Cold Weather Preparation for Your Standby Generator
Have you ever gone out to the car on a frosty morning, turned the key, and it just barely turned over? A cold battery produces less power, and the colder it gets, the worse it gets. Along with less power from the battery, thickened oil makes it even harder for the engine to turn over. A car that doesn’t start is probably just an inconvenience, but a house without power in sub-freezing weather is a disaster.
Cold weather makes it harder for your standby generator to start, just as it does for your car. Don’t get caught in the cold; find out what cold-weather accessories are available for your standby home generator.
Safety First
Always disconnect the generator before performing maintenance to prevent unexpected starts. Follow the instructions in the owner’s manual to perform these basic steps:
Turn the generator circuit breaker to OFF
Move the system switch to the OFF position
Remove the control panel fuse
Disconnect the generator from utility power at the transfer switch
Preparing for Winter
Before the snow flies and the weather turns cold, perform any required maintenance. Your standby generator has specific maintenance periods, and power outages of any significant duration will quickly eat into the required time between servicing. Taking care of maintenance now will minimize the need to perform maintenance in cold weather.
Maintenance kits from New England Electrical Contracting have the parts necessary to service your generator before cold weather sets in. Cold weather might require you to use a different viscosity oil. Check your owner’s manual or maintenance kit instructions for the correct oil viscosity to use in the temperatures your region normally encounters.
Home generator maintenance usually includes changing spark plugs, oil and oil filter, and the air filter. Some kits include oil, while others require you to purchase it separately. Cold weather accessories are available as kits or as separate components, including battery warmers and oil warmers.
Battery Warmers
Generac Cold Weather Kit for Air Cooled 8 – 20kW Standby Generators
Battery warmers install underneath a battery and keep it warm when the temperature drops, ensuring plenty of power when it’s time to exercise the generator. If your battery is nearing the end of its life, the installation of a battery warmer is the perfect time to install a new battery as well.
Some warmers fit underneath the battery and are shaped as a pad the battery sits on, requiring removal of the battery for installation. Other types act as a blanket that wraps around the battery. Install a warmer that was made for your generator make and model, and your generator will have the starting power it needs in cold weather.
Oil Warmers
Cold Weather Kit for 16kW and 20kW By Briggs and Stratton
Keeping the oil warm helps the generator’s engine start and also helps prevent engine damage during the first few moments of a cold-weather start. The warmer oil provides more lubrication, which reduces wear. Installation of a warmer requires draining the oil, so adding it during regular maintenance saves money and time.
Follow the maintenance instructions for changing the oil and the oil filter. While the oil drain plug is removed, install the oil warmer. It fits into the oil reservoir and threads onto the oil drain. Make the electrical connections, add new oil, and installation is complete.
Cold Weather Kits
Kohler Carb Heater for 8.5RES, 12RES, 14RES/RESA, and 14RESL/RESAL
These kits contain a combination of accessories designed to help your generator start in cold weather. Some cold weather kits include oil warmers and battery warmers, while others add additional accessories to keep frost from building up on air intakes or on the alternator. New England Electrical has the components you need to keep your generator operating in below-freezing weather.
This structure enhances readability while keeping all content unchanged. Let me know if you need any modifications!
Start the New Year with a Home Entertainment Upgrade
It’s the beginning of the new year, and it’s the perfect time to try something new. Maybe you have a New Year’s resolution to eat healthy or go to the gym every day. Even if you won’t be making any significant lifestyle changes in honor of the New Year, you might at least be considering making a few changes around your home. If this is the case, it’s worth it to consider talking to a residential electrician in Trumbull, CT about adding a new home entertainment system. Home entertainment systems can provide you, your family, and your guests with a place to relax, unwind, entertain, and spend time with loved ones.
Having a professionally installed home theater system takes your entertainment to a whole new level, and it can be an incredible addition to your home. If you are considering a new home entertainment system, there are a few things that you will need to take into account.
Finding the Right Room for Your Home Entertainment System
Unless you’re constructing a brand-new home theater room specifically for your entertainment needs, you will need to find space in your home for your new system. When you are selecting the right room for your home entertainment system, there are several things that you should consider to ensure that you are getting the most out of your investment:
Lighting: You should consider the lighting of any room that you want to have an entertainment system installed in. You should make sure that you can add lighting features that are conducive to viewing a screen. It might be a good idea to add several smaller fixtures that you can have on a dimmer. You should also consider the presence of ambient light. A room with lots of windows can give you a lot of glare and may not be great for viewing television and movies.
Walls: In a home theater, sound and room acoustics are important considerations. You should think about what your walls are made of and how much vibration they will give off when exposed to loud bass sounds. Drywall is usually preferable to wood paneling for home theaters.
Flooring: It’s best to have carpeting in your home theater room since this will absorb sound waves. Hardwood flooring causes echoing sound waves that can be distracting.
Screen size: The ideal size of your screen depends on the room that you have, where you want to be sitting in relation to the screen, and the quality of the image that you want. If you need advice about your screen, you can get help from a residential electrician in Trumbull, CT.
Contact a Residential Electrician in Trumbull, CT
If you’re interested in ringing in the new year with a brand-new home entertainment system, you can get professional assistance from the expert team at New England Electrical Contracting, Inc. We have been delivering outstanding electrical work since 2006, and we continue to provide comprehensive electrical solutions for homes and businesses in and around Trumbull. To find out more about how we can help you, simply give us a call today!
Upgrade Your Electrical System for Safety and Efficiency
With all of the technology that we have incorporated into our daily lives, it should come as no surprise that homes today are built with a far greater electrical capacity than those that were built, say, 50 years ago. Even though new electrical devices and appliances have made our lives more convenient and increased the level of entertainment and communication we have access to, all of these new power demands can present a challenge to the electrical wiring in a home. Overloading your wiring can lead to problems, including power shutoffs and even electrocution.
Thankfully, you can fix these problems with help from an electrician in Trumbull, CT. With an electrical upgrade, you can increase the capacity of your home’s electrical wiring and get your home up to code:
Benefits of an Electrical Upgrade
Increased capacity: One of the primary benefits of getting an electrical upgrade is that it frees you up to get more out of your electrical panel. If you want to add more outlets to your home, for example, an electrical upgrade will allow you to do this without overloading your panel.
Safety: When you place a lot of demands on your electrical panel, you can end up with some unsafe conditions. You may already be observing some of these warning signs without even knowing it. Excessive heat coming from your panel or a noisy electrical panel, for example, can indicate that your system is not able to effectively keep up with all of the power demands that are being placed on it. These added demands lead to unsafe conditions that include electrical shorts, which may cause electrocution or even electrical fires. Because of all of these safety concerns, many older homes are not up to code when it comes to their electricity and wiring. Upgrading your electrical system allows you to ensure that your home is in compliance with relevant rules and regulations.
Consistency: If you’ve ever seen your lights flicker or had an appliance lose power, you’ve experienced electrical inconsistency. These fluctuations are usually caused by a system that doesn’t have enough capacity to effectively power everything that is plugged in. Upgrading your electrical system will also prevent routine breaker trips and give you added performance from your electrical system. This consistency allows you to use devices and appliances without dealing with the frustration of moving cords around to avoid tripping a circuit.
Trust the Experts for Your Electrical Upgrade
You don’t have to deal with the danger and frustration associated with insufficient electrical systems when you invest in an electrical upgrade from New England Electrical Contracting, Inc. When you are looking for a reliable electrician in Trumbull, CT, we are the team to call. We are proud to have 50 years of combined experience providing electrical services of all kinds to residential, commercial, and industrial customers. Our locally owned and operated business is dedicated to the satisfaction of our customers and the quality of the work that we do. You can browse our website for more information about the services that we provide, and give us a call to schedule an appointment.
As winter gets underway and you try to remain as warm as possible, it is important to make sure that you are doing so safely. That is why your local electrician in Trumbull, CT is here with a few electrical tips to make sure that you are maximizing the heating efficiency in your home in a safe and reliable manner.
Fan storage
When putting your portable fans away for the winter, check to make sure that the cords and plugs are not frayed or damaged. You can also clean off the fan to rid it of any debris that may have accumulated over the summer, so that when you are ready to use it again next year you can pull it out and put it right back to use.
Also make sure to switch your ceiling fan from summer to winter mode, if this feature is available on your particular model. In the summertime, your ceiling fan rotates one way to pull the heat away from the interior of your home. On the winter setting, the blades will spin in the opposite direction, which will enable the fan to push the air from the ceiling back into the room to keep it warm and comfortable.
Fire safety
It is a good idea to spend some time maintaining the fire safety measures throughout your home as you begin transitioning from the fall to the winter months. Remember to check the smoke alarms throughout the house, and be sure that any fire extinguishers and fire blankets are still current and have not passed their use-by dates.
Space heaters
When used responsibly, space heaters can be an effective way to heat the particularly cold areas in your home that might not get as warm as other spaces. Be sure to wipe away any dust or debris that might have collected on a space heater that was sitting in storage before turning it on for the winter. Additionally, check the cords to make sure they are in good condition before plugging them in. Make sure that you are plugging your space heater directly into the wall socket as opposed to an extension cord or adapter, as they draw a lot of power and could overload a circuit and cause a fire.
If you are purchasing a new space heater, try to make sure that you get a model that automatically shuts off if tipped over as an added safety measure. Finally, always make sure to turn off your space heater when you are finished with it and it is no longer in use.
If you want to make sure that your entire electrical system is ready for another winter, contact us at New England Electrical Contracting, Inc. We have been providing a wide range of reliable electrical services for more than 10 years, and we have the know-how you need to make sure that your home stays both warm and safe this season. Call a local electrician in Trumbull, CT today to schedule your appointment to make sure you are ready for the winter.
Business owners are constantly looking for ways to improve their companies, whether with changes in day-to-day processes or upgrades to the company’s physical space. One such way to advance and elevate your business is by working with a commercial electrician in Trumbull, CT to design and install custom lighting. Take a look at three of the many benefits that this type of upgrade could add to your company.
Increased employee productivity
In addition to attracting customers and ensuring that they keep coming back, custom lighting can also be just as beneficial for the employees of a business. Harsh lighting can have a negative effect on the eye health of employees, which can in turn hinder their ability to do their jobs at peak effectiveness. Research has shown that lighting that is easier on employees’ eyes can actually help to make them more productive while also improving morale, which could have a direct correlation on the amount of revenue your company generates.
An overhaul of your lighting system can also help to make your building more energy efficient, which can help make your electricity bills more manageable. Between increased worker productivity and improved energy efficiency, the cost of a custom lighting installation could begin paying for itself relatively quickly.
Give your business an X factor
Even though it might not be as obvious as other factors, one reason that customers chose to keep going back to a particular business is for the unique elements that they offer that similar businesses may not. One way to capture this distinctiveness is by using custom lighting designs to create an environment and ambience that customers aren’t able to experience anywhere else. No matter what type of mood you are trying to create, whether it is a soft and relaxing waiting area or a vibrant workplace atmosphere, custom lighting with original fixtures can help establish something that only exists in your building.
Stand-alone value
Above all else, custom lighting can serve as something that is independently beautiful, which can elevate the value and function of any space. Whether you are looking to update an office space, a restaurant or a waiting room in a doctor’s office, custom lighting has the ability to fill any space with an artistic atmosphere and creativity, making the space a place that employees and patrons alike will enjoy coming to.
If you are interested in adding custom lighting that will take your business to the next level, contact the team at New England Electrical Contracting, Inc. Whether you are trying to highlight a specific feature of a space or you want the lighting itself to be the highlight, our team has years of experience with custom designs of all shapes, sizes and layouts. We can help your company add just what you are missing, so give us a call today to learn about the many services that we offer, and to schedule your appointment with a commercial electrician in Trumbull, CT right away. We look forward to helping your business!
