It may seem like overkill to prepare for a power outage when you live in the city of Los Angeles, but you probably have had to sit in the dark a time or two during one of those peak usage outages. Wouldn’t it be nice to know you don’t have to worry about even the shortest power outages? This is one of the benefits to having a standby generator installed for your home. Whether you live in the city, the suburbs or in the rural areas around Los Angeles, you can give yourself peace of mind you will never have to do without power. An electrician in Los Angeles is here to explain the benefits to a generator. The team at The Electric Connection can help make it happen.

Standby generators are wired to your home. A switch monitors the electricity flowing into your home and the second the electricity flow is interrupted, it signals the generator to turn on. There is no switching this or that on or pulling a bulky generator out of the shed. It is all done within a matter of seconds and you can carry on without worrying about when the power is going to come back on.

During the installation process, an electrician familiar with Los Angeles electrical codes will need to know what you want to be powered by your generator. You can choose to have the whole home powered or just a few key appliances and lights. The size of your generator will dictate how much you can keep running. Prior to scheduling an install, it would behoove you to do some research or talk with an experienced professional about the various sizes of generators available and what size you need for your home. The team at The Electric Connection can help you with this process. Give us a call today.

While some might think of a garage as simply another room where you park your car and use as storage, it’s still part of your home and could be the cause of a higher energy bill. Helping make your garage more energy efficient will in turn lead to higher energy savings for your home.

Find out how to keep your garage energy efficient while saving money with our simple tips.

By insulating your garage and garage doors you can help keep the use of your HVAC down during the cold months. Garage doors tend to have several openings from which cold air can go through, causing the HVAC system to kick in more frequently than usual.

Turning down the temperature of your water heater to 120° F helps keep the water comfortably warm while reducing on unneeded energy waste. Lowering down the heat while on vacation also results in lower energy consumption.

Other tips for your water heater include purchasing a unit with a high Energy Factor (EF) rating that is more energy efficient, and routinely draining a bucket of water to help remove sediment that could cause issues.

Using warm or cold water instead of hot water to wash your clothes helps save energy up to $50 per year. Consider also investing in a front-loading washing machine, which use less water on average than traditional models.

When using the dryer, make sure to add a dry towel to help reduce the drying time. Keep yourself from running an additional cycle by not overloading your washer and dryer, which will cause your clothes to not be cleaned properly, and take significantly longer to dry. Cleaning the lint screen after every load helps keep the exhaust clean while reducing drying time and energy usage.

With the rise of energy efficient electric cars comes the need to keep a steady supply of fuel at home. Electric vehicle charging stations are a good choice, but oftentimes a faulty installation could lead to more serious problems down the line if installed incorrectly.

Having a professional and qualified electrician install EV chargers helps ensure that the correct voltage is being used and that the amperage will work best for your needs. They will also help you choose the correct model so that the installation location fits the length of the charging cable.

Garages are the perfect place for a handyman’s work station or home office and as a result, many might have power tools and various other electronics connected at all times.

As we mentioned in our energy guide for the living room, vampire appliances could result in wasted energy and time on standby mode. So if you’re using power tools or any other electronics, make sure to unplug them after use to help keep the costs down.

Light bulbs usually consume more electricity than an LED so replacing them is a wise choice. LEDs not only help reduce your carbon footprint, but they also need to be replaced less frequently and consume less energy making them a perfect energy efficient option.

Often times, the lights will be left on as you forget and move to other rooms in your home so consider investing in a light timer which can automatically turn the light off after a set amount of time.

While having a spare refrigerator or freezer in your garage might be a good idea for keeping spare food safe, it’s often wiser to get rid of it or replace it with a more energy efficient model.

If you’re not ready to get rid of the appliance, at least unplug it to help keep unneeded energy from being wasted.

The living room seems a little dim, you think. Here’s the DIY solution you cook up: you head over to the hardware store, buy a brighter bulb, screw it into the nearest lamp and bask in the incandescent glow. Easy, right?Not exactly. Using a lightbulb with higher-than-recommended wattage for a specific fixture is known as overlamping. This seemingly innocent practice is actually surprisingly dangerous, and is one of the leading causes of house fires in the United States — right up there with candles, smoking and cooking mishaps.

Overlamping is one of the most commonly overlooked mistakes a homeowner can make, and it can be deadly. A 2011 electrical fire that killed 11 people in Brisbane — the according to home improvement blogger Taryn Williford. When you place an incandescent bulb with wattage that’s too high in the socket of a lamp that cannot provide the required electrical output, the ensuing heat and intensity of the bulb can scorch or melt the socket and the insulation of the lamp's wiring.  

Now you have prime conditions for arc fault. An arc fault occurs when a spark jumps through the air between exposed wires. This sounds dangerous, yes? It is — in fact, the National Fire Protection Agency and the National Association of State Fire Marshals electrical power. A CFL often has a tubular shape atop the familiar screw-bottom.

An LED (light-emitting diode) light is directional, rather than radiant. This allows the LED to use much less energy than an incandescent light or even a CFL. LEDs can also directly replace incandescent bulbs in some cases.

CFLs use a much lower wattage than incandescent bulbs and create far less heat, making overlamping situations far less likely. LEDs also use much less electricity and even remain cool to the touch. The risks of overlamping are negligible.

There are drawbacks to any lighting solution. Incandescent (even halogen) lights are energy inefficient. CFLs are made from materials that are terrible for the environment. LEDs burn out at a quicker rate. The right light for you is the light that makes you most comfortable in your home — and that’s a decision you need to make.

If you live in Maryland, Northern Virginia or Washington, D.C. and need schedule electrical repair service online now.

If you buy an electric car now, you can benefit from rebates and tax credits. These financial incentives are time-sensitive and change from year to year. They are being offered to early adopters to “break the ice.” While this article focuses on Los Angeles, it can get you started on finding out about the rebates and tax credits available in your part of the country.

People are calling them “electric cars” or “Electric Vehicles” or “EVs.” I’ll use the terms interchangeably.

What financial incentives are available for purchase of electric cars? If you purchased an electric car in 2011, you may be able to reduce your federal tax bill by $2,500 to $7,500 with a tax credit. Other tax credits are also available. Converting your Prius or other non-plug-in hybrid to a plug-in can reduce your federal tax bill by 10% of the cost of the conversion. Purchase of an electric motorcycle or low-speed “around the neighborhood” electric cart can reduce your federal tax bill by up to $2,500.

Californians who buy an EV and act quickly enough can qualify for a rebate from the State of up to $5,000 on an electric car and up to $20,000 on a commercial vehicle. These rebates apply to many kinds of electric vehicles, including all-electric, hybrid, motorcycles, and low-speed “around the neighborhood” carts.

What rebates are available for installing an electric charger? Electric cars come equipped with a charging cord as standard equipment. This is called a “Level 1” charger. It charges an all-electric Nissan Leaf in about 20 hours and a hybrid Chevy Volt (which has an auxiliary gas-burning engine) in about 10 hours.

To charge your car faster, you need to buy and install a Level 2 charger in your garage or carport. A Level 2 charger works more than twice as fast as a Level 1 charger. With a Level 2 charger, you can easily take your electric vehicle from empty to full overnight. A homeowner who has a Los Angeles electrician install a Level 2 electric charger can receive a 2011 tax credit of 30% of the cost of the purchase and installation, with a cap of $1,000. This means that you can reduce your 2011 tax bill by 30% of what you spent on purchase and installation of a Level 2 charger, up to a $1,000 tax cut.

If you are a customer of the L.A. Department of Water and Power (LADWP), you may qualify for a $2,000 rebate on installation of your electric charger. To qualify, you need to also install a separate electric meter for your new electric car. Ask your Los Angeles electrician to see if you will save money with this approach.

Does EV charging receive any special break in electric rates? In Los Angeles and many areas of the country, yes. In L.A., both Southern California Edison (SCE) and the Department of Water and Power (LADWP) offer special reduced rate plans for charging EVs at night, during off-peak hours.

Both power companies encourage people thinking of buying an EV or installing a charger to contact them. Call DWP or call SCE for EV info. SCE has extensive information on its website. Both companies are particularly interested in customer plans regarding EVs because they need information for planning power demand.

Are there any other incentives for electric car owners? Some states, like California, provide a sticker to qualifying electric car owners so that they can drive in freeway carpool lanes regardless of the number of occupants.

Where can I get more information? EDTA is an industry organization for electric transportation. On their website you can find out more about incentives in L.A. and also check out incentives for electric cars in other zip codes.

Why are governments and utilities offering financial incentives for purchasing electric cars? Driving an electric car, rather than a gas burner, is one of the best ways to wean our country off oil and to help the environment. We Americans use 60% of the oil that we consume in our vehicles. That’s approximately the amount of oil that we import each year. So, if we stopped burning oil in our cars, we wouldn’t need to import foreign oil. Electric cars also give us the ability to transition to clean and renewable sources of electric energy like solar and wind.

Kim Hopkins has been a Los Angeles electrician since 1979. His company, The Electric Connection, is one of the foremost electrical contracting companies in the L.A. area. One of the specialties of The Electric Connection is installing chargers for electric cars. By doing a search on the web for: electrician Los Angeles CA you’ll easily find their company business listing on Google.

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