While it’s a festive time of year you spend celebrating with family and friends, Thanksgiving can be stressful and expensive, especially for the person in charge of cooking. There’s the unavoidable cost of ingredients, but even the process of cooking, baking, broiling and roasting pushes your energy bills sky high. Pursue these top five gadgets to make Thanksgiving cooking easier and more affordable this year.

They’re a lifesaver when it comes to cooking multiple dishes at once. Equip your kitchen with several digital timers and set them for precisely the right amount of time each food item needs to cook.

To save energy and make cooking easier, put multiple dishes in the oven at once. As long as the temperature requirement varies by no more than 25 degrees, you’ll be fine. Set separate timers for each dish so they don’t end up over or undercooked.

Also, if your oven doesn’t beep or buzz to let you know it’s preheated, set a timer for five to eight minutes when you turn the oven on. This reminder prevents you from forgetting to put the food in the preheated oven while you’re distracted preparing other dishes. Remember, you don’t need to preheat the oven for broiling or roasting.

This is one of those gadgets you find in every kitchen, but it’s a more useful tool for preparing Thanksgiving dinner than you might imagine. Microwave ovens consume less than half the energy conventional ovens use. They also cook food faster, which saves time. Free up the oven and stovetop by cooking baked potatoes, reheating gravy and warming rolls in the microwave.

Having a second oven on hand lets you get more cooking done in less time, but if you aren’t lucky enough to have a double oven, you can invest in a countertop version. Small convection or roaster ovens use much less energy than their larger counterparts, but they’re still fully capable of cooking large food items.

Convection ovens come in different sizes, so if you plan to cook your turkey inside, make sure you choose a large enough model. Smaller dimensions are still perfect for baked potatoes, casserole dishes and even cookies.

Roaster ovens look more like slow cookers, which are perfect for buffet style serving and keeping dishes warm for hours at a time without overcooking them. They’re perfect for roasting a turkey, ham or chicken with moist, succulent results.

You’ve liking got a lot of slicing and dicing to do in preparation for Thanksgiving dinner. Use a food processor to speed up the process of chopping vegetables, grating cheese, crushing ice, chopping nuts and mixing pie crust ingredients. It may take more electricity to complete these tasks with a machine instead of doing them by hand, but with an energy-efficient food processor, the time and physical exertion you save are well worth it.

Not sure if your turkey is done? Even if the outside is golden brown, the inside might not be fully cooked. You can’t be sure without a meat thermometer. Choose a digital variety for an instant temperature reading after sticking the probe into the bird. An analog version takes longer to deliver a reading, and all the while the oven door is hanging open and losing heat. The minimum safe internal temperature for turkey is 165 degrees.

Clearly, as long as you have the right kitchen gadgets, cooking a Thanksgiving meal doesn’t have to break the bank. Be sure to implement these tips from Mr. Electric® for the best results this upcoming holiday.

Other parts of the country may be warming up and getting ready to use our air conditioners, but we’re still relying on our heaters to get us through more than a few chilly nights. So if yours begins to malfunction, you may start to panic. This is understandable, but know that if you’ve had your system maintained before the heating season began, it may likely not even be an issue with the system itself.

Instead, you may be in need of Newton, MA electrical wiring services for some component of your heater. Keep reading to learn more about how your heater can be impacted by electrical issues.

This applies to both electrical furnaces as well as boilers. Both of these systems use heating elements—a set of coils that burn hot as a current passes through them—in order to raise the temperature of the air (furnaces) or water (boilers).

Both of these systems contain more than one heating element. Therefore, if you one fails you likely won’t lose your heat entirely, but your heater won’t be able to work as efficiently as it otherwise would.

If you’re utilizing a heat pump, then this is the most common electrical problem you might run into. Capacitors are cylindrical devices about the size of a soda can, responsible for sending electrical charges to the motors to start and keep them running.

Capacitors can burn out after years of use, or suffer from wiring issues, causing the heat pump to “hard start” (draining power) or quit functioning all together. You’ll need a professional to replace the damaged electrical capacitors.

Even if you have a heater that runs off of natural gas, oil, propane, or geothermal power, it’s going to have an electrical thermostat controlling it. Thermostats with failing wiring will begin to malfunction, often incorrectly registering your home’s temperature or failing to accurately set the heater. If your heater is failing to reach its target temperature with no other signs of a problem, your thermostat wiring could certainly be to blame.

When you are getting any electrical work done in your home, you want to make sure that the job gets done in the best possible way and that the best materials and workmanship are used in the work too. This is exactly why you conduct a certain amount of research online and try to zero-in on a credible and well-established company. However, this can sometimes be easier said than done and you may scour several sites and still not be sure which company you should contact for the work you need done.

We understand exactly how difficult this decision can be and so we have put together this list of things you should consider while choosing a residential electrician:

This isn’t very difficult to decipher. In Australia, when it comes to electrical jobs, the only things you are legally permitted to do are to change your light bulbs & operate the electrical appliances in your home, for what they were designed for. If you need any other electrical work done, beyond that; you would have to hire the services of a licensed and certified electrical contractor. This includes even the small things such as:

Even when you feel that certain jobs are very basic and that you will be able to tackle them yourself, keep in mind that electrical jobs are very risky and dangerous; and a single wrong step can cause an electrical fire and pose a risk to life and property. This is exactly why it’s important to hire the services of a credible electrical company.

They will work safely, use the latest and most advanced testing and work tools and ensure the work is done safely and in line with the applicable legislation in the state. In addition, the work has to be done as per the Australian Standard Wiring Rules. The electrician is also required to provide a certificate of compliance for the work they have handled for you.

In the current day, every state and territory requires that electricians should hold a valid electrical license to carry out any work. Most of the states also require that the electricians be R.E.C’s (Registered Electrical Contractors), before they are permitted to handle any electrical work or run an electrical contracting business.

For more information, simply speak with the experts at Allround Electrical and take their advice on various aspects of CBUS installations. The number to call is – 1300 169 263. You can also write to us at this email address. You may also reach us through this online contact form.

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