Here in the Northeast, you may have noticed that the approaching winter cold has already set in. What does this mean for your home activities?
Obviously, travel for winter vacation is limited for many folks this year, so while you might not be making it to the islands this season, you may be enjoying an extended home vacation (or stay-cation!) It’s a great time to curl up indoors with your favorite hot drink by the fire. Outdoor activities aren’t off the table yet, though! Now is a great time to enhance your hot tub experience.
Hello Hot Tub, Goodbye Stress
It’s no secret that stress is bad for us. And who hasn’t had their fair share of stress this year? A hot tub is one of the most relaxing and stress-relieving activities that you can enjoy at home, even every night!
We tend to carry stress in our back and shoulders. After a long day, perhaps slumped over at a computer, the hot tub is a great way to ease those tired muscles and recharge. It also promotes a better night’s sleep, making the stress-relief last well into the next day!
Enhancing The Experience
While a hot tub is great all by itself, there are some improvements that help make the experience truly wonderful.
Lighting: Appropriate lighting over and around the hot tub helps to put you in a better state of mind and fully enjoy the experience. If your tub is situated in a backyard structure, garden lights or overhead outdoor lights are a great addition. Because of their proximity to water and exposure to elements, it’s important to choose these lights carefully and have them professionally installed for the best results.
Music: The sound of bubbling water is calming already. But the right music can enhance the ambiance while you soak, providing relaxing sounds or soothing melodies. You don’t have to lug the stereo back and forth every night to enjoy music by the hot tub: Outdoor speakers can be cleverly placed throughout your backyard or outdoor structures.
Towel Warmer: This handy device helps address the only negative thing about Hot Tubs: Getting out! Especially in the winter months, stepping out of your hot tub and wrapping yourself in a freezing cold towel isn’t fun. A towel warmer helps put the finishing touch on a wonderful evening in the hot tub, letting you wrap yourself in a comfy, toasty towel as you get out.
Bring The Family Together
A hot tub helps your family to relax, and can help bring everyone together, quite literally!
Sitting opposite each other in a relaxing setting helps to stimulate conversation. Children and teens may feel more open to talking and expressing their minds.
In short, a good hot tub can improve the quality of life that your family enjoys together.
Expert Hot Tub Help
If you’re ready to step up your hot tub game, we’re here to help!
We have decades of experience running all the wires for everything you need: The tub itself, lighting, outdoor speakers and entertainment, and more.
We also are experts in installation of the safety features that every permit-ready hot tub needs to have, like properly grounded electrical outlets and service disconnect switches and timers.
If you have questions, we’ve got answers! Get in touch to learn more about all our certified services, and what we can do for your home and family.
We’ve considered the importance of having a reliable whole home generator for your house in CT, especially if the home is left unattended for long periods of time.
But what if you already own a portable generator and want a safe and convenient way to be able to connect it to your home? The main concerns about hooking up a generator to power your home in the event of an outage or emergency are primarily as regards to safety.
What About “Backfeeding?”
Connecting your portable generator to an appliance outlet and running power backward through the electrical system, known as backfeeding, distributes unbalanced and inefficient electrical loads into your home, possibly damaging systems and appliances, puts an additional strain on your generator, and can be extremely dangerous, even life-threatening.
If the main breaker in your home is not properly shut off, backfeeding electricity will also transfer power to the utility lines outside your property and this could potentially electrocute and kill you, a family member, or an unsuspecting maintenance worker trying to restore power. This could even result in criminal prosecution. The short answer when considering whether or not to backfeed? Don’t.
The Portable Generator Home Solution: GenerLink
When installed correctly, there IS a safe and reliable way to connect a portable generator to your home in just minutes. We recommend and install GenerLink transfer switches for this kind of scenario. The GenerLink device is UL-listed and socket-mounted, installed behind your electric meter.
Instead of attempting a dangerous and potentially illegal backfeed, GenerLink allows you to quickly and easily deliver power directly to your breaker box. This eliminates the hassle of electrical cords running throughout your house. Additionally, units with Bluetooth capability can automatically notify you when utility power has been restored to your property, right on your smartphone! Best of all, it’s perfectly safe, completely legal, and meets the highest manufacturing standards.
With a potentially stormy winter season approaching, get in touch with us today to see if GenerLink is right for your home. If you have any questions about installation or use, we’re here to help you through the entire process!
Were you one of the 800,000+ people that lost power in Connecticut in the wake of Hurricane Isaias this month? If so, your family may have seen the benefits of having an emergency generator installed for your home.
Primetime for Maintenance Work
With the changing weather and winter approaching, the fall season is a good time to look at areas for home and landscape improvement or have maintenance work done for your electrical systems before the cold sets in. We highly recommend servicing your generator(s) during this time, especially if they had to be used for an unexpectedly long period this past month with the Connecticut blackout.
The Benefits of Landscape Lighting
Many homeowners are also looking to beautify their landscaping during this time, particularly by making use of landscape lighting installations and strategically placed fixtures to provide a pleasing outdoor atmosphere for fall evenings.
More importantly, landscape lighting can enhance the security and safety of your home and property. Better-illuminated pathways and steps help to reduce trips and falls. Outdoor landscape and home lighting can even increase the security of your property. In fact, a recent study has shown that outdoor lighting has been proven to reduce crime in some areas by up to 39%!
Professional Lighting Plans
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the solution is simply adding more lights everywhere and anywhere! Hire a landscaping expert to assist you in selecting the appropriate types of landscape lighting that will complement your property, illuminate essential areas, and highlight your home or property from the best possible angles.
The professional placement of lights will help to avoid creating odd shadows or unflattering colors. We also work closely with landscapers and landscape planning experts to install major landscape lighting systems. Making sure these installations are appropriately installed and powered will go a long way in protecting your investment.
If you have questions about landscape lighting and how we can work with you to enhance the beauty and security of your property, please get in touch for the latest information.
Get Ready Now
As mentioned before, this hurricane season has also been a test of emergency electrical preparedness. If you would like to make sure that your family is prepared and protected in the event of a weather emergency, please call us to schedule a check on your electrical systems, have generators installed or maintained, or provide emergency servicing.
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This also applies to homeowners who want to take steps now to prepare for the 2020 hurricane season. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has said that it’s likely we’ll see “above-normal” activity this year. This is due to multiple factors in the current climate, which may combine to create some very interesting and potentially dangerous weather patterns this year, including hurricanes.
Preparation is Key
According to NOAA, the hurricane season in the Atlantic region runs from June 1 and November 30th. As you may have noticed, we’ve already had a few pockets of severe weather and rain this season. This kind of weather can quickly turn into a potentially destructive force.
NOAA acknowledges that, as with every hurricane season, it’s important to prepare beforehand. Because of the shifting COVID-19 pandemic, it’s possible that last year’s plans for disaster preparedness may be affected. This includes what we choose to put in our go-kits (It is recommended to have a bag that we can grab-and-go in the event of an emergency) as well as the places that we designate to be family meet-up points.
In any case, we’ll need to keep our eye on weather forecasts and updates from the Climate Prediction Center as 2020 progresses. We’re already a couple months into the official hurricane season, so it’s more important than ever to be alert to potential weather hazards.
How To Protect Your Home
So, what does that mean for homeowners who want to protect their property and electrical systems?
Take action now to secure your home, and prepare for failures in municipal electrical services.
Energy spikes, brown-outs, and blackouts can all wreak havoc on your home electrical systems, including expensive computer equipment or home theater installations.
First, it’s important to have standard surge-protectors in place around the house. If applicable, consider purchasing surge protectors that are specifically designed for home theater systems.
Computers with sensitive data will benefit from a small battery backup system, such as those made by APC. These units can keep personal computers running for a few minutes after a sudden loss of power, enabling us to save work and shut down the computer safely.
It’s also important to invest in home generators when it’s critical for your house to receive continual clean power, especially in an emergency. Contact us about how a Generac generator could be a sound investment in your property and its electrical systems. If you are an existing customer, make sure that your service and maintenance is up to date!
We’d also like to remind our customers that we provide a range of emergency services and evaluations if you experience electrical situations that require fast professional service. Contact us for safety and service.
Whether a tree gets blown down onto a power line or a lightning strike hits a transformer, we’ve all experienced a power outage during the middle of a severe thunderstorm or windstorm. But have you ever been sitting at home on a sunny day when the power suddenly goes out? It happens a lot more often than you’d think! There are a few common causes of these sunny-day outages—continue reading to learn what they are and how we may be able to help with electrical repair in Trumbull, CT.
Planned Outages
If your electrical company is planning on doing any work in your area, they’ll most likely need to shut off your power for a period of time to complete the task. This is for their safety and to ensure that they’re able to finish the job. Check your provider’s webpage or give them a call to see if any outages are planned in your area before you start to worry about losing power. Luckily, these planned outages often only last for a few minutes!
Non-Weather Related Accidents
A car driving into a utility pole, an animal touching a transformer, or a construction accident can all lead to outages. Depending on where the accident occurred, these incidents—which may seem small—can affect hundreds or even thousands of customers. Rest assured that your power company will be on top of the problem to get your power back up and running as soon as possible.
Issues with Wiring
If you live in an older home, there’s a good chance that your wiring could be the cause of a sudden power outage. Older wiring sometimes can’t handle the necessary electricity load needed for everyday appliances. Consider talking to an electrician about rewiring your home. Though it might be an investment, rewiring could save you from an electrical fire or future power outages.
Another potential wiring issue may stem from pests—or even your own pets. Animals, especially rodents, often chew through wires. As you can imagine, this can lead to significant issues and even cause a power outage. Again, give us a call and let one of our electricians inspect your wiring. You can trust that we’ll get to the root of the problem in no time.
User Error
How many appliances do you have plugged into a single outlet? Two? Three? Four? That’s not wise! Plugging too many appliances into a single outlet can overload your circuit breaker and cause it to trip. The good news is that flipping a breaker back on should solve the problem. However, if that doesn’t work, you’ll need to call an electrician to fix whatever’s wrong.
Call Us for Electrical Repair in Trumbull, CT
If the reason for your outage has something to do with a problem with your wiring, or maybe even user error, be sure to call New England Electrical Contracting, Inc. for electrical repair in Trumbull, CT. One of our 24-hour electricians will be on-site as quickly as possible to repair whatever damage has been done so that you can get back to life as usual.
