Have you ever received a nasty shock when your electric bill arrived? Maybe the amount you owed skyrocketed when you turned on the air conditioning for the summer, or the refrigerator started breaking down and consumed an excess of electricity. No matter what the cause of your sky-high electric bill, once you use the electricity, you have to pay for it. One way you can get a heads-up on any unusually high consumption is to keep an eye on your electric meter. Read on to learn how to read the meter so you are prepared when the bill shows up at your door.

Is Your Meter Digital or Dialed?

If you're lucky, you have a newer electric meter with a digital display, making it a cinch to see how much current is coming in. Simply compare your consumption from one month to another and you'll quickly be able to figure out if you're using up more energy than normal.

Traditional electric meters are a bit trickier to read, but you don't have to be an electrician to decipher them. These older meters have dials instead of a digital display, and they don't all spin in the same direction. With a little practice, however, you can figure out how much power you are using and get a ballpark idea about what the bill will be.

Spinning Clockwise, Spinning Counterclockwise

On a traditional electric meter, there are five dials that go between 0 and 9. To read the meter, follow these steps:

There's one more twist -- if the dial is pointing exactly to a number, and the next dial to the right points to a nine, you should subtract one from the dial that points to the exact number.

Now you've got your reading, and you can simply track how much it changes from month to month to get a handle on your energy use.

Getting Smart About Your Meter

If your utility has already implemented smart electric meters, it's even easier to follow your consumption. Not only is the display in easy-to-read digital form, but the meter can provide updates on how much you're using as often as every fifteen minutes. That way, you can get an alert in real-time if your usage spikes so you can track down the culprit before you have to shell out a fortune in bills.

In addition to monitoring your own consumption, it's a good idea to watch the meter so you will know if the utility company accidentally overcharges you. If you need any help figuring out how to read your meter, contact a trusted electrician today.

Generally, it doesn’t cost much to hire an electrician to have repair work or installation done at home. Yet, many homeowners in Oregon feel they can save the money they would have to spend by taking care of the problem on their own, even though they lack the experience and the expertise to do it right. This often leads to greater problems and they have to spend more money on the repair than they would have if they had called in an electrician in the first place. Of course, hiring the right electrician isn’t simply a matter of finding a number in a directory and making a call.

There are thousands of electricians you will find and not all of them are made equal. Not to mention, they don’t all offer the same services. But it is important to understand that even with electricians, there are different types. There are electricians that take care of the big stuff and then there are electricians that handle the small stuff. It is important to identify the kind of problem you are facing before you call an electrician.

What is low-voltage wiring and where can it be found? This covers everything from communications to entertainment systems, for example, televisions and telephones, small electrical devices much like doorbells and thermostats. A low-voltage electrician takes care of these things for you so the next time your TVdoesn’t work, call in a low-voltage electrician as he will be quick to assess what is wrong with it and will fix it much quicker as it is after all, in his job description. He will ensure that the wiring is properly installed and that the device does not malfunction again.

A low-voltage electrician will visit clients that are in need of installation or repair, will scope out the job as well as determine what tools are required and also how long it will take to fix whatever it is that needs fixing. For example, a thermostat which is malfunctioning may be the consequence of a frayed wire or it could it that it happened because of a poor wiring job which needs to be redone.A low-voltage electrician will know just how to do it.

Once thelow-voltage electrician has diagnosed the root cause of the problem, he will correct it. Should you need new installation, he will recommend one that will fit your needs as well as your budget. Once that is done, the process of fixing the problem will start.

Think of them as doctors of electronics making house calls in order to check faulty wiring. It doesn’t matter if it is a doorbell that is no longer working or a cable connection that flakes out on you when you are binge watching the last season of Breaking Bad, a low-voltage electrician will come and fix the problemfor you.

It is as difficult to find a low-voltage electrician as it is to find a high-voltage one. But luckily for you, low-voltage electricians are licensed as well. So, find a contact from your most updated yellow pages and once you have a chance to meet the electrician, ask them to see a license. And there you have it.That is how you find the right AND legally authorized low-voltage electrician for any low-voltage work you need done at home.

To conclude, it is important to acknowledge what low-voltage electricians do and how helpless youwould be without one. No one can imagine their lives without the little technological advances in their everyday lives.

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

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