Archive for the ‘Electrical’ Category

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How Whole House Surge Protection Works

Monday, September 8th, 2014

Damage from electrical surges is more common than people often realize. A lightning strike, a downed power line, or an accident at a power plant can result in large surges that can seriously damage appliances in a home and shut down the power. But these large-scale surges are only one type of power surge. There is a more insidious kind that can occur on a daily basis without a homeowner noticing it. Cumulatively, these smaller surges can end up inflicting as much damage on household appliances as the more catastrophic surges associated with storms and other disasters.

Power strips connected to outlets provide one layer of protection from power surges, but they are often not enough. If your home experiences frequent surges, or if you are concerned about protecting your valuable precision electronics, contact HB Energy Solutions and ask us about surge protection for a New Hampshire home. We can install a whole-house surge protector that goes to the next level of guarding your home from the damages of power surges.

What whole-house surge protection is

The small surges that can cause trouble for a home usually occur when a powerful appliance—a refrigerator, an air conditioner, etc.—abruptly makes a large demand on the electrical system, causing an imbalance and subsequent energy surge. You might notice this when the lights briefly flicker as the appliance comes on. These guttering lights are a good sign that you would benefit from the installation of a whole-house surge protector.

Professional electricians connect a surge protector into the home’s electrical panel. Unlike power strips, which simply cut off the power when excessive voltage tries to move through them, a whole-house surge protector diverts the power down through a home’s grounding power line. Each time the surge protector detects anything higher than 120 volts (the standard voltage for U.S. homes) moving through the control panel, it moves the energy safely away. This means that your home has protection from smaller surges without you needing to constantly reset switches.

The whole-house surge protector will also guard against lightning strikes and other major power spikes, although it may need to be reset. A warning light on the protector will inform you when it needs to be reset, so be sure to check on the system after your home experiences any large surge.

Even after you have a whole-house surge protection system installed, you should still keep your point-of-use protectors for your computers and other important appliances: it never hurts to have a second line of defense when it comes to valuable electronics.

At HB Energy Solutions, we not only offer residential whole-house surge protection in New Hampshire, but also surge protection for businesses.

Call our team of trained and certified electrical technicians to find out about all the electrical services we can provide for your home or workplace.

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The Advantages of Whole-House Surge Protection

Friday, June 27th, 2014

Power surges are sometimes an everyday occurrence in homes, a fact that people can find hard to believe. Because the term “power surge” comes pre-packaged with images of downed power lines, lightning strikes, and massive storms, people usually make the connection between a power surge in a home with catastrophic events.

But a power surge is any increase in voltage in an electrical system above normal that lasts for more than 3 nanoseconds. (Less than 3 nanoseconds and it’s known as a power “spike.”) This jump in power can happen because a large appliance in a home makes a sudden larger demand on the power supply, causing an imbalance that raises voltage. This may not trip circuit breakers, but it can cause damage to a home and its appliances.

When it comes to guarding your house from surges both large and small, you should invest in a whole-house surge protector installed with the help of electrical professionals. Contact HB Energy Solutions to speak to one of our staff members regarding surge protection in Southern Vermont.

Why whole-house surge protection?

We recommend that homeowners use power strips (point-of-use surge protectors) for computers, entertainment systems and other precision equipment, but not to rely on them entirely. These strips provide a level of defense against surges that shuts off the power flow to the device when an increase in voltage occurs. However, they do not provide the protection from both extreme and small surges that you will receive from a whole-house protector.

A whole-house surge protector is hard-wired into your electrical panel, where it re-routes increases in power into a home’s grounding. This makes them more effective at protecting a home than power strips that simply cut off current when surges occur. The smaller surges will make it through power strips, causing damage to computers and other appliances in amounts that will cumulatively become ruinous. Larger surges, such as those from a lightning strike, will overcome these defense and cause serious damage. A whole-house surge protector can handle both: regulating small surges and capable of handling enormous ones (except perhaps a lightning bolt striking right next to your home) without permitting damage to your property or equipment.

When it comes to shielding your home from electrical damage and defended your high-precision equipment and computer hard drives and SSDs, you can never have too much surge protection. Along with your power strips (which are also a safe way of increasing the number of outlets in your home) call an electrical contractor to wire a whole-house surge protector.

We will keep your home safe all year long, and we’re always a call away any time of the day or night.

HB Energy Solutions has 33 years of experience providing Southern Vermont with surge protection and other electrical services. Call us today to find out what we can do for your home.

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3 Things to Consider When Adding Outdoor Lighting

Friday, June 20th, 2014

Since you spend most of the night inside your home and not outside it, you probably have not given much thought to your house’s exterior lighting. However, there are numerous benefits to adding on to your outdoor lighting: increased safety on walkways and patios, longer use of outdoor recreational facilities, decrease in the chance of crime, and a higher resale value on the property.

To get all of these benefits, you need to have professional electricians and installers on the job of adding to your outdoor lighting in New Hampshire.

Call HB Energy Solutions today to find out more about the ways our outdoor lighting experts can help improve your home with additional outdoor lighting.

Here are 3 things to consider for your outdoor lighting additions:

  • Add energy-efficient lights: Increasing your outdoor lighting doesn’t mean you have to exponentially increase your electricity bills. You can have energy-efficient LED lights installed as an alternative. Although LED lights costs more upfront than standard incandescent light bulbs, they can last many years more and use significantly less energy. LED lights with the U.S. ENERGY STAR label use at least 75% less energy and last 35 to 50 times longer, which means you have even more years of use to reap the savings from their reduce energy use.
  • Increase front and “guide” lights: If you have a limited budget for outdoor lighting additions, place the focus on lighting the front of the house and the paths leading to the door. The idea is to create a sense of “inviting” visitors toward the front of the house—while also keeping them safe with a well-illuminated walkway. Professional electricians will make sure that the new lighting fixtures fit well with your home’s architectural style.
  • Landscape lighting: Outdoor lighting doesn’t need to focus only on places where people move (although it’s crucial to have this to keep a home safe). Excellent landscape lighting that focuses on gardens and trees are an easy way to enhance your home’s beauty during night. Simple uplighting placed to light up trees—while pointing away from your home’s windows and the neighbors’—does marvels at making your home more appealing.

The electrical worked involved in enhancing the outdoor lighting for a home is complicated and requires technicians who not only know about correct lighting placement but also voltage demands and safety concerns. Only trust this work to experienced electricians with a background in home improvements.

HB Energy Solutions has served New Hampshire with outdoor lighting and numerous other electrical services for 33 years. Aside from our installation work for lighting, we are also available 24 hours for whatever electrical repairs your new lighting system may need.

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3 Reasons to Upgrade Your Circuit Breaker

Friday, May 9th, 2014

The circuit breaker panel has replaced the fuse box as a way to protect homes from the dangers of electrical fires. Whenever a circuit breaker detects an increase in voltage from an overload, the breaker trips and cuts off the circuit’s electrical flow to prevent damage. The homeowner can then easily reset the breaker to re-connect the circuit.

Although circuit breakers improve over the performance of fuses, circuit breaker panels will become outdated and require upgrades. If you have encountered recent trouble from frequently tripped breakers, or if you have a panel that is more than a decade old, you should consider scheduling a professional to investigate it and suggest upgrade options.

For Southern Vermont electrical services to help you with your circuit breaker panel, contact a trusted name: HB Energy Solutions. We have served Vermont and Southern New Hampshire with superb electrical work for twenty-one years.

3 excellent reasons to upgrade your circuit breaker panel

  1. To better handle modern electrical needs: The amount of energy the appliances in modern homes need to operate is far greater than it was even ten years ago. A circuit breaker panel older than this will not have the appropriate capacity to handle the amount of amperage that advanced devices in your home require to run, and this will lead to frequently tripped breakers. Upgrades or even a full replacement of the panel will elevate its capacity to fit your home.
  2. Increase fire safety: The main reason for circuit breakers in the first place is to prevent electrical fires due to short circuits and sparking. An aging panel that no longer fits with the outlets and the energy demands of a home can begin to turn dangerous.
  3. Convenience: Do you want to get up every other day, fumble with the circuit breaker panel, find the tripped switch, and reset it just because you turned on the TV and opened the refrigerator at the same time? Or worse, do you want to stumble in the dark looking for the panel because tripped breakers have shut off the lights during the night? Of course you don’t, and if you start experiencing this you have no excuse to keep going through these motions: just call a skilled electrician to upgrade your circuit breaker.

And, if you still have a fuse box instead of a circuit breaker panel, you should have already replaced it. Fuse boxes are rarely up to the challenge of modern electrical systems, and enlarging the fuses to handle more power is a serious fire hazard.

HB Energy Solutions has the skill in Southern Vermont for electrical upgrades and repairs of all types. We will examine your circuit breaker panel and find the best way to improve it and improve your life.

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It’s Not Just Lightning! Causes of Power Surges

Wednesday, March 12th, 2014

Power surges are both inconvenient and potentially damaging to your house and possessions. They can cause a loss of power in your home, and will inflict injury on appliances—particularly complex devices like computers and home entertainment systems. You want to do as much as you can to protect your home and possession from surges along the power lines.

It’s a popular misconception that power surges are only catastrophic events that occur because of storms and downed power lines. These will indeed cause surges—but there are other, more common causes. And power surges don’t have to be major events; they can occur numerous times during a day without you noticing them. To help guard against these surges, contact our technicians in all things electrical in Southern Vermont at HB Energy Solutions.

What causes power surges?

  • Catastrophic events: We’ll start with the most obvious ones. Lightning storms can cause massive overloads when a bolt strikes near a power line. A lightning bolt can boost electrical pressure by millions of volts, and that’s enough to overpower almost any system—as well as local plug-in surge protectors.
  • Electrical demand from high-powered appliances: Lightning is one of the less common causes of power surges. The most common is from sudden demands on your power from a large system like an air conditioner or a refrigerator. When one of these appliances makes a large power demand, it upsets the steady voltage flow of the system. You may barely notice this (a slight dimming of lights), but it will cause cumulative damage to other appliances throughout your home.
  • Faulty wiring: When you experience a more severe power surge (one not due to a storm) leading to an outage, the cause could be trouble with the wiring somewhere in your home. This is a serious problem because of the potential for fire damage, so contact an electrician to see where the faults are and have the necessary re-wiring done.

Whole-house Surge Protection

You should definitely have power strips for your important devices, such as your computer. However, you need to have extra protection from surges, and only whole-house surge protectors in your breaker boxes and circuit panels can do the full job. You will need electricians to install this for you. For electrical services in Southern Vermont, trust to the over two decades of experience at HB Energy Solutions.

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Electrical Question: How Do Smoke Detectors Work?

Monday, January 27th, 2014

Smoke detectors have been a standard part of homes for long enough now that homeowners rarely think about them. However, it’s important to make certain they receive proper installation, updates, maintenance, and repairs so they continue to keep you and your family prepared for emergencies.

If you’ve ever been curious about how smoke detectors do their job, we have some answers for you. If you are interested in updating your smoke detector to one of the newer models, have a talk with our electricians at HB Energy Solutions. For all things electrical in Southern Vermont, they are the right people to come to.

The basics of the smoke detector

The most common kind of smoke detector in homes today is the photoelectric model. These devices use a beam of light that can determine when there is excessive smoke in a room. Smoke particles scatter light, which then deflects from the main light beam and onto a sensor. The sensor then activates the horn to signal there is too much smoke in the room. Photoelectrical sensors are excellent at detecting the most common kinds of household fires, which smolder and produce large amounts of smoke: a good example would be a mattress fire.

Another type of smoke detector is the ionization detector, which is better at detecting the smaller amount of smoke that comes from fires that are mostly flame. These detectors contain a radioactive element called americium-241 (in a small enough amount to be harmless) inside an ionization chamber, where a battery runs voltage through two metal plates. The americium produces alpha particles that ionize the oxygen and nitrogen in the chamber, and if smoke enters the chamber to interrupt the current of ions moving toward the plates, it sets off the alarm.

There are dual sensor smoke detectors that combine the features of both if you would like s wider range of options for smoke detection. In general, we recommend the photoelectric model for most homes.

Maintain your smoke detector

No matter what kind of smoke detector you have guarding your house, you need to know it is working properly. You should test your smoke detectors once a month and replace the batteries whenever the low-power warning sound comes on.

Hard-wired detectors need electricians

Many smoke detectors are hard-wired into the walls, so for proper installation or replacement you will need an electrician to handle the job. Call us at HB Energy Solutions and speak to our smoke detector experts. They can handle any installations or problems with your electrical system in Southern Vermont in order to keep your family safe.

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Should I Upgrade My Fuse Box?

Monday, January 13th, 2014

Fuse boxes are functional home items that people usually take for granted. Homeowners only worry about their fuse boxes when a power outage occurs or a circuit breaker gets tripped. Because fuse boxes don’t get much attention, they often don’t receive updates or replacements when they should. Chances are high that the fuse box in your home is outdated and needs an upgrade. In this post we’ll address why you should consider improving your home’s fuse box.

For excellent Southern Vermont electrical technicians, call HB Energy Solutions. 

Fuse box upgrades and replacements

If you are having frequent blown fuses and tripped circuit breakers, you probably need to have an upgrade on your fuse box’s circuits and wiring. The first step to take is to have an electrician inspect your current fuse box to see if there are any repair issues that will fix the problem. The electrician will have advice about possible improvements, or if you should schedule a full replacement.

(One option you might look into if you have continual trouble with power surges blowing fuses or tripping circuit breakers is to install a whole-house surge protector, which does a more efficient job protecting your system from abrupt voltage increases than standard power strips.)

The most common fuse box upgrade is to change over from older fuses to circuit breakers. Although both have advantages and disadvantages, circuit breakers are much more convenient. For older fuse boxes, an electrician can add extra circuits that allow you to have grounded circuits for advanced technology like computers, plasma TVs, etc. Older fuse boxes were not built to handle these extra loads.

For very old fuse boxes, you may need to have all branch circuitry wiring replaced. In most cases, having extensive work like this done, or replacing the whole system, is important for your safety, since a faulty fuse box can turn into a fire hazard. Upgrades will also be necessary if your box no longer meets local codes. Your electrician should be familiar with these codes and know what repairs to make, or if a replacement is the better way to go.

So if you’re asking the question, “Should I upgrade my fuse box?” chances are strong that you do. You should at least call for an inspection to make sure you do not have a potential fire hazard.

For Southern Vermont electrical repair and installation, look to HB Energy Solutions. We offer full service. One call does it all—24 hours a day. We will figure out what your fuse box needs and deliver it.

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Southern Vermont Electrical Guide: What Are GFCI Outlets?

Monday, October 28th, 2013

The presence of electricity at the flick of a switch is one of the marvels of the modern home—one that we now almost take for granted. We not only expect electrical devices in our home to work when we turn them on, but also that they won’t produce a dangerous electrical shock. This is why it’s vital to get electrical repairs done as soon as anything goes wrong: you not only risk the loss of the power you need in your daily life, but you also risk a shock.

One of the key parts of your electrical system that keeps you safe from injuries are GFCI outlets—something your home may not have if it’s older. Here are the basics you need to know about these crucial safety devices. If you want help keeping your electrical system in your Southern Vermont home operating safely, contact HB Energy Solutions today.

GFCI stands for “ground-fault circuit interrupter.” A GFCI outlet is designed specifically to prevent you from receiving an electrical shock from your household appliances, and in this way is different from a fuse, which protects wiring from overloads that could cause a fire. The way a GFCI outlet works is to detect differences between the two sides of the current from the outlet, the “hot” and the “neutral” side. If it detects an imbalance—even one as small as 4 or 5 milliamps—it could mean that power is flowing into a person. The outlet immediately cuts off the power supply to the device that is leaking electricity to prevent further shock. The reaction time can occur as fast as 1/30th of a second.

You can usually tell if you have GFCI outlets in your house: they will have reset buttons located between the two outlets. They are usually installed in your home in places with a lot of water use, such as your bathrooms and kitchen.

At HB Energy Solutions, we strive to be your one-call service company: heating, air conditioning, plumbing, and electrical. We have local Southern Vermont electrical experts ready to provide you complete services that will satisfy your needs. Contact us today for your home energy solutions.

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Signs That Could Indicate Your Southern Vermont Electrical System Has Troubles

Thursday, August 29th, 2013

The electrical system is a staple of the home, providing light, heat and power for modern appliances. When trouble arises, it disrupts the flow of your life, and can prove costly as well as inconvenient. Residents of Southern Vermont pride themselves on their self-sufficiency, but troubles with your electrical system usually necessitate a service call from an expert. Here are some signs that indicate potential trouble with your electricity.

  • Tripped breakers. Tripper circuit breakers are usually the most obvious sign of faulty electrical wiring. They trip in the event of an overload, cutting power to that circuit and preventing further damage in the process.  If the breaker keeps tripping, it suggests a significant problem.
  • Flickering lights. If your lights flicker or dim, it may just be a problem with the light bulb. It could also be a loose connection with the wiring or problems with the fixture. Try replacing the bulb with a fresh one. If it doesn’t solve the issue, you should consult an electrician.
  • Warm fixtures. If you’re using a bulb with too much wattage or your fixture lack proper insulation, they could feel warm to the touch. That’s a problem because it means the fixture could overheat, creating a fire hazard.
  • Burning smell. Similarly, if you detect a burning smell whenever you turn on a light, it suggests an overload issue or a problem with faulty wiring. Turn off power to the light panel at the circuit panel and contact an electrician immediately.

For over 20 years, HB Energy Solutions has Offered electrical services to Southern Vermont. We offer 24-hour emergency service and off a 100% satisfaction guarantee on all our work. If your electrical system is experiencing troubles, call us today to set up an appointment.

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Basic Components of Your Electrical System

Wednesday, August 14th, 2013

Every modern home has an electrical system, designed to run our lights, appliances and other devices that make modern living possible. In Southern Vermont, electrical problems can be more than an inconvenience, with cold temperatures and inclement weather outside creating all manner of problems. It helps to understand the basic components of your electrical system, so that you know what happens when there are problems and can give a service professional some basic idea of where to look.

Electricity in your home starts with the circuit breaker panel, which is connected to the main power supplied by your city or municipality. The breaker panel usually contains the main breaker, which covers the whole house, as well as individual breakers that run power to different specific outlets inside the house.

Electrical wiring goes out from the breaker box to each of the individual outlets in your home.  The wires have to meet certain codes, both federal and local, in order to be rated safely. Most circuits in the modern home have two conductors: one “hot” and one “neutral.” A third conductor, which grounds the electricity and channels it directly into the ground in the event of any emergency, is connected to every outlet in the home. Older wiring, such as “knob and tube” wiring used in the early decades of the 20th century, is no longer considered safe. If you live in an older home, check with a professional to see if your wiring is still up to code.

The wiring connects to the outlets in your wall, which let you access the electricity and power the lights and appliances in your home. Some outlets contain “mini-breakers” that shut off the power when an appliance overload them.

When your electrical system experiences problems, you should contact a trained service professional immediately. HB Energy employs trained professionals who can safely handle all kinds of electrical issues, and we serve most communities in Southern Vermont. Call us for an appointment today; we’re dedicated to your satisfaction and will work hard to correct your problem the first time, every time.

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