a halt, as massive blackouts have proven in the past. Electricity has two forms in modern electronics: AC and DC.

AC (alternating current), is most frequently used in devices that require high amounts of power to operate.

DC (direct current), is more commonly found in devices requiring smaller amounts of power to operate.

DC was the original electricity that was created by Thomas Edison. This style of electricity sends a current in only a single direction, from a power source and to the power source again in a loop. Today, DC is used to power electronics that require batteries. Any device in your home that uses batteries uses DC current. Interesting to note, if your battery is plugged into the power supply to recharge, it transforms AC current into DC.

Direct current is also used in manufacturing situations where electricity is generated on site for personal use. Factories and mills that require vast amounts of energy often create their own DC current to power their machinery. Most commonly, DC is found in steel mills, aluminum production, and is used to power mass transportation in large urban centers in the form of electric streetcars.

AC power is easier to generate, which is why we use it as our standard electricity nowadays. The alternating current design allows energy to flow in both directions, making electricity easier to create and use in society. Regardless of where the current is moving, it is always moving in both directions at once. This results in current being present at every point in the power grid at every time as long as the connection to the generation unit is intact. The power that comes from the power plants, down the lines to our homes, is always AC in nature, thanks to the way our modern power grid is set up.

The power grid operates by creating AC current and sending it down the power lines. This current can be at whatever intensity the power company chooses.

Frequently, the electricity coming from these lines is far too powerful to be used in our homes. The transformers that we see on power poles transform the electricity from its high-powered state into something that our homes can use. Without the transformers, we wouldn’t be able to use the power that our society depends on.

Regardless of the style that we use in our devices and our homes, electricity plays an important role in society. Without both AC and DC electricity, we wouldn’t have those things that make modern life as comfortable as it is.