Smoke Detectors – 24 Hour Protection, Awake or Asleep
By providing early warning in the event of fire, smoke detectors can allow you and your family sufficient time to reach safety. Experts report that you can increase your chances of surviving in a home fire by 50% simply by having smoke detectors.
Old Cloth Insulated Wires
If your house was built before 1950, it likely has electrical wires with cloth insulation. Over time, the cloth dries out and becomes brittle. Eventually, it crumbles off the wire, exposing bare wires that can short-circuit and cause shocks or fires. Old cloth-insulated wires should be replaced with plastic-insulated wires. Plastic insulation lasts indefinitely and completely resolves the safety issue.
GFCI Outlets – A Lifesaver
The National Electrical Code requires that outlets in the vicinity of water be equipped with a device called a “Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter” or GFCI. GFCIs are required in all bathrooms, kitchens, garages, pools, and some outdoor areas. GFCIs can protect your family against deadly electrical shocks and are inexpensive to install.
Knob & Tube Wiring – Fire and Shock Hazards
Knob & Tube wiring gets its name from the white ceramic knobs around which wires were wound and the short ceramic tubes through which wires were guided. This type of wiring is usually found in homes built before 1935, although it can sometimes be seen in houses built as late as 1950.
Knob & Tube systems use old cloth-insulated wires and are not grounded. We strongly recommend that Knob & Tube wiring be replaced to eliminate fire and electrical shock hazards.
Whole House Surge Protection for Your Appliances
An electrical surge is a sudden increase in power that flows through electrical wires. Surges can cause damage to computers, phones, entertainment systems, microwaves, stoves, fridges, washers – any device that has electronic components such as sensors and timers. Today, that’s most appliances. A Whole House Surge Protector can save your appliances and electronic devices and save you thousands of dollars in damage.
Look for our $50 discount coupon for the installation of whole house surge protectors at www.TheElectricConnection.com.
Is Your Home Properly Grounded?
A properly grounded electrical system routes occasional leaking electricity through a “ground wire” into the ground. Without grounding, excess electricity can cause fires, damage to electrical appliances and computers, and also shocks to residents.
Older homes built under earlier electrical codes will often have outlets for two-prong plugs. This is often an indication of an ungrounded electrical system. Sometimes, the outlets have been replaced with the modern three-prong type, but without actually adding a ground wire. This can make it appear that the system is grounded when it’s not.
Even when your wiring system has a ground wire, the grounding may fail due to loose or corroded connections and splices. A qualified electrician can check your wiring with a special tester to determine if it’s fully grounded.
Zinsco and Federal Pacific – Electric Panels
There is now conclusive evidence that both Zinsco and Federal Pacific Electric (FPE) “Stab-Lok” electrical panels can fail. (Electrical panels contain your circuit breakers or fuses.) Fires and electrical shocks can result. These brands were installed in the 1950s to 1980s. The failure rates as they age are much higher than for other brands and represent a real electrical hazard. We recommend all Zinsco and FPE electrical panels and circuit breakers be replaced with modern electrical equipment.
Old Circuit Breakers and Fuses – A Fire and Shock Hazard
Circuit breakers and fuses protect your electrical wiring from overloads of electricity. Overloading can melt wires and cause fires and electrical shocks. Whenever a wire is overloaded, the circuit breaker or fuse is supposed to cut the flow of electricity.
Sometimes older circuit breakers don’t work fast enough and allow too much current through. Fuses can also be a safety concern. Sometimes, they’ve been replaced with improperly-sized fuses and no longer protect wires from overloading. These safety issues can be solved by installing modern circuit breakers.
Aluminum Wires – A Hidden Danger
Most homes have copper electrical wires. However, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, over 2,000,000 U.S. homes were wired with aluminum. The U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission has determined that aluminum wiring is hazardous as, over time, connections and splices can fail, resulting in fires and shocks.
Fortunately, a qualified electrician can upgrade an aluminum wiring system without replacing all the wires with copper. It’s possible to eliminate the fire hazard by upgrading only connection points and splices. Aluminum wiring safety retrofits should be done only by electricians specifically trained to upgrade aluminum wiring safely.
