If you are looking at your electricity bill and trying to determine where your money is going you need to know what appliances are using the most electricity. This will help you make better decisions about where to cut back in your home to truly make a difference on your electric bill. A Pasadena electrician has a list of the top 10 energy users in your home. If you would like to learn more about buying energy efficient appliances or other ways to save on your electric bill, give The Electric Connection a call today.

1-The biggest electricity user in your house is your air conditioning. With the height of summer just around the corner, it is time to start thinking of better, more energy efficient ways to cool your home. You can have a ceiling fan installed by an electrician. Pasadena homeowners can still stay cool without relying solely on the air conditioner.

2-Your refrigerator is next on the list. While you can’t really do without a refrigerator, you can invest in one that is more energy efficient than your existing one.

3-Space heaters, if you use them, are also big electricity users. Consider investing in an infrared heater.

4-Water heaters use a lot of electricity. You can reduce the need for the heater to constantly heat the water by ensuring it is insulated. Reduce the temperature on your water heater a few degrees as well.

5-Lighting is your next issue to tackle. You can save money on lighting by switching to LEDs and CFLs. Making sure lights are off when nobody is in the room and installing dimmer switches are also helpful.

These are just a few things you can do to reduce your electric bill. Making a few changes today can start saving you money on your next electric bill. Give The Electric Connection a call today to schedule your ceiling fan installation.

Electrical challenges and solutions are often part of residential, industrial and commercial installations. These vary depending on the amount of power involved, the location, the risk it poses to users, and other factors.

Most of the electrical faults pose various risks which range from electric shocks, fires, and loss of property or lives. While the user may avoid using the sections of the installation or equipment that is faulty, it is always advisable to call a qualified electrician to sort out the problem as soon as possible.

It’s full-on spring, and there seems to be a lot of activity in the landscape lighting world. That’s probably because landscape lighting is generally a great and affordable way to significantly improve the curb appeal of your home. Landscape lighting ideas abound on the internet, and, since it’s a popular season for landscape lights, I thought I would curate for you some of the best landscape lighting I have seen out there on the Web.

1. Wall Grazing at Its Finest

Wall grazing is a lighting technique in which light is cast up or down a wall in order to let the light and shadow play off the wall’s texture. Wall grazing works especially well on this wonderfully textured stone wall. Interesting walls like this almost demand uplights to play off their texture.

2. Cinematic Pond Beacon Situation

Very bright light on this structure in the middle of a pond creates a dramatic, almost cinematic effect. Bright uplights on the trees give some context to the attractive structure.

3. Variations on a Path

Using different styles of path light can make the walk to the house much more interesting. Never assume it’s law that all your path lights match. Mixing it up a little gives the eye a lot more to look at, and the outdoor lighting design looks more calculated, in a good way. Instead of the string of path lights that come in a pack, this is conscious design that makes every trip to the front door pleasant.

4. Variation on Variations on a Path

Another way you can break the monotony of path lighting is to place your path lights according to the visual features along the path, like plants or garden ornaments. Setting up the path lights to be spaced a little farther apart and placing them in different proximity to the path – now directly on the path, now set back near some interesting plants – leads the eye farther down the path, which creates a spectacle and gives the eye much more to admire.

5. Path Lighting without all the Path Lights

Landscape lighting doesn’t always have to include path lights. Here, adequate illumination and very attractive lighting design is achieved by uplighting trees and using downlights mounted on the house.

6. Moon Lighting: A Supernatural Experience?

Moonlighting is a technique in which lights are hidden higher up in trees to create an ambient effect. Pretty cool!

7. Under Counter Lights

One really cool outdoor lighting effect is under counter lighting. Led rope, tape, or LED tape rope hybrid can be run under the edge of counter, stone wall ledge, bar, island, or bridge to create a wonderful lighting effect. This is one application in which LED landscape lighting works really well.

8. Water + Lighting =  Awesome

What’s cooler than light fixtures giving an almost otherworldly beauty to outdoor water features? This is my personal favorite kind of landscape lighting. It just provides such a reliably relaxing and comfortable atmosphere. If your home is your sanctuary, you might want to consider this one-two-three punch of water, sound, and light.

9. Shadowy Magic

Moonlighting can also be used to create cool shadows on the path. See that light mounted up in that tree? It mimics the light of the moon, creating interesting shadows on the ground and enough ambient light to see where you’re walking. Great lighting design.

10. Lit Up Night Time Oasis

There are a lot of interesting things going on here. The space feels large and luxurious, in part because that uplight at the back draws the eye directly to the back edge of the space, making the whole spread look larger. The path lights around the perimeter draw attention to the landscaping. Of course, the star of this show is the cove lighting used around the bridge, making it look almost as if it is floating on light. Yes to this.

11. Epic Landscape Lighting in a Park

I mean, this pretty much speaks for itself. The high powered uplights illuminating the tall canopy creates an amazing effect. Not only is it beautiful, but it also represents the dual purpose of landscape lighting: To beautify and to make safer. Urban parks can be dangerous, but this one looks even more welcoming at night.

As you look around your home, you probably see a long list of little things you would like to do to make it better and safer. It is all a part of home ownership. It is exciting to take something that is very basic and mold it into something that is as much a part of your family as the dog or cat. It is only normal you would want to protect your home and the family that resides in it. The Electric Connection can help you do just that.

Homeowners can have hard-wired smoke detectors installed in their home by an electrician Los Angeles residents probably already know how important it is to have at least one smoke detector on every floor of the home, but there is a big difference between hard-wired and battery operated detectors.

The hard-wired varieties are interconnected. This means when the one in the kitchen goes off, the one in the master bedroom upstairs will also go off. Doesn’t that just make sense? It can be difficult to hear an alarm when doors are closed or the television is on. You need detectors that give you precious seconds to get your family out of the house quickly and safely.

Another benefit to this particular type of smoke-detector is the reliability. As long as the home is powered, the detectors will work. There are battery backups as well in case of a power outage. Because the devices are wired directly into your home’s main power, you will need somebody trained to work with electricity. Los Angeles electrical work can safely be performed by the experienced and professional staff at The Electric Connection.

If you would like to learn more about these devices or would like to schedule an appointment to have yours installed, give us a call today.