Many homeowners know the pride and satisfaction that results from completing DIY repairs and improvements. But when it comes to electrical work, the stakes of making a rookie mistake can be high.

There are several common electrical projects that aren’t complicated or extensive, but even the simplest jobs can result in serious injury or property damage if they’re performed improperly. Before making any plans to engage in a DIY electrical project, it’s important to know the risks.

What Can Go Wrong

Electricians undergo an enormous amount of training in order to earn the licenses and certifications they need to do their work. That’s because mistakes could not only be dangerous for them, but also for anyone in the homes or buildings they’re working on. Even if you know your way around the circuit box, here’s what an electrical mishap can bring:

Hiring Electricians Saves Money

One of the most common reasons why electrical novices attempt this sort of work is to save money. But that plan can easily backfire even if no one gets hurt in the process.

Poorly performed electrical work can spark destructive fires. It can also fry circuits, destroy fixtures and even damage major appliances. When things go wrong, the cost of repairs is usually several times what it would cost to hire an electrician in the first place.

Making matters much worse, homeowners insurance companies will typically ask for confirmation that electrical work was performed by a licensed electrician before covering any damage from a related event. If your insurance carrier learns that you did the work on your own to save a few dollars, you could lose your claim or even invalidate your policy. Be sure you understand your full policy details before engaging in DIY work.

Know the Code?

When you hire an electrician, you’re not just passing the risk along to a professional -- you’re hiring someone who has knowledge you don't even realize your lacking.

Electrical work is constantly getting safer and more reliable through updates to the electrical code. Licensed electricians are required to keep up with this code as it evolves, so when you work with a professional, you can count on receiving the safest electrical work possible. When you go it alone, you may follow outdated methods because you weren’t aware of the code update.

Don’t take a chance. Your life and home are too valuable. When you need electrical work performed safely and properly, call upon your knowledgeable, licensed, local electricians.

As we enjoy the final days of spring, it is time to prepare for a scorching summer and everything that means. Summer is an excellent time to enjoy evenings outside on the back patio with a cool beverage, your favorite book and a little music. Maybe your summer evenings involve entertaining outdoors. No matter how you envision spending your summer nights or days, you will be happy to know it call all be that much more comfortable with the installation of an outdoor ceiling fan by and electrician in Los Angeles. These fans add elegance as well as provide a cool breeze. Your friendly electricians at The Electric Connection are here to help you get the most out of your summer.

Ceiling fans indoors have proven their value time and again. Their cousin, the outdoor fan, is often overlooked, but it is just as useful and provides plenty of benefits when placed over a patio, deck or in an outdoor room. As with an indoor fan, the outdoor fans provide a quiet breeze that helps break up the stifling heat. There is another bonus the fans provide—they are an excellent bug deterrent. Flying insects like mosquitoes, gnats and even bees can make your time outdoors unpleasant. With the breeze created by the fan, the bugs will be less likely to invade your space.

An electrician will need to complete the installation of your outdoor fan. Electrical wiring will need to be run outside and along a wall or deck material to the junction box where the fan will be installed. Because of this, you will need to have an electrician familiar with the intricacies of the Los Angeles electrical codes. You will also rest easy knowing the fan was installed correctly and safely by an experienced electrician. If you are ready to make your outdoor summer nights more enjoyable with an outdoor fan, give The Electric Connection a call today.

It is amazing to see the difference a light fixture can make to the overall look and feel of a room or living space. In the past, you were stuck with a one-size-fits-all approach to home lighting. Today, that is no longer the case. You have the freedom to choose just how you want a room to feel when you step in. You get to choose what kind of light you want shed, whether it is clean and bright or subtle with a nice glow. An electrician in Los Angeles can take care of the installation of the light fixtures once you have come up with a decision. The team at The Electric Connection is always ready to help.

With the numerous options in styles of fixtures and an equally wide selection of light bulbs, you can really create a dramatic room. Right now, LEDs are growing in popularity. They are going to cost you more money to buy than CFLs or incandescent lights, but think of it like this; you won’t be changing that bulb for years if you don’t want to. Your Los Angeles electrician encourages you to browse the lighting aisle at your favorite home improvement store. You will find some very unique fixtures that really help create a statement or you can stick with the tried and true classical fixtures.

Rooms that don’t really need a lot of light can benefit from fixtures that use the smaller bulbs. Try having some fun with the space by going with a colored bulb. Blues, pinks and greens can create a fun space while providing plenty of light. What if you could paint a room without ever applying a drop of paint? You can with a colored bulb. All you need to do is have your new fixture installed by an electrician. Los Angeles homeowners can change the colors of bulbs with their mood, the season or to support a cause. Give The Electric Connection a call today and schedule your new light fixture installation.

Across the world, many cultures have specific traditions to celebrate the transition from the old year to the new. In the U.S. and Canada, we associate New Year’s with the ball in Times Square, kissing at the stroke of midnight, resolutions, and singing “Old Lang Syne.” But for many Spanish-speaking countries, one of the key traditions has to do with eating grapes as fast as possible.

The “twelve grapes” tradition comes from Spain, where it is called las doce uvas de la suerte (“The Twelve Lucky Grapes”). To ensure good luck for the next year, people eat one green grape for each of the upcoming twelve months. However, you cannot just eat the grapes during the first day of the new year any time you feel like it. You must eat the twelve grapes starting at the first stroke of midnight on Nochevieja (“Old Night,” New Year’s Eve) as one year changes to another. And you have to keep eating: with each toll of midnight, you must eat another grape, giving you about twelve seconds to consume all of them. If you can finish all dozen grapes—you can’t still be chewing on them!—before the last bell toll fades, you will have a luck-filled new year.

Where did this tradition come from? No one is certain, although it appears to be more than a century old. One story about the Twelve Lucky Grapes is that a large crop of grapes in 1909 in Alicante, Spain led to the growers seeking out a creative way to eliminate their surplus. But recent research through old newspapers shows that perhaps the tradition goes back almost thirty years earlier to the 1880s, where eating grapes was meant to mock the upper classes who were imitating the French tradition of dining on grapes and drinking champagne on New Year’s Eve.

It can be difficult to consume grapes this fast, and the lucky grapes of New Year’s Eve have seeds in them, making the job even trickier. (Seedless grapes are not common in Spain the way they are over here.) For people to manage eating all the grapes before the last stroke of midnight requires swallowing the seeds as well and only taking a single bite of each grape.

Oh, there is one more twist to the tradition: you have to be wearing red undergarments, and they have to be given to you as a gift. The origins of this part of the tradition are even more mysterious, and it’s anybody’s guess why this started.