If you’re in need of an electric panel installation, you might be wondering if you can do it on your own. Even if you’re a handy kind of person, handling it on your own is not a good idea. In fact, many cities have a rule in place that prevents any non-professionals from performing this kind of installation.

Beyond the complicated nature of putting in a new electrical panel, the task can be dangerous. This is in addition to the long-term hazards that might arise from incorrect electric panel installation. You could be putting your home at risk of a fire, in addition to exposing yourself to the possibility of electrocution.

If your panel’s wiring is outdated or improperly installed, you might be facing many difficulties. In addition to inconveniences like not being able to add new circuits to your system, an inferior panel could leave you dealing with added expenses and even dangerous conditions. Some of the reasons for upgrading or replacing your existing electric panel include:

Dimmers are relatively old devices. Granville Woods patented a “Safety Dimmer” in 1896 in order to substantially reduce energy usage. Saving energy is actually the first reason on our list of reasons why you should install dimmer switches throughout your home.

The biggest advantage to dimmer switches is that they can reduce energy consumption and costs by allowing you greater control over your lighting. Traditional light switches only have two options—on (100% power) and off (0% power). However, if you want to save electricity, you have an entire spectrum of settings in between to choose from. For example, if your family is watching a movie in the living room, you don’t need the lights all the way up to see where the popcorn bowl is. Instead of leaving the living room light on during the entire movie, you can turn it down to maybe 40%.

One of the benefits of controlling the amount of power your lightbulb gets is also controlling the ambiance. In the above example, the family watching the movie managed the level of lighting in the room, allowing the living room to turn into a makeshift theater. Likewise, if a couple wanted to have a romantic dinner, they could lower the lighting in the dining room to 30% instead of relying on the dim illumination of a couple of candles.

If you’ve ever watched the show “Holmes on Homes” on HGTV, you’ve likely seen the problems associated with old or faulty wiring.  Mike Holmes tends to get very agitated by safety issues, and for good reason.  Each year, over 40,000 homes suffer fire damage due to home electrical problems.  These electrical fires account for hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries.  And what’s the main culprit?  Old wiring!

If you live in a classic home built before 1940, chances are you have old wiring in the house.  You may have knob-and-tube or Romex wiring, both of which can become brittle over time.  The insulation dries out and starts to crumble, causing the inner wire to become exposed. The cloth insulation around the wire deteriorates with age and eventually becomes unsafe.

But perhaps one of the biggest threats of Romex and knob-and-tube wiring is that these types of wires aren’t grounded.  That means if one of your appliances shorts out, you could become the path to the ground for the electricity.

Even if your home is only 20 or 30 years old, you could still experience electrical problems at home due to a lack of capacity.  Most homes built more than 10 years ago are not designed to handle the amount of electronics we use today.  Think about it:  if your house was built in 1980, it was built before home PCs and laptops and HDTVs and surround sound and all of the other toys and gadgets we use today.  These appliances can draw a lot of power, and your current electrical wiring may not be up to the task.

If you own one of the one million houses in the DFW area that’s more than 20 years old, it’s a good idea to have a licensed electrician come out and take a look at the wiring.  He or she can make sure that your house will be safe and productive for many years.

We all know that switching off the lights when not in use is a good thing; but we often leave the lights on even when we leave a room or aren’t using a particular space. This can result in an increase in our utility bills in the long term.

In many urban houses, electricity is wasted more than it is used. There are a number of devices on the market today that save a considerable amount of energy. Installing these controls would help in decreasing your bill in a significant way. Here are some of the devices that help save energy in your home:

These devices are largely used for security lighting installation. They detect movement and will switch on the lights connected to the system. They can be installed on the porch as well as the indoor spaces of your home. Installing different types of security lights in the outdoor and indoor areas of your home can be expensive.

However, installing motion detectors on your lawn or on floodlights directed towards your porch will add to the security of your property and help save electricity as well. The lights won’t consume an excess amount of energy and will be switched on only when any motion is detected. They can be customized to be turned off during the daytime.

LED lights are up to 80% more energy-efficient when compared to traditional lighting. The latter generate heat which results in energy-loss. However, in the case of LED lights, only around 5% of the energy gets converted into heat and more than 95% is converted into light. They are environment-friendly and an 84 watt fluorescent bulb can be replaced with a 34 watt LED and will emit the same amount of light. While the upfront cost of LED bulbs is higher than that of halogen or fluorescent bulbs, they can last for up to 50,000 hours and provide value in the long term.

This is a more technologically sophisticated version of motion detectors. These sensors are specially designed for indoor spaces. They turn on the lights automatically when someone enters the room, and turn them off when they leave. Ultrasonic sensors can pick up sounds and detect if someone is in the room; they trigger the lighting system in the room. But these sensors aren’t of much use in quiet environments. Infrared sensors are useful in these settings as they detect both – body heat as well as movement.

These devices are installed in areas such as basements, where artificial light is needed and there is less of ambient light. These sensors turn off the lights when they detect daylight and automatically turn them on when it gets dark; this saves a lot of energy. Many of these products can be customized to your needs. You can change the level of brightness at which the lights get switched off and on. These technologically advanced devices add to the energy-efficiency of your property.