Also referred to as the circuit breaker panel of your home, the electrical panel is designed to take in so much voltage, and assign it to the various electrical components and wires throughout your living space.
If you have a circuit breaker panel that is aging, or even worse if you have a fuse box, then you are not supplying power to your home as safety as you could be, and you are likely due for an electrical panel upgrade. Most electrical panels last anywhere from 25-40 years before needing replacing, but this largely depends too on how much the electrical demand has grown in your household in that time, and if you’ve ever experienced problems with your current electrical panel.
Keep reading as we uncover some signs that it is, indeed, time for you to upgrade your electrical panel.
When we’re in the middle of a hot and sticky summer, there’s only so much a homeowner can do to keep their living space cool. You can make sure you keep your air conditioner tuned-up properly, that you keep your blinds and curtains closed in the middle of the day to keep the sunshine out (especially on south facing windows), and run your solar attic fan!
We all have a genre of music that we prefer. Maybe your chosen type is classical or instrumental. If so, you’ll likely enjoy a good orchestra… unless the performance is coming from your air conditioning system. That level of noise and the many sounds it entails is bad news for the operation of your AC.
Homes today have more technology in them than ever before. And most of this technology relies on that homes’ electrical system. Think about it—you probably have multiple devices connected to your household’s power supply at any given time, right? With many power charging stations handling your portable systems and many high efficiency appliances throughout the living space.
Each and every year, thousands of people die or are injured by unintentional CO (carbon monoxide) exposure or house fires. It’s a harsh statistic, but one that amplifies the importance of having properly installed smoke and CO detectors in your home. In fact, it’s the law that homes have these two devices in them when you move in, and illegal to tamper with these devices in most jurisdictions too.
If you’ve lived in our area through even just one summer, then you know the heavy workout that your air conditioning system gets, particularly in the height of summer. Fortunately, AC systems today are extremely durable, and designed to handle the heat, when they are cared for as they should be.
With how much we use our heating systems during the winter, it’s no secret that homeowners would like to do everything they can to avoid costly utility bills. Sure, your energy bills are going to raise in the wintertime (as well as the summer time) as your HVAC systems take up about half of all your energy use. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t steps you can take to increase their efficiency and thereby lower the costs a bit.
It’s the time of year where older heating systems start to struggle—after all they’ve been working hard all season. If yours wasn’t properly maintained, or even simply if it’s aged to the point that it’s having trouble keeping up with demand, it might be time for you to call for repairs.
Ceiling fans are often talked about this time of year—and we’ll get to why we’re talking about them now later in this post—but something that a lot of homeowners don’t really realize is that celing fans do not actually cool the air in the room where they’re running.
Wintertime is the time of year when our heating systems are truly put to the test. Because of the strain they go through this time of year versus in milder weather, it tends to be when problems arise. Since you need your system to function at its best this time of year, this is obviously not ideal. It pays to ensure you schedule routine maintenance each year, and to keep a watch for signs of trouble with your heater.