Home Electrical Upgrades For Safety, Functionality and Beauty
Hidden Outlets
Hidden electrical outlets hit all three criteria you may be used to make decisions about electrical upgrades. Our favorite places to install hidden outlets include entertainment centers, closets, under kitchen cabinets, on bathroom vanities, and in vanity drawers.
They eliminate clutter and hide cords, improving aesthetics, and eliminating the unsightly appearance of electrical cords. Are you struggling to hide the cords from your TV, game console, and other entertainment area appliances? Are they running around every baseboard in the living room? Image if they were all plugged into the entertainment center, behind closed walls or hidden inside drawers. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Recessed Outlets
Recessed outlets are a great functional upgrade. Not only do they look great, but they eliminate problems like “floating furniture” syndrome. If you’ve got a sofa or other furniture pulled out from the wall so you can get plugs into your outlets, a recessed outlet solves your problem. If you want your flat panel television to mount flush against the wall, but don’t want to hardwire it, a recessed outlet is a simple and inexpensive solution. Try them outside. Outdoor recessed electrical outlets fade away into the background.
USB Outlets
We’ll be surprised if in a few years most people haven’t upgraded many home and business outlets to include USB. Plugging your USB into an adapter and plugging the adapter into a wall outlet is just inefficient. Plus, those bulky adaptors take up way too much room on wall outlets and power strips. USB outlets are functional and help eliminate unsightly, bulky adaptors.
Some of our favorite places to install USB outlets are in the bedroom next to the nightstand, in the office, in the kitchen, and in the family room. In older homes, you may have to increase the depth of your junction box to accommodate USB outlets. Be sure to check amperage to make sure you can charge multiple devices at the same time. Give us a call, we can help make sure your USB upgrade delivers the results you expect.
Require Certain Electrical Upgrades
You may not know that the electrical wiring in a home can become a dangerous safety hazard as it ages. Everything deteriorates over time, but some things present with greater hazards over the course of an extended deterioration process. Homes that are greater than 30 years old, require a number of electrical upgrades to ensure the safety of both the home and its occupants.
CALL IN THE PROFESSIONALS
If your home is greater than 30 years old, we highly suggest you hire our professional electricians to perform a thorough inspection to determine if your home electrical system is in need of repairs, or perhaps even a full replacement. can help you to identify common electrical issues that need to be repaired, or components that may need to be replaced altogether. Whatever the case may be, rest assured our team of certified professionals are equipped to handle all your repairs and electrical upgrades. With that said, we’ve provided below some of the common electrical issues that may need to be addressed.
COMMON ELECTRICAL ISSUES IN HOMES BUILD PRIOR TO 1988
Electrical Wiring – One of the most important and more obvious components of your a electrical system, apt to require an upgrade, is your electrical wiring. Depending on the type of wiring you have in your home, an upgrade will prevent fires from occurring, or other hazardous issues that can harm you and your family. No matter the type of wiring in your home, our team of professionals are on hand to replace it with new, state of the art, safe wiring to ensure the safety of your home and family.
Electrical Panel – Your home’s electrical panel is responsible for regulating and maintaining the electrical current running from the outside power source into your home. When there is no regulation, power surges can easily occur and can ultimately cause a fire in the walls. Although most electrical panels are quite reliable and sturdy and have an extended lifespan, it is critical that you have your electrical panel inspected from time to time to ensure that the electrical flow is being handled and administered properly.
Electrical Wall Receptacles – Most of us are aware that the wall receptacles in our homes can lead to fires, especially if they become damaged, old, or worn out. For starters, you should ensure that the wall receptacles in your kitchen and bathrooms are, if not already, upgraded to GFCI outlets. These GFCI units have a specialized design that serves to cut off any electrical supply, right at the source, if ever there is a threat of shock resulting from the presence of water. Our highly skilled electricians will perform a full inspection to determine if any of the outlets in your home are damaged and burned requiring replacement.
Ceiling Fans – Older ceiling fans use a great deal of power and waste an awful lot of energy. Today’s ceiling fans are incredibly energy efficient and should take the place of any older style ceiling fans in your home. Our electrical pros can advise whether or not you need new ceiling fans in your home and, if needed, can take care of the installation process for you as well.
I think we would all agree that when it comes to your home electrical system, it is much wiser to be safe rather than sorry. If you own a home that is greater than 30 years old, then why not take the time to contact our expert team to perform a much-needed inspection? We will ensure that your system is safe, and we’ll advise you on any electrical components that are in need of repair or replacement. And of course, we’ll perform all of your electrical upgrades for you. Don’t put your home and family in danger.
Smart Electrical Upgrades to Consider During a Commercial Building Remodel
When it comes to commercial properties alone, building remodels are expected to generate $35 billion in revenue this year. That’s quite the windfall for those smart enough to get involved in this particular industry. Now as rewarding as this investment opportunity may prove to be, it’s only profitable if the done right. And in order for it to be done right, you have to make sure the electrical work is up to par. Keep reading and find out five smart electrical upgrades you will want to make sure are in your next building remodel.
HAVE SUFFICIENT OUTLETS
As society continues to move forward in the future and become even more reliant on technology, the need for a sufficient number of electrical outlets in a building becomes crucial. Most businesses that will look to work out of any property you develop will want plenty of outlets for their computers, servers, printers, copiers, phones, and more.
CREATE DEDICATED CIRCUITS
Again, if you’re remodeling an older building, this is pretty much a must on your upgrade list. Dedicated circuits help ensure that when there are power surges in the building, not every area in the building will experience possible electrical damage.
MAKE SURE THE ELECTRICAL WIRING IS SAFE
It’s extremely important to have safe and up to code wiring in your commercial building. Faulty wiring is one of the leading causes of electrical fires today. So if your building has frayed and/or exposed wiring, you will want to upgrade that ASAP.
UPGRADE HVAC EQUIPMENT
In most commercial buildings, heating and air-conditioning will use a majority of the power. So upgrading thermostats and timers associated with the HVAC units will not only help upgrade the technology in your building but usually newer thermostats and timers wind up saving you money.
ELECTRICAL UPGRADES FOR YOUR NEXT HOME REMODEL
Maybe it seems like it only happens in the HGTV before and after shows, but we’ve seen countless times where homeowners go way over budget because they didn’t consider a need for electrical updates when planning their home remodel.
Home upgrades should be a fun and exciting way to improve your home value and leave you with a space you love. So don’t fret and consider implementing some of the following electrical upgrades for your next home renovation.
Adding charging stations as an all in one place space to charge your gadgets have become increasingly popular. Make sure your home and new home additions have adequate outlets to power your hobbies and household needs. Just think how annoying it would be to finish a big office remodel and realize you don’t have enough outlets to keep you going.
Furthermore, some older homes were built with outlets without a ground wire. Upgrading those older two-prong outlets when remodeling your home can prevent safety hazards.
Adding GFCIs
Your home idle load is often more than you think, with most homes running more than 40 energy users at a time. During a remodel, you may be adding more onto your current house or revamping something outdated. Either way, having so many items idle at the same time can cost energy, but also create safety hazards.
Electrical Upgrades
Electrical upgrades are needed for a variety of reasons and often necessary to maintain safety in your home. Contact Current Electrical Contractors for all your electrical upgrade needs.
When Do You Need an Electrical Upgrade?
If you are putting an addition on an older house the additional space will need lighting, general use outlets and power for heat and air conditioning.
If you have an older home you may have fuses and knob and tube wiring which a new owner might want to upgrade.
Some older homes have a Service Entrance cable feeding the service on the outside of the house and those cables can become frayed and dangerous.
House Additions
In the case of the addition there is a load calculation that needs to be done based on the square footage of the home, all the fixed in place appliances and the larger of the heating or cooling loads. A common upgrade on a house is from 200 to 400 amps. Years ago, there were very few homes with 400 amp services. The norm on the north shore was 100 amps. As homes got more complex with more electrical loads and air conditioning 200 amps became the norm. These days most larger homes get a 400 amp or larger service.
Factors to Consider Before Planning
Where will the new meter be installed?
Where will the two panels be installed?
Can you reuse the existing 200 amp panel if it is in good enough shape?
Will the electrician near Wilmette install feeder wires underground or overhead?
How can we keep power to the existing electrical service temporarily while we do the work on the new service?
Working With Electrical Providers to Install
Once the bureaucratic hurdles have been taken care of the hard work begins. If we are going to go from overhead to underground we will need to contact a Directional Boring contractor to install an underground conduit Then our electrician near Wilmette will install the meter in the new location with two 200 amp breakers built into the meter cabinet. The best situation is a back to back installation where the two 40 circuit load centers (panels) are installed directly on the other side of the wall from the meter. A common thing to do is install two new load centers and run conduits to the old electrical panel and turn it into a junction box where all the old wires will be refed from new circuit breakers.