If you want to achieve flexibility of loading different electrical appliances in your home, implement the following approaches. The electrical conduits practices recommended here meet NEC guidelines guaranteeing proper load growth for both commercial and residential buildings.

If you expect the load on your house, office, establishments, or other buildings to increase in future, consider using at least 12 AWG conductors. Ensure that they have protection of 20-amp circuit breakers and are designed with a 15-amp load standard each.

In addition, consider implementing these measures on wires and cables to increase the optimal performance of your circuit conductors.

To allow the normal length of lamp cords and other wire cables, the NEC Code recommends more than six feet of distance between the point on a wall and an appliance receptacle. In applications such as kitchen countertops, electricians should wire receptacle outlets some twelve feet or four feet apart.

The biggest challenge here is the difficulty in predicting how items such as furniture in your house will be arranged. Additionally, there may be an inadequate number of outlets at various locations. Evidence for this can be seen in the outlet power strips that today’s equipment use.

In locations where you can expect a huge load, such as computer workstations, offices, and home entertainment, the use of Quadruplex receptacles is an ideal solution. Reducing the number of receptacles that a single circuit uses will limit the installation and use of sensitive equipment. It also positively affects circuit conductors, voltage drop, chance of interaction, and reduces the likelihood of harmonics accumulating to harmful levels.

If your home has a large kitchen and multiple bathrooms, you need additional circuits that go beyond the minimums of the NEC Code. This effectively maintains the high-capacity appliances that characterize these rooms.

In addition, limit the number of use receptacles per circuit. For example, a 15-amp circuit can run 1800 Volt Amps when working at 100 per cent rate. While NEC recommends using circuits at 80 per cent rate, this translates to 1440 Volt Amps.

For some reasons, NEC requires a high number of circuits for use in most commercial and residential buildings. The Code recommends that sensitive electrical appliances, high-capacity loads, and equipment that cause poor quality of power obtain power from individual circuits. This separation eliminates the interference with equipment on a common circuit.

Where individual branch circuits are installed, the harmonicas generated in other circuits are shielded from coming in contact with sensitive equipment. In addition, this prevents the high neutral currents from sensitive electronic appliances to those circuits, effectively eliminating the likelihood of incorrect operation and voltage drop.

Raceways provide the ease of upgrading conductors efficiently and give electricians the freedom to pull conductors through a building. Therefore, let spare raceways and safety electrical material is installed during construction to allow an easy installation of conductors in the future.

As appliances and equipment advance over time, the lighting and switching mechanisms in your house or building should anticipate future modifications. For example, motion detectors and other electronic lighting devices require a small standby current to remain in their optimal state.

Therefore, install the following solutions for safety switches and lighting appliances right from building construction.

These applications are necessary if you want to reduce the load on the circuits in your house. If you have not implemented them yet, call a reputable electrician today to overhaul the electrical conduits. While this protects the electrical wiring from possible hazards, it also safeguards the assets in your house or building.

Breaker boxes or commonly called electrical panels are the modern day replacements for fuses boxes.  Breakers are the electrical devices that go into a panel or breaker box.  Breakers can easily be reset by flipping there switch versus having to unscrew and completely replace a fuse.  A circuit breaker can automatically open or trip upon an overload or a short circuit protecting the circuit and the appliances plugged into the circuit from possible damage.  For larger equipment such as those used in commercial or industrial applications switchgear is commonly used to protect and control equipment.

There is a lot of brands of breaker boxes or electrical panels on the market with some better than others.  Most breakers boxes on the market have been proven to be reliable and operate correctly and safely.  Brands such as Seimens, Square D, and Cutler-Hammer offer superior products and can provide the best protection possible with installed correctly.

Most brands that we currently know have safety and fire hazards have been pulled off the market.  However a lot of these brands that have been pulled off the market are in thousands and in some cases hundreds of thousands of homes across the nation.  One of the worst brands of electrical panels we see in the Des Moines market is Federal Pacific brand breaker boxes.  Federal Pacific panels were most commonly uses from 1960’s to the 1980’s.  These panels have circuit breakers that simply do not trip or open the circuit properly to provide the necessary protection.  Federal Pacific panels have been linked to countless fires and have even resulted in death.  If you have a Federal Pacific breaker box in your home we highly recommend it be replaced by a licensed electrician as soon as possible.  Another brand we advise immediate replacement on is Zinsco panels.  Certain types of Zinsco panels have been linked to several fires.  If you own a Zinsco panel we recommend it be replaced by an licensed electrician.

The phrase “light recipe” is a good entry point into a conversation about LED lighting as a world-changing technology. While people originally thought of LEDs as a somewhat ineffectual light source good only for small electronic displays and then as a profound energy saver, we now understand that the potential for LEDs to change the world we live in is even more staggering than the way cell phones were first imagined to merely facilitate conversation and grew to be pocket PCs used for managing our social, economic, and artistic lives.

Here’s a familiar household scenario. You put a can of catfood into the electric can opener hoping to see the can spin around and make whirring noises, but instead nothing happens. No spinning, no noise. What to do?

Is the can opener broken or is it just not getting electricity? Finding this out is the first step of troubleshooting the problem.

Step 1: Plug the can opener into a socket that is delivering power to an appliance or lamp that works. Let’s say the can now spins and whirs. You know the can opener is fine. After you’ve fed Kitty, you can turn to the electrical issue to see if it’s something that you can handle or if you need to call an electrician.

Step 2: Look at the kitchen outlet that you originally plugged into. Does it have two little buttons on it that say “Test” and “Re-set”? If so, it’s a safety outlet (GFI) for kitchens and other places where water might be nearby. Push the re-set button and see if the can opener works now. If so, the problem may be solved.

However, if you frequently have to push re-set to get this outlet to work, there’s an electrical problem that an electrician should handle. If re-set doesn’t fix it, go on to Step 3.

Step 3: Is the outlet controlled by a wall switch? If so, flip the wall switch. Does the can opener work now? If not, go on to Step 4.

Step 4: Has the circuit breaker that controls the outlet flipped off? As a first step, turn off any computers and other electronic devices that might lose data if they lose power suddenly. Next, look in the circuit breaker box for any flipped switches. Even if you don’t see one, it’s possible that one has flipped off internally without moving to the off position. Firmly flip off each circuit breaker in turn and flip it on again. Now, plug the can opener into the kitchen outlet and see if it works. If the can opener works, you’re done.

But as a note, if a particular circuit breaker repeatedly flips off, your electrical system may need to be enlarged to meet your power needs or there may be an intermittent short circuit. An electrician can tell you which it is. A short circuit is a fire hazard and should be addressed as soon as possible.

Step 5: If after these steps, the kitchen outlet still doesn’t work, it’s time to call an electrician.

If you follow these steps whenever an electric outlet or wall switch is giving you trouble, you can save on unnecessary electrical service calls.  But if it turns out that you need an electrician and you’re in L.A., give us a call at (800) 990-9490.  We’ll be happy to discuss any electrical issues with you.

Kim Hopkins

CEO, The Electric Connection

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Most people are familiar with smoke alarms or detectors as they are requirements in all commercial and residential buildings. But how do they work? And how do you ensure that they are functioning at their top performance?  If properly maintained, smoke alarms can and have been proven to save millions of lives in the case of a fire.

In general, there are two different types of smoke alarms.

Ionization means that the device is equipped with two plates that create a charge. When smoke passes between these plates, the charge is interrupted and forces the alarm to sound. In contrast, a photoelectric smoke detection system works similarly but is equipped with a light beam. When smoke passes in front of the light, the alarm sounds. Each function is beneficial in different instances and because of this, one is not necessarily better than the other. It is, however, recommended to have one of each of these functions on each floor of your home and in high-risk areas such as the kitchen or near fireplaces or heating appliances.

To ensure your family’s safety, it is recommended to check your smoke alarm once a month. In order to do so, you can simply push the test button on the smoke alarm. If it does not sound the alarm, you should check the battery and replace it immediately. You could also light a match near the smoke alarm to ensure that it is functioning at top performance.

For more tips and assistance with your smoke alarm maintenance, contact one of our electricians at Expert Electric – 604.681.8338.