When electrical systems in your home start to get a bit wonky, it can be hard to determine when giving your local Rockville electrician a call is the best bet. You certainly don’t want to make an unnecessary call, but electricity is nothing to trifle with! Want to know how to make distinction? Follow along to find out when to contact your electrician!

Are you in need of emergency electrical services? Then don’t hesitate—contact Kolb Electric at 877-287-1179 immediately and we’ll get one of our fully stocked vehicles to your home or business!  

We should start by saying that any time you feel threatened or concerned about electrical safety, you should go right ahead and contact our certified electricians. Your safety and feeling of security is of the utmost importance, so it’s better to call and be sure during an electrical emergency.

Having said that, here are some situations when you definitely need professional service:

When you need a Rockville electrician, our certified emergency service professionals can bring you the best care and emergency service in a hurry! If you notice any of the issues we discussed above, be sure to contact us online or call on the phone at 877-287-1179.

Across the world, many cultures have specific traditions to celebrate the transition from the old year to the new. In the U.S. and Canada, we associate New Year’s with the ball in Times Square, kissing at the stroke of midnight, resolutions, and singing “Old Lang Syne.” But for many Spanish-speaking countries, one of the key traditions has to do with eating grapes as fast as possible.

The “twelve grapes” tradition comes from Spain, where it is called las doce uvas de la suerte (“The Twelve Lucky Grapes”). To ensure good luck for the next year, people eat one green grape for each of the upcoming twelve months. However, you cannot just eat the grapes during the first day of the new year any time you feel like it. You must eat the twelve grapes starting at the first stroke of midnight on Nochevieja (“Old Night,” New Year’s Eve) as one year changes to another. And you have to keep eating: with each toll of midnight, you must eat another grape, giving you about twelve seconds to consume all of them. If you can finish all dozen grapes—you can’t still be chewing on them!—before the last bell toll fades, you will have a luck-filled new year.

Where did this tradition come from? No one is certain, although it appears to be more than a century old. One story about the Twelve Lucky Grapes is that a large crop of grapes in 1909 in Alicante, Spain led to the growers seeking out a creative way to eliminate their surplus. But recent research through old newspapers shows that perhaps the tradition goes back almost thirty years earlier to the 1880s, where eating grapes was meant to mock the upper classes who were imitating the French tradition of dining on grapes and drinking champagne on New Year’s Eve.

It can be difficult to consume grapes this fast, and the lucky grapes of New Year’s Eve have seeds in them, making the job even trickier. (Seedless grapes are not common in Spain the way they are over here.) For people to manage eating all the grapes before the last stroke of midnight requires swallowing the seeds as well and only taking a single bite of each grape.

Oh, there is one more twist to the tradition: you have to be wearing red undergarments, and they have to be given to you as a gift. The origins of this part of the tradition are even more mysterious, and it’s anybody’s guess why this started.

Planning on an exciting and colorful lighting display this holiday season? Whether you have grandiose plans of intricate illumination design, or you just want to wire up your tree, hanging lights can present a few hazards to the unprepared. Electrical safety may take a backseat for some, but to the experts at Kolb Electric, nothing could be more important! Protect yourself and your home with these light hanging tips.

As you may expect, much of electrical safety has to do with the product being used. Keep these tips in mind when selecting your lighting choices this year:

If you plan on hanging wiring above eye-level, odds are you’ll be using a ladder. Remember these tips when hanging your lights:

Have any questions or concerns regarding your holiday lighting this year? Contact us today at Kolb Electric! We provide industry-leading solutions for all of your electrical needs, and bring only the very best in service and skill to our consumers!