We’re proud to announce the arrival of new high-CRI architectural retrofit LED downlights. The LED lights are available in a variety of sizes and wattages for applications ranging from retail, commercial, grocery store, hospital, and auditorium lighting to bathroom, basement, and kitchen lighting. Can light replacements have integral junction boxes with round and square knockouts, and architectural downlights are equipped with driver enclosure boxes. These energy-efficient LED lights can be easily wired to code and are IC rated for safe contact with insulation.

Cost, energy savings, maintenance and aesthetics must all be taken into account to optimize your budget and bring out the best in your home with the finest lighting design.

1.   Fluorescent and CFL (compact fluorescent) lamps work well in areas that require cooler, energy-efficient general illumination, such as undercabinet lighting and cove lighting in kitchens or flush-mount ceiling fixtures in garages and basements.

2.  Low-voltage halogen lamps are best for accent lighting and to provide luxurious illumination in areas of the home that call for a more up-scaled look, such as living rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms and master bathrooms.

3.  For task lighting, choose LED (light-emitting diode) desk lamps, reading lamps, track lighting and mini-pendants. Bulbrite’s Generation 3 dimmable LED lamps provide great color rendering and light output, perfect for track and recessed fixtures. 

 4.  LED lamps are becoming the standard for outdoor lighting, too, due to their low-maintenance and high energy-efficiency. Although the initial cost for LED lamps is considerably higher, you will find tremendous long-term savings in energy, maintenance and replacement costs—especially in areas where illumination is frequently needed such as outdoor security lighting.

5.  Incandescent lamps are still popular for portable lighting and ceiling fixtures to provide pleasant general illumination.  Aim for energy-efficient incandescent:  Bulbrite’s Eco-Friendly Halogen A19 standard bulb is energy-saving, fully dimmable and available in clear or soft white.

Note:  Do not skimp and buy bulbs of lesser quality, because substandard bulbs may emit a poor quality of light and may burn out prematurely.  Purchase your lighting from a reputable dealer who will stand behind the quality of their merchandise.

For more information on updating your home with quality, energy-efficient lighting, visit a Capitol Lighting showroom and meet with a professional lighting consultant.

This is the time of year you need to be worrying about an active storm season. Sure, the weather is mild right now, but you never know what Mother Nature has in storm for us. It could be a rough winter with lots of storms that threaten to knock out the power. A power outage is slightly romantic until you have to go without electricity for hours. Trying to figure out how to make dinner or take a hot shower is not fun. You don’t have to deal with all the issues a power outage can cause if you give your electrician in Glendale a call. The crew at The Electric Connection knows you don’t want to go without power for several hours or days. There is a solution—a standby generator.

A standby generator is one of the best options to keep your home powered when the grid goes down. The size of generator you will need depends on what appliances you need to keep running and the overall size of your home. Your Glendale electrician can help you determine the wattage needed to keep essential lights on as well as keep your refrigerator and other appliances powered. If you are planning to run your furnace or AC in the summer, you will need a larger generator. Don’t worry about trying to figure out what you need. Leave it to your electrician. Glendale homeowners won’t have to worry about anything other than the maintenance schedule for the generator.

The electrician will take care of everything, including installing a transfer switch that ill automatically switch the generator on the moment the power goes out. You won’t have to worry about turning it on or running cords to the generator. It is all done for you. This means, your home will stay powered, even if you are not there to flip a switch. Give The Electric Connection a call today and schedule your standby generator consultation.

The future of electricity production in the United States is very much in flux. When President Obama introduced his Clean Power Plan, it was an indication that the days of fossil fuel dominance could be on the wane. If coal, oil and natural gas are on their way out as the nation's primary energy sources, however, what will fill the void?

The Game-Changing Energy Option

Renewable resource technologies like wind and solar are an option, or perhaps a resurgence of nuclear fission energy could fill the space left by fossil fuels. There is another dark horse in the market, though – a technology that has long teased cheap, clean fuel but to this day has not yet delivered: nuclear fusion. Although fusion has so far failed to live up to its rosy promises, some analysts believe it could reach the U.S. market in a decade and change the way we power our electrical work forever.

Big names like Lockheed Martin, Amazon, Microsoft and others are all working on or sponsoring various fusion projects that at least have a chance to go commercial. The potential payoff is simply too big to ignore. A functional fusion generator could create power without burning fossil fuels or creating harmful emissions or waste, with no danger of meltdown and at a far greater efficiency than wind or solar. We could power the entire country's electrical work in a green, inexpensive manner.

How Fusion Works

In a way, fusion is already the most common source of energy on Earth – it's how the sun produces the heat and light that help sustain life on our planet. Fusion in the sun occurs when the nuclei of hydrogen atoms bond together to make helium. Humans have been trying for decades to create a similar power source here on Earth, on a much smaller scale, but so far without success. As one popular saying tells us, fusion power is thirty years in the future, and always will be.

However, researchers and entrepreneurs aren't willing to throw in the towel. Scientists are trying to create fusion using other fuels, like deuterium oxide, of which a single gram can create enough energy to power a home's electrical work for a year. The problem is, to create fusion on Earth, we need to create extremely high temperatures (think 100 million degrees Celsius) and don't currently have a way to do it without consuming far more energy than we create.

New Technology Leading the Way

The firms working on fusion today are breaking out new technologies, pumping gas into vacuum chambers to create plasma and bombarding it with microwaves to raise the temperature. Whether anyone can make the process viable in a cost-effective and large-scale way is yet to be seen.

Fusion could be just around the corner, or it could still be a long ways off. In the meantime, if you want to learn about cheaper or more efficient ways to power your home electrical work today, call an expert electrician who can lay out the options available in your area.