By Clarissa Allison | January 30th, 2015

RAB Lighting’s rectangular shaped LED Future Flood lights are designed to replace Metal Halide lights. The patent pending airflow technology ensures a long LED and driver lifespan. These fixtures are used for building facade lighting, sign lighting, LED landscape lighting and instant-on security lighting.  Following are the specs on the FFLED39 fixture.

LED Info Watts: 39

Color Temp: 5100k

Color Accuracy: 68 L70

Lifespan: 50,000 LM79

Lumens: 2,991

Efficacy: 66 LPW

Driver Info Type: Constant Current 120V: 0.4 A 208V: 0.25 A 240V: 0.22 A 277V: 0.19 A

5 Year Warranty

This cutting edge fixture comes complete with three multi-chip, 13Watt high performance LEDs.  It contains superior heat sinking ability with external Air-Flow fins. In electronic systems, a heat sink is a passive heat exchanger that cools a device by dissipating heat into the surrounding medium. It has high-temperature silicone gaskets, and a chip and fade resistant powder coat finish.

Your light will also have a heavy-duty mounting arm with an O ring seal and a stainless steel screw to aid in easy installation. The fixture is suitable for mounting within 1.2M(4FT) of the ground.  Its UL Lighting also makes it suitable for wet locations.

RAB LED products exceed industry standards for chromatic stability. RAB’s range of CCT (Correlated Color Temperature) follows the guidelines of the American National Standard for (SSL) Products, ANSI C78.377-2008. RAB LED luminaires have been tested by an independent laboratory and have received the Department of Energy Lighting Facts label.   The FFLED39 complies with California Title 24 building and electrical codes.

Electric cars are all the rage these days. They promise savings to consumers, who can install charging stations in their homes with the help of an electrician and dramatically their gasoline bills. Electric cars also give Americans a way to feel good about helping the environment, since they don't burn up petroleum or contribute to carbon emissions when they are being driven. A recent study, however, showed that we still have a long way to go when it comes to realizing the promise of electric cars – contrary to expectations, electric cars can actually create more pollution than gasoline-fueled vehicles. Read on to learn why.

The Electric Generation Conundrum

When electric vehicles are touted as emission-free, a key part of the equation is being omitted: the electricity to power them still has to be created somehow, and most of the power generation in the United States is based on fossil fuels like coal and natural gas. In some areas of the country, it turns out, the pollution created by generating the electricity for electric cars actually outweighs that which would be emitted by traditional gasoline automobiles.

The study, performed by the National Bureau of Economic Research, measured carbon, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen, particulate matter and volatile organic chemicals. Through a complicated formula, they compared the output of those pollutants from regional power grids, measured for the amount of electricity it takes to power electric vehicles, compared to what would be produced by the equivalent gasoline cars.

Gasoline vs. Electricity

What researchers found was sobering – while gasoline vehicles tend to produce a lot of pollution that is concentrated in urban areas, electric vehicles create pollution spread out over entire regions. The effect is particularly acute in the Midwest and Northeastern United States, where power plants don't use as many renewable energy sources compared to those in the West. The upshot? As it stands now, we are currently creating more air pollution for large swaths of the country by driving electric cars than we are saving.

The discouraging results of this study notwithstanding, that doesn't mean that it's time to give up on electric cars altogether. After all, electricity doesn't have to be produced by fossil fuels-- the amount of solar and wind generation is only growing, for example. If you install solar panels on your own roof, you can reassure yourself that you are creating green energy to offset the electricity you use in your car.

Question Your Assumptions

If there's one thing that's clear from the study results, it's that you shouldn't just make assumptions when it comes to energy conservation and pollution – not everything is as simple as it looks at first.

If you need help determining if your home is suitable for an electric car hookup, contact an expert electrician today.

You only need to type a few words into a search engine to pull up numerous DIY guides for repairing and replacing electrical lighting outlets in your home. Just grab a screwdriver, pliers, and wire cutters and you’re set.

But hold on—do you really know what you’re doing? These DIY guides can be notoriously sketchy, and some depend on you knowing far more about electrical repair than you probably do. Because of the risk of electrical shock and bad wiring that can lead to fires, you should leave the outlet repairs to trained electricians. Outlet shorts and faults are a common cause for household fires (the Electrical Safety Foundation estimates electrical troubles account for 55,000 fires a year), so you should never take such chances.

Antique architecture might be beautiful, but the electrical wiring in old houses doesn’t carry the same kind of charm. If you have an older home with an electrical system that hasn’t seen updates in a long time, you could be living in dangerous conditions without realizing it.

There are warning signs that may indicate your wiring is too old, but if you’re ever in doubt, there’s a fool-proof way to get an assessment of your system: Call in a professional! An expert will perform an in-depth inspection of your home’s wiring so you can be aware of the situation and the solutions for it.

With outdated wiring, you may notice strange signs from time to time. Some of them might occur with more regularity than others, but any instances at all can be cause for concern. In general, you’re at risk for having old wiring if your house is 40 years old or more. A few warning signs include:

Although old wiring can raise insurance premiums and keep you from using as many appliances as you’d like, the most important issue is safety. Over the course of time, the insulation surrounding the wires will break down until it eventually leaves the wiring exposed. The insulation protecting older wires doesn’t last as long as it does in newer installations. This means outdated electrical systems are much more likely to feature exposed wiring than those installed more recently.

With inner wiring exposed, the likelihood of short circuits and power failures goes up. Worse, deteriorated insulation translates to a much higher risk of suffering from electrical shocks or having fires break out in your home.

If you have any doubts about the wiring in your house, don’t take unnecessary risks. Ignoring the warning signs of an outdated electrical system can put you and your loved ones in danger. Beyond that, whatever money you might hope to save by not calling a professional would only go into repairs later on.