We all know smoke detectors save lives, but did you know you can make them even more effective by having an electrician install hard-wired smoke detectors? This particular kind of smoke detector works the same as the traditional battery-powered detectors that you typically find in homes. However, the major difference is the fact they are connected to a home’s main power supply. An electrician in Beverly Hills will need to take care of the installation process. At The Electric Connection, the staff is familiar with these kinds of jobs and can get them completed in a timely manner.

One of the key benefits is the fact the hard-wired detectors are all interconnected. When one detector is activated, the rest of the smoke detectors in the house will sound the alarm. This means no matter where you are in the house, as long as you have a hard-wired smoke detector on each floor, you will hear it. Fires that start in the attic, basement or garage can go undetected for minutes or longer because the smoke detector isn’t heard in other parts of the house. With detectors that are all linked together, you don’t have to worry about this. Even if you are downstairs watching television, you will still know when the smoke detector in the attic is going off.

This can save lives and potentially prevent excessive damage to the house by giving you a precious extra few minutes to call for help. Beverly Hills electrical systems like this require certified electricians to install. This ensures the smoke detectors are wired correctly and are not creating another fire risk. In some cases, homeowners insurance will require a certified electrician completes the install. If you would like to learn more about hard-wired smoke detectors and what they can do for you, give The Electric Connection a call today.

How many light bulbs have you changed in your lifetime? It’s a simple action, and often one that we don’t put much thought into, but what if the simple act of changing a light bulb could make a profound impact on the environment, and the well-being of future generations?  As experienced Plano Electricians, we at ElectricMan Inc. have made it our mission to help bring knowledge of Alternative Lighting Solutions, electrical efficiency, and environmental responsibility to the forefront of everyone’s minds. The reality is that even small changes can yield huge benefits when it comes to energy savings. According to www.EnergyStar.gov:

“If every American home replaced just one light bulb with a light bulb that’s earned the ENERGY STAR, we would save enough energy to light 3 million homes for a year, save about $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent 9 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year, equivalent to those from about 800,000 cars.”

Think about the changes that you can make by simply replacing the outdated incandescent bulbs in your home as they burn out with one of the Alternative Lighting Solutions below. Here are some details on a couple of the most popular Alternative Lighting Solutions available.

Compact Fluorescent Lamp: Modern CFL bulbs for use in homes consist of a curved fluorescent tube and electronic ballast in a single unit, designed as a direct replacement for standard blubs. They use 3-4 times less power than comparable incandescent bulbs. These are great options to replace your standard light bulbs, but they do have a few small drawbacks. According to an article by PopularMechanics.com, while CFL’s do have a much longer lifespan than standard bulbs, they often lose some of their brightness long before their expected lifespan is up, and this is increased in fixtures that don’t allow for efficient cooling of the ballast located in the base of the bulb. Another documented fact about CFL bulbs is that they do contain mercury, which means that they must be disposed of properly by taking them your local approved recycling center. You wouldn’t throw a battery out with the daily trash would you? So you shouldn’t throw these out either.

Light Emitting Diodes: LED’s are a form of “solid state” lighting that have become available recently to homeowners as an incandescent and CFL replacement. Using small light emitting diodes mounted directly to circuit boards, these are highly efficient, and have fewer parts prone to failure, allowing for an expected realistic lifespan of 20,000 to 30,000 hours, when operated at recommended temperatures. While initial costs for these bulbs are higher than incandescent and CFL options, long term energy savings are where this alternative lighting option truly shines, with the average LED bulb using approximately 12-17% of the energy that it takes to run an incandescent bulb of similar output, the end result is a bulb that costs drastically less to power over time.

As a point of comparison, here is a simple chart of the energy usage of LED and CFL bulbs compared to incandescent bulbs, and the output associated with them:

Lighting technology has changed a lot in the past decade, and it is pretty amazing to see what could be on the horizon for future lighting innovations. Take this for example. While most homes will never need this amount of output, it’s pretty impressive to see that something the size of a Christmas tree light, like this plasma bulb, can put out more light, more efficiently, than the giant bulbs that we use in street lamps!

The great thing about these changes is that they aren’t something that requires a huge change in your lifestyle, so they are some of the easiest ways possible to help the environment, and lower electric bills while you are at it!