By Lindsay Mirick

When lightning strikes and thunder rolls, will you be prepared for the power surges that follow? When you think about storm proofing your home, power surge protection may not be the first thing that comes to mind. However, getting caught in a power surge during a storm without protection could leave you with some very expensive, very useless electronics. Mr. Electric has reasons why...

Many homeowners have the idea that surge protection is simply a matter of plugging their devices into a low-cost, multi-outlet surge suppressor. However, we all know that the cheapest option isn’t always the best option, and making exceptions can lead to more expensive consequences in the long run.

If you think about it, adding surge protection to your home costs very little in comparison to the replacement of your electronics. A single surge can follow any wire into a house and threaten televisions, computers, appliances, satellite systems, phone and cable lines, and any other electrical devices you can think of.

The cost of replacing a single large home appliance such as a washer or dryer will likely cost you double the investment of a whole house surge protector. According to the Insurance Information Institute, insurers paid over $673 million in lightning claims in 2013 alone. In the three years prior, approximately $1 billion was paid annually to policyholders.

Most people associate power surges with lighting strikes. However, many things both outside and inside the home can cause them. Outside the home, events such as power outages and power transitions in large equipment on the same power line can introduce damaging power surges on your electric lines. Inside the home reengaging trip circuit breakers or switching of pool pumps, AC units, and other devices with large motors can also introduce power surges onto your electric wiring. To effectively protect your home from these damaging surges, you need to implement whole house surge protection .

Ask yourself if can you afford to live without surge protection. A few hundred dollars isn’t much when you compare it to the cost of replacing some of your most cherished possessions, not to mention the inconvenience of living without them until they can be replaced.

Trust us to keep your valuables safe and let us power your tomorrow. Call Mr. Electric today!

Nearly every single person living in the United States relies on the electrical grid. It's how electricity gets from the power plant to your home, powering your devices and appliances. With no grid, none of the electrical work in your home will function – no television, no air conditioning and no electric lights. Our grid is changing, however, taking advantage of evolving technology on both the distribution and consumer side of the equation. Read on to learn more about how our electrical grid will evolve to meets the needs of the 21st century.

How to Balance Supply and Demand

The electrical grid is not a single object, but rather a giant network of power plants and transmission lines that spans the entire nation. In order for electricity to flow from the generating stations into your home’s electrical work, the grid needs to be able to meet the demand at any given time and place. This can be an enormous challenge – if there is too little production, consumers can be subject to annoying and damaging brownouts. Ramping up generation to meet variable demand is expensive and inefficient, however.

Some utilities solve the problem with time-of-day pricing, charging more during the day and less at night to smooth out demand. Smart technology, however, will allow us to fine-tune the grid even further to increase efficiency, improve communication and mitigate blackouts or other power outages.

Smart Meters and Dispersed Generation

Smart meters are one of the first steps toward our new grid. These meters track residential electrical consumption in real time and can communicate with the utility company instantaneously. They can allow producers to better predict demand, respond immediately to dips and spikes, and further refine variable pricing structures that incentivize people to use less electricity during peak hours. Smart meters also give homeowners the power to see where and when they are putting the most stress on their electrical work, allowing them to adjust their behavior strategically.

Changes are coming to the generation side as well. Traditionally, the electrical grid is powered by large, centralized power plants, but residential solar installations mean that generation is becoming more widely distributed. Wind generation is also becoming an ever-larger factor in our nation's energy supply. This means that the grid needs to be updated to become more flexible and adaptable, but there is a large payoff in sight – the more dispersed that power generation becomes, the more resilient the grid will be in the event of an outage, with smaller regions able to supply themselves with emergency power if they are cut off from the centralized system.

Makes Tomorrow's Energy Grid Work for You

No one knows exactly what the power grid will look like 100 years from now, but the nation is well on its way to updating its electrical infrastructure to meet the needs of this century. If you have any concerns about how your electrical work will interface with the power grid of the future, or need any other work done on the wiring and circuitry in your home, call an expert electrician today.

Fuses and circuit breakers are part of any home or business that has electricity. These devices are extremely important to your safety, but what exactly are they?

It can be easy to take the technology around us for granted, and that includes the collection of strange switches in that metal box in the basement you never mess around with. You might have heard something about a “tripped circuit” or a “blown fuse,” possibly around the time the air conditioner shut off when someone plugged in a new appliance. But you might not be clear on what exactly these terms mean. Read on as we uncover the mysteries surrounding fuses and circuit breakers.

Circuit breakers and fuses (which can sometimes be found instead of breakers) are safety mechanisms put in place to ensure you don’t exceed certain current limits. If the wiring in a building has too much electrical current moving through it, these devices stop the flow of electricity until you address the problem.