Spring is upon us. There's so much to enjoy... warm weather, blooming flowers and family trips. Spring is a great time to prepare your home for potential dangers as well. Here are 4 springtime electrical safety tips that can help to keep you and your family safe all year round.
- Have a Home Electrical Inspection
We usually only consider having a home electrical inspection if we experiencing electrical issues or buying a house, but there are other reasons to have an annual home electrical inspection: your electrical system is critical and performs a role in nearly every function of your house.
These inspections can prevent fires since the number one cause for residential fires are electrical faults and problems in wiring, circuits and connections can be detected by an annual electric inspection. Also, bad wiring and circuits can drain energy. Appliances that are not receiving adequate power are not efficient and may sustain damages due to insufficient power.
- Safety switches and surge arresters
Installing a whole home surge protection system can protect your expensive appliances and electronics during the intense storms and lighting strikes. And it’s not just lightning. Damaging power surges on the grid are common even when there isn’t lightning around. It doesn’t take much of a power surge to wipe out delicate electronics. It often costs as much to replace a circuit board as it does to buy a new device.
- Upgrade your electrical panel
Your electrical panel is the heart of your electrical system. If your electrical panel performs poorly or is very out of date, it may be time to replace your electrical panel with a more modern and safe unit. Old electrical panels can result in a myriad of problems, including flickering lights, fuses that frequently blow, need to turn off one appliance to use another, melted electrical wires and defective circuit breakers that fail to trip, resulting in shocks, overheating, and fire. In short, old electrical panels result in danger to your family and property resulting from fire and electrical shock. Your home is showing signs that it is in need of a new electrical panel if there are crackling sounds from your panel box, corrosion or rust on the breakers or panel, overheating electrical service conductors or your appliances run at less than full power.
- Check your smoke detectors
It is critical to have working smoke detectors in your home so never just assume all your smoke detectors are working. Perform a safety test on all of them to insure they are in proper working condition. Promptly replace any out-dated or malfunctioning smoke detectors. If your house has no smoke detectors at all, install smoke alarms inside and outside every room where people sleep and on every level of the house including the basement. Smoke alarms should be at least 10 ft. from the stove to reduce false alarms from cooking and interconnect smoke detectors so when one alarm sounds they all sound. Smoke detectors save lives!
Our electricians can do all the electrical work needed in your house by licensed contractors to ensure that all safety standards and building regulations are met. Capital Tradies can help you feel safe in your home.