Well, OK, so the visual doesn’t work on yanking all the wiring out of your home and taking it into the shop for an annual physical.  The real point of this blog, though, is that the wiring in your home, including the wiring connections, outlets, switches, and panel box really does need to be inspected and maintained.  Over time, just like our bodies, switches, outlets, and connections do wear out and need to be repaired or replaced.

It would be nice if your wiring system was one solid wire from the panel box to the last plug in the house.  The probability of something going wrong or wearing out in that scenario is next to zero.  But home wiring systems just aren’t like that.  Right from the inside of the junction box and onward, your home wiring system is a series of lengths of wire joined together (connections) according to a code and design that allows the electricity to flow uninterrupted to each and every electrical appliance you have in your house – from light bulbs to stoves, from on/off switches to your furnace.  Where these wires are joined together is where there is a potential for problems to occur over time.

We’re going to try not to get too technical here, but the bottom line is that when electrical current flows through wire, there is some resistance encountered within the wire.  That’s normal.  The combination of electric flow and resistance creates some heat.  That, too, is normal.  When a connection – think of it as a splice between two wires that hold them together – is met by the electric current, if everything is tight and the splice is good, the current flows seamlessly from one wire to another without generating any extra heat.  With us so far?

Heat causes expansion in metal.  When current flows, there’s heat generated and the wires expand slightly.  When current stops flowing, there’s no heat generated and the wires cool down and contract.  Over time, with expansion and contraction, these wire splices can loosen up.

When a wire splice loosens up, current has to work harder to get from one wire to the other.  More heat is generated.  If the splice is really loose, current has to jump from one wire to another.  A massive amount of heat, called an electrical arc, is generated.  And, bingo, you have an immediate fire and shock hazard.

Next week, we’re going to take this topic further, but, in the meantime, do give some thought to the importance of having the wiring in your home checked.  It is a matter of the lives and safety of your family.

Did you know that your house is probably wired like a Christmas Tree?  We’re talking those pesky series connections that give you so many problems when one light goes out on your Christmas Tree and the whole string goes dark.  You have three choices at that point:  You can ignore the dark string of lights, you can change all the bulbs, one at a time until you find the one that is burned out, or, if you’re like me, you’ll go buy another string and end up throwing the other one out.

Well, the same problem can happen in your home.  If a series connection goes bad somewhere in one of your home electrical circuits, the whole circuit will go out.  And, in your home, it’s a bit more of a problem to diagnose and fix the problem than it was on that string of lights.  You see, you really don’t have three options in your home.  You can’t just ignore it because a large portion of your outlets no longer work.  Nor does anything that’s plugged into them.  And you can’t just toss the circuit away and buy another.  All those wires, from connection to connection, run inside the walls.  Really your only option is to start at the circuit breaker and check every place in that circuit that two or more wires are joined together.

The urgency of getting this work done on a failed series connection is quite a bit higher than replacing a bulb in a string of Christmas lights, too.  A loose wire in a house circuit is a very definite and immediate fire hazard.  It’s something that has to be taken care of right now -  it’s not something you can shove back in the basement until next year when you bring the tree out again.  And this probably means you’ll be digging around under insulation in the upper crawl space, running from room to room, and so forth trying to find the bad connection.  Beginning to sound like a job for a professional?  We at Lon Lockwood Electric think it would be best if you hired one and soon.

And, when your electrician comes to repair that connection, please ask him or her to talk with you about the advantage of parallel connections over series connections.  With a simple jumper type connection at every place where two or more wires are joined together, when one connection goes bad, the rest of the circuit will continue working and you won’t be so inconvenienced in the future.

You may have read or seen the words Arc Fault in our blogs or on our web site…and you may have asked yourself, “What is an arc fault and why should I care?”  Simply put, an arc fault is a high energy electrical discharge between two or more electrical conductors.  You can think of a lightning bolt that jumps from one wire to another.  That ‘lightning bolt’ is often referred to as an Arc Flash.  And it is important to you for several reasons as it can occur in your house anywhere two wires are joined together such as in a junction box, an electrical outlet, a light switch, or even an appliance or lamp plug where the connections between two wires have become loose over time or where those wires are not correctly joined to each other.  What you really need to know is that electrical charge jumping from wire to wire is extremely hot and can easily start a fire in any combustible material that happens to be next to it – such as drywall, insulation, wood, etc.

How do we get into an arc fault situation in a home? There are several things that can go wrong in home wiring that can create an arc fault situation:

When electricity passes through an electrical connection between two wires, there is a minimal amount of heat created.  Over time, these connections expand and contract slightly from that passage of heat and can become loose.  If or when they become loose enough, an arc fault can occur.

A certain type of wiring connection, called a back stabbed connection that occurs in many homes, especially homes older than 10 years, is inherently prone to arc fault fires.  Most older homes have these back stabbed connections which should be replaced as soon as possible.

There are two types of wire, copper and aluminum, found in some connections in homes.  When copper and aluminum wires are joined together, a dangerous arc fault situation exists which gets worse over time.  These kinds of connections have been proven to be extremely dangerous!

The majority of house fires are caused by arc fault situations and could have easily been prevented if a qualified electrician had been employed to evaluate for and repair any of those connections which led to arc faults.

Is your home a prime source for arc faults?  Don’t become a fire statistic!  Please contact a qualified, licensed electrician today and have your home inspected.  At Lon Lockwood Electric, we want you to put your safety before anything else.

Electrical safety is everyone’s responsibility. Electrical safety should be observed every time you even think about touching something connected to an electrical circuit. With the invention of electrical testers, circuits are easy to test and with circuit breakers and fuses, circuits can be shut off to avoid contact with electricity all together. Electrical safety often comes into play when bad weather strikes. Tornadoes, hurricanes, flooding, and ice storms bring a vast array of dangerous conditions. In this blog, you’ll find some great tips to keep you safe when working with electricity.  Read on, but, please remember, you should never take chances with electricity!  If you really, really, really don’t know what you’re doing, call a professional electrician to help.  Here at Lon Lockwood Electric, we put your safety first and will respond right away when you call with a potential or actual electrical safety problem!

Weather-Related Electrical Safety: The weather plays havoc on your electrical system, its components, and everything that is connected to them. Thunderstorms bring wild weather with lightning that can send a jolt to your electrical service. This can damage the electrical system itself and everything connected to it. Flooding rains can get into your house, cause electrocution hazards, damage electrical connections, and leave the devices it touched unsafe. Hurricanes and ice storms can take down power lines and leave electrocution hazards lying around everywhere. Keep your eyes open during and after storms for any of these shock or fire hazards.

Electrical Safety In and Around the Home: Everywhere you look in and around your home, electricity is connected to something. It may be the service line feeding your home, outlets feeding devices, or switches that control the lighting. But there are dangers when electricity is exposed to the human body. Stop and think safety every time you think about something that is connected to electricity. Safety first!

Wet Locations: Avoid wet areas when working with or on anything electrical. If there is a reason that you have to be in that situation, wear rubber boots and gloves to lesson your chance of getting shocked. Tools and appliances should be plugged into a GFCI outlet or GFCI extension cord. Don’t forget to dry your hands before grabbing any cord to plug it in or unplug it. Wet hands and a frayed cord don’t mix. You reach down to grab the cord and just like that, you’ve been shocked! Believe it or not, it happens.

And remember to call a professional before you get in over your head!

Electrical fires in our homes claim the lives of 485 Americans each year and injure 2,305 more. Some of these fires are caused by electrical system failures and appliance defects, but many more are caused by the misuse and poor maintenance of electrical appliances, incorrectly installed wiring, and overloaded circuits and extension cords.  The U. S. Fire Administration (USFA) would like consumers to know that there are simple steps you can take to prevent the loss of life and property resulting from electrical fires.

During a typical year, home electrical problems account for 67,800 fires, 485 deaths, and $868 million in property losses. Home electrical wiring causes twice as many fires as electrical appliances.  December is the most dangerous month for electrical fires. Fire deaths are highest in winter months which call for more indoor activities and increase in lighting, heating, and appliance use. Most electrical wiring fires start in the bedroom.

Here are some of the major causes:

Electrical Wiring Problems

• Most electrical fires result from problems with “fixed wiring” such as faulty electrical outlets and old wiring. Problems with cords and plugs, such as extension and appliance cords, also cause many home electrical fires.

• In urban areas, faulty wiring accounts for 33% of residential electrical fires.

• Many avoidable electrical fires can be traced to misuse of electric cords, such as overloading circuits, poor maintenance and running the cords under rugs or in high traffic areas.

HomeAppliances

• The home appliances most often involved in electrical fires are electric stoves and ovens, dryers, central heating units, televisions, radios and record players.

Here’s some of the safety steps you can take:

Safety Precautions

• Routinely check your electrical appliances and wiring.

• Frayed wires can cause fires. Replace all worn, old or damaged appliance cords immediately.

• Use electrical extension cords wisely and don’t overload them.

• Keep electrical appliances away from wet floors and counters; pay special care to electrical appliances in the bathroom and kitchen.

• When buying electrical appliances look for products that are evaluated by a nationally recognized laboratory, such as Underwriters Laboratories (UL).

• Don’t allow children to play with or around electrical appliances like space heaters, irons and hair dryers.

• Keep clothes, curtains and other potentially combustible items at least three feet from all heaters.

• If an appliance has a three-prong plug, use it only in a three-slot outlet. Never force it to fit into a two-slot outlet or extension cord.

• Never overload extension cords or wall sockets. Immediately shut off, then professionally replace, light switches that are hot to the touch and lights that flicker. Use safety closures to “child-proof” electrical outlets.

• Check your electrical tools regularly for signs of wear. If the cords are frayed or cracked, replace them. Replace any tool if it causes even small electrical shocks, overheats, shorts out or gives off smoke or sparks.

Finally, having a working smoke alarm dramatically increases your chances of surviving a fire. And remember to practice a home escape plan frequently with your family.

For more information contact us at Lon Lockwood Electric.  We put your safety first!

We have blogged about this a bit before, but it is worth touching on again – the value of outdoor security lighting!  During the past month in the Rochester suburbs (not including the City) there have been over 45 instances of break in and/or burglary of private homes.  In not one case reported was there adequate outdoor security lighting.  Nor were there any motion detectors or alarms inside any of these homes.

As a point of fact, the majority of those 45 homes had set themselves up for providing the ideal staging for crimes.  Most of them had shrubs, bushes, or low trees near the house, giving the break in artists a place to conceal themselves while they checked your home out to make sure the owners were out or asleep AND that there was no security system in place.  Security lighting, with motion detector controls, had they been in place…strategically in place…would have taken away the safe hiding place for the burglars and would probably have prevented the crimes before they even began.

A gent we know was the victim of a home break in a few years ago.  The damage to the home and the loss of money and valuables was bad enough, but the experience left him feeling violated and angry for a very long time.  It affected his wife even more dramatically and left her dealing with a fear of leaving the home at all combined with an understandable fear of being there alone…ever.  In the end, she required dozens of counseling visits and her husband had to come up with the money for those visits.

“How much simpler and cheaper it would have been,” he told us, “if I had just called you like I had planned to and had security lights installed.”  And he was right.  For a few hundred dollars, he could have prevented the break in and ultimately have saved many thousands of dollars, aggravation of incalculable value, and the guilt of knowing his procrastination was a major contributor to the problem in the first place.

Look, that motion activated light over your garage door is great, especially if the crooks plan on driving up to your garage door.  Think about the areas around the outside of your house that someone can get to – and hide – unseen.  I bet you were pretty good at hide and seek when you were a kid.  Walk around your property after dark tonight.  How many great hiding places near or next to the house can you find?  Then call us at Lon Lockwood Electric tomorrow morning and ask for help with outdoor security lighting!  We’ll be waiting to hear from you!