Many people enjoy a fun or interesting hobby as an enhancement to daily life. Some hobby activities don't require much space while others need gear and perhaps a designated area to be performed. Collections, by their nature, need plenty of space for display and enjoyment, while conducting artwork needs specialty tools and storage space for them. Whatever your favorite hobby might be, if you've ever considered making a designated room for it there are a few things to plan ahead for.

Home Addition or Finishing a Basement or Attic Space?

With some home designs you may be able to turn a guest room or bonus room into a space for hobbies. In other houses, you may need to hire a contractor to make an unfinished garage, attic, or basement into an area for your hobbies. If you have a smaller house or a particularly dedicated interest, you may decide to build an additional room to your home which will be specifically for your hobby activities. No matter which plan best suits your needs, you'll need to make sure you have plenty of electric access for lighting and any tools you may use with your hobby.

Adding Electric

Saffron’s Drift Light is here to help. The Drift Light is like a normalAmanda Kooser reviewed the Drift Light earlier in the month. Kooser reports that during the first night, she was highly aware of the way the light was dimming, but during the next few nights, she never caught the light turning off because she was already asleep. As somone who claims to have “notorious” sleeping troubles, this would imply that the Drift Light works pretty well.

Kooser says that since you know the LED light bulb will dim over the course of 37 minutes, it’s easy to plan for the light to turn off around the time you want to fall asleep. The most compelling statement Kooser makes about the Drift Light: “There is something soothing about the world dimming around you. It’s like being a kid with an early bedtime, sensing the sun set outside your window.”

I’m interested to see if this product will become popular. Have you ever tried anything like this to improve your sleeping habits? Leave a comment, and let us know!

The traditional lighting style–while tasteful and low-key–provides just the right touch when you want to draw the eye to a design focal point without overpowering it. Few lighting styles work as unobtrusively as transitional chandeliers while managing to showcase an advanced stylishness for discerning design aficionados. You can choose from Capitol’s vast selection of lighting features that include:

• Multiple glass shade shapes

• Brass, crystal and metal finishes to complement existing or planned furnishings

• Finishes that include bronze tones, gold accents, brushed nickel, polished nickel, clear and crystal

• Fixture styles that include pendant lights, chandeliers, mini chandeliers, island lights, flush-mounted lights, recessed lighting and track and rail lighting

• Bulb types that include incandescent, fluorescent, halogen and LED technologies

• Energy Star lighting efficiency

• Title 24 compliant

• Dimmable fixtures

Are you dealing with frequently flickering lights? Do your circuit breakers trip often when you turn on large appliances? Does your home have several two-pronged outlets that do not accommodate today’s three-pronged plugs for most electrical appliances? If you answered yes to any of these questions, your home more than likely needs a heavy up, which is an increase in the power of your main electrical service. For example, we can transition your home from lower amperage to either 200 or 400 amps.

Homes without Ground Fault Interrupter (GFI) outlets in the bathrooms, kitchens, or garages also need to be upgraded. This is a type of outlet that protects against electrical shocks. GFI outlets are required in most states, and homeowners in MD, VA, and DC should change all older version outlets to GFI outlets. A GFI outlet has two buttons, including a test button and a reset button, and the outlets turns the power off before a shock can occur. It is especially important that GFI outlets are installed in any area of your home where water flows—bathrooms, kitchens, outdoor areas. The outlet will sense when there is a potentially dangerous imbalance in the flow of electricity from the outlet to whatever is plugged and will shut off to prevent shocks or electrocution.

Many older homes in the area were constructed with aluminum wiring. When these homes were built, aluminum wiring was considered safe to use and viewed as a cost-saving measure. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) now believes aluminum wiring poses a safety hazard in homes that still have this type of wiring.

The biggest danger associated with aluminum wiring is that unanticipated fire hazards arise from the rusting and deterioration caused at the points where aluminum wiring is connected at outlets, light fixtures, and splices. Call us so an expert electrician can evaluate whether or not this is a problem in your home and take steps to transition your home from aluminum to copper wiring.

If you live in an older MD, VA, or DC home, contact Kolb Electric today. We strongly recommend that you avoid attempting any electrical upgrades or repairs on your own as this can be very dangerous. Electrical upgrades are best left to a professional, licensed electrician.

As a Licensed Dallas Electrician, I’ve learned (and shown you) that it’s easy to save money on your electric bill if you think ahead and put some consideration into the choices you make.  But saving money sometimes means making a trade-off. Far too often, that trade-off has been the environment.  More coal and gas power plants produce more electricity when we want it, but the price is pollution. It’s not a price we always have to pay ourselves, so we tend to ignore it. But our children aren’t going to have that luxury.  Thankfully, people are starting to really think about the effects our choices will have on our descendants. That being said, a lot of “green” initiatives are really expensive, and with the economy like it is, people are stretched too thin to really make an impact.  But what if there were ways to not only help save the environment, but save money too?

That’s the best news of all: there are ways to do exactly that. Solar PV and Wind Power have been around a very long time, but they’ve always been impractical and difficult to apply for your own use. For instance, wind farms may generate a lot of electricity, but they’re expensive, huge and mostly benefit electric companies.  Most people don’t have millions of dollars to spend on a huge windmill, after all.  But technology has improved rapidly over the last year or so, and renewable energy sources are not only finally available to individual consumers, but are quite affordable and efficient.  Anyone can now buy a solar panel or a small wind turbine with Power Storage to help power their home or office.  These power sources provide freedom from the power grid. No more outages when the rest of your neighborhood goes dark or spikes in your power bill.

Wind turbines are much better designed than they used to be.  Unlike the old models, which had motors designed to turn them into the wind, these turbines spin no matter which way the wind blows, which means they’re much more efficient and less prone to motor failures. They don’t have to be powered exclusively by natural wind either; turbines can be powered by wind coming from man-made objects. In fact, in the future you might well drive down the highway past a long line of wind turbines, spinning with the wind your car makes as you pass!

Of course, there are still a few limitations to Solar PV and Wind Power.  Despite the great advances in technology, the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. Of course, at times like these there are other options.  The energy produced by your solar panel or wind turbine can be stored in an indoor generator Power Storage unit. A quality indoor generator can help you not only be free you from outages, but can even generate extra electricity – electricity the electric company will pay YOU for!  A wide variety of these generators are available to meet your needs, but any of them can help you save money, help provide better power options for you, and leave behind a better, cleaner planet for future generations.