If you’ve ever seen “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” you’ll know that Clark Griswold’s perception of Christmas decorating is a bit extreme.  Although that movie is comical, in reality electrical safety is no laughing matter, and an electrical fire can ruin your holidays instantly.  Here are a few holiday decorating safety tips.

The holidays are meant to be enjoyed with friends and loved ones, and by following these few safety tips, you can help to make sure you’re not a victim of a “Clark Griswold” Christmas.  If you want to learn more about your home’s current electrical state, contact the best electrician Plano has to offer.

Happy Holidays!

Museums have a hard line to walk, exhibiting items for public education and enjoyment while protecting those same collections from damage. Today’s museum also carry the additional weight of safeguarding the future of the environment – as well as their financial future – against the dangers of unnecessary energy consumption. What advancements have been made in preservation lighting technology to help accomplish these goals?

Light, including all three types: ultraviolet (UV), infrared, and visible light, causes permanent and irreversible damage to museum pieces. Cumulative and dependent on the intensity and duration of exposure, light affects chemical composition, physical structure, and, the appearance of a collection. There is no conservation treatment that can repair it. Light damage is forever.

Only complete darkness ensures conservation, since exposure to light in any form naturally breaks down items. However, keeping pieces locked away in the dark defeats the mission of the museum – sharing those works with the public. It is thus a museum’s dilemma to find a suitable solution that balances the best of both worlds, in addition to considering energy costs and the environmental impact of its lighting selection.  

In your search for preservation lighting, you will find that a great deal of lighting solutions involve UV (ultraviolet light), the most energetic and destructive form of light. These include natural light, fluorescents, HID, and tungsten halogen lighting. Fortunately, the effects of UV can be controlled with simple filters, offering a greater variety of lighting options. UV filters are hard plastic tubes or soft sleeves wrapped around bulbs/light sources, which filter and block up to 98 percent of UV light, preventing its damaging effects. NOTE: UV filters lose efficiency over time and must be replaced every eight-10 years.

Specific, detailed recommendations for preservation lighting levels based on your collection type can be found from various sources, including the Library of Congress, National Park Service, UNESCO, and more.

If you are planning on renovating or sprucing-up your kitchen, it’s probably a good idea to map out a detailed lighting plan as well. Most people find this a little strange as they feel that lighting in a kitchen isn’t something that needs too much of consideration or planning. It’s just a place where you cook and probably where you have an informal meal after all.

However, the fact is that it’s important to plan kitchen illumination well if you want to make optimal use of your kitchen spaces. Here, we would like to share some basic lighting ideas to create the right balance of functionality and aesthetics.

If you want to get a better idea about what type of lighting would work best for your kitchen, it’s vital to understand how your kitchen spaces relate to the different type of lighting. Let’s start off with understanding what type of bulbs you can use for the best effects:

These bulbs emit a yellowish light and you will now find many artistic versions of these on the market today.

These bulbs throw off a flat, cold light that has a bluish tinge, which lends a very harsh effect to the room.

These have a warm light that makes the place look very inviting and comfortable

These are the latest in light bulb technology and are available in a range of effects including white, cool daylight, warm light, yellow and a range of other colours and hues. Aside from this, LED bulbs are also 80% more energy-efficient than standard bulbs; and most property owners are now opting for these fixtures.

In addition to the types of bulbs used, the style of lighting or the lighting effects are what impact the ambience and appearance of a room. With this in view, here we discuss the different lighting effects that can be used in your kitchen:

This is one of the simplest ways to create the right lighting effect in your kitchen. This type of lighting is designed to help you move comfortably around the room. In most instances this type of lighting comes from grid-style can lighting, widely-spaced, wall and ceiling lamps, semi-translucent skylights or even the natural light that streams in through glass windows and doors. This is the base layer of any lighting plan.

In your kitchen, task lighting would be required to illuminate kitchen counters and food preparation spaces. Since you will be cooking in your kitchen every day, it’s important that the task lighting be planned and installed well. If you have only recessed lighting fixtures in your kitchen, you will feel the lack of focused light when you are cleaning, cooking or prepping in that space.

If you install one-dimensional lighting in the kitchen, it creates unsightly shadows in different areas of the room, while ceiling lighting is ineffective in illuminating spaces like sinks, under counter or cabinet areas etc. On the other hand, if you add special pendant lamps over the counters or even your kitchen island it can prove to be a more practical solution. Under-cabinet lighting can also help in illuminating the cabinets that are positioned there.

This effect doesn’t seem as necessary as ambient or task lighting does in a kitchen space, as the illumination it provides isn’t as functional as the first two. However, it can have a significant impact on the way your kitchen spaces look. If you want to enhance the appeal of your kitchen (regardless of whether you are getting it entirely renovated or are opting for a lighting upgrade), it’s important that you plan your accent lighting well.

For more information, contact the friendly team at AllRound Electrical at this number – 1300 169 263. You can also write to us at this email address.You can also write to us at this email address.

Thanks for reading,1300 169 263

As a car dealership owner, manager, or even sales member; you know that getting the cars out (along with in) is one of the most vital points in your business.

On top of that, keeping the expenses as low as possible to simply operate will allow you to take home more income, rather than spending it on things that are just going to waste (like energy usage).

A good example that will resolve these issues and both increase overall revenues along with decrease expenses is in your lighting. More specifically, LED vs metal halide and HPS.

This brings two major cost saving benefits.

First, it allows you to by 2-3 times less replacement lights since you won’t need to replace burnt out lights as often (because they simply last longer).

Additionally, by reducing the amount of time you need to spend replacing burnt out lights you also get to reduce the amount of time you have to pay someone to switch out and even maintain your new lighting system. This in turn gives you a “two for one” benefit with less buying of replacement lights along with reduced costs associated with hiring someone to maintain your lighting system.

LED offers various ways that it outputs higher quality light (along with operates in a higher quality “way”).

For starters, LEDs will never flicker nor buzz unlike other luminaires do. This issue in and of itself will make your lot look low quality, unprofessional, and even annoying for those walking around the lot.

One of the most popular lighting trends of the past decade has been the use of via etsy.com

Antique or edison light bulbs generally come in a few different shapes. One popular shape is the tubular light bulb, and the DIY fixture above is a great use for the tubular light bulb shape. Tubular antique light bulbs really show off their filaments, and the glowing filaments are the star of the show!

2. Also Pretty Tubular!

Candelabra based antique light bulbs are very popular and are great for use in chandeliers, pendants, and other fixtures that use this smaller kind of light bulb. I didn’t want you to think that antique light bulbs only came in medium-based varieties. No, you can create a vintage lighting look with your fixtures that use candelabra based light bulbs, too.

4. Blowing the Dust Off an Old Look

Another popular shape for edison light bulbs is the globe. This envelope shape is more spherical and looks great alone, but when grouped together as in the above photo, you can see the reflection of the glowing filaments in all the globes of glass, and this is a pretty neat effect. Such a warm look.

6. The Industrial Look

Some people like to use antique light bulbs in new fixtures that look old, and some people like to use antique light bulbs in old fixtures that look new. In this case, very old cages have been restored to use in a new light fixture. This represents what edison bulbs are all about, holding onto the beautiful things of the past. In this age of integrated LEDs and the dawning of things like via etsy.com

This homemade light fixture features quartz crystals hanging down amongst the edison bulbs. This is pretty neat. The crystals are the perfect things to arrest the warm glow emanating from the antique light bulbs. What a creative idea.

9. Wall Sconce