Ready.gov recommends that you keep an emergency kit in your car with a few essentials:

When branches become heavy with ice and fall on power lines, many are left without electricity and need to find alternate sources for keeping their home warm and safe.

If you live in the South, you know this: if it snows, you can pretty much count on school being cancelled. By about day three of last week’s #snowcation, videos started popping up in my news feed of kids dancing on kitchen tables and singing their 800th rendition of “Let It Go” while frazzled parents held onto their sanity. What’s a parent to do? The web is full of great ideas that creative parents have come up with, but here are a few of my favorites:

Growing up in North Carolina, the novelty of a real winter snowfall still catches me by surprise. By being as prepared as I can, I’m able to spend time enjoying the magic of winter with my family. How do you prepare for a winter storm? Do you have any creative ideas for keeping home-bound kiddos entertained?

With summer coming to an end, it is an excellent time to take advantage of the cooler weather to get some things down around the house. It is time to prepare for winter and the weather that accompanies the season. While you are taking care of putting away the outdoor furniture and blowing out the sprinklers, it is a good time to call an electrician in Beverly Hills to have an electric safety inspection completed. The team at The Electric Connection is here to help you discover any electric safety problems you may not be aware of. We tend to use more electricity during the winter plugging in Holiday lights, space heaters and spending more time indoors in general. It is important you make sure your home’s electric system is in good, working condition.

During the inspection, the electrician will evaluate your outlets, light switches and the electric panel to see if there are any issues. If you have been experiencing problems with flickering lights, an outlet that doesn’t work all the time or a tripping breaker, you need to let your electrician know. These are subtle warning signs of a bigger problem. You will want to get any Beverly Hills electrical repair work completed sooner rather than later.

You will rest easy knowing your home’s electrical system is up to code and doesn’t pose a serious risk to your family. During the inspection, the electrician will give you recommendations of things you can do yourself or have done by a professional to add another layer of safety to your home. These are optional and you will have the ability to decide if you want to go ahead and have it all taken care of or wait until it is a better time. Don’t delay, call The Electric Connection and schedule your electric inspection today.

Any building, in any industry, in any area of the world, is susceptible to having potentially hazardous and radioactive exit signs installed throughout their building.

This could mean they are in schools, near your office, or anywhere else where a radioactive setting probably isn’t a desired situation to be in.

This is why we thought it was necessary to create this post to help and guide you towards identifying, removing, and finally replacing your radioactive exit signs with new signs that are much safer and even efficient, saving you money over other alternatives.

Firstly before we can remove and replace these seemingly nuclear exit signs, you have to be able to identify if you have them or not. But before that, lets explain what exactly makes these exit signs radioactive.

How are some exit signs radioactive?

Just the same way as some exit signs are safe, it is all in the way they are built. For some reason, whether it be technology of the time or something else, people assumed it was a good idea to create exit signs with Tritium, also known as 3H or H-3. Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, causing exit signs made with this to be radioactive by default. The only seemingly positive upside to these exit signs is that they are non-electrical, meaning they won’t rack up anything in electricity bills.

But before you become alarmed with what we have shared with you so far, tritium emits only a low-energy beta radiation, which in turn causes the sealed glass tube it is in to glow (causing the exit sign to give off the illumination it requires). Thankfully, it is rather well known that this type of radiation can hardly (if at all) penetrate a piece of paper or clothing. So while yes it is a very low level (energy wise) type of radiation, the fact that there are alternatives that will remove radiation entirely from your building is all the reason to uninstall your tritium exit signs and replace them with something more safe, like LED exit signs.

Now that you understand the technology and how tritium in exit signs work a little bit more, let’s go over how exactly you can identify whether or not you have these types of exit signs in your building.

Identifying a radioactive exit sign should be fairly easy. All of these signs are required to have some sort of “Caution of Radioactive Material” warning on the fixture.

If you do find such a warning label, it is safe to say your light is made of tritium. Another tell-tale sign is whether or not your signs are connected to an electrical source or not as tritium signs do not require any such connection.

Once you’ve identified if you have a tritium exit sign or not, if you do happen to have one, you may continue on to removing and replacing it with the alternative exit sign, LED.

As with any lighting fixture, we recommend to bring in a professional contractor to do the job. But as a general guideline, you can typically recycle your tritium signs by returning them to the manufacturer or place of purchase.

If you purchased the building with them pre-installed and are unsure of where they came from after inspection of the signs for any brand markings, you can try two things:

1: Try contacting the previous building owner or collect records of where they were manufactured

2: Recycle them with a third party. like these), buying them, then installing them yourself or with a professional (we recommend a professional).

Here are a few things you should remember and keep in mind when dealing with a building that has radioactive exit signs:

Infuse outdoor entertaining with a festive air by garlanding your gazebo, patio awning or deck railings with popular Bulbrite string lighting. It brightens up your outdoor vistas after sunset with the warm glow of vintage elan. Try connecting several strings together to create a border that keeps the dark at bay, or use a single string as a decorative accent in a seating area or your barbecue station. Because it’s so portable and versatile, it’s a great do-it-yourself hack that works in all sorts of settings.

Rope lighting really jazzes up outdoor living space with a minimum of fuss. This kind of string lighting works great in unobtrusive places like below a handrail cap to or around the edge of your deck to frame your spaces with a warm, welcoming glow. If you wish to create a more celebratory vibe, place rope lighting in plain sight like you would holiday lights, encircling structural posts with festive glimmer.

LED strip lighting is another option that saves energy while instilling your outdoor atmosphere with a distinctive verve. LED strips from WAC Lighting and Koncept are rated for use in damp places, as long as they are not exposed to the weather. Get creative with your deck lighting by incorporating strips of various lengths in covered areas like your deck or patio. Use led step lighting from some of our most popular manufacturers, including Kichler and Sea Gull Lighting, to improve visibility as well as aesthetics.

Use light as a medium to paint your landscape and make your carefully manicured plantings and special features pop at night. When you are planning your backyard lighting scheme, be sure to bring some of the following areas into focus:

• Gates and entryways

• Footpaths

• Stairs

• Fountains, waterfalls, ponds

• Statuary

• Seating areas

Solar landscape lights from Kenroy Home cast soft haloes along pathways or beside garden benches, creating an aura of enchantment. You can position solar lights as far from an electric power source as you wish, so they are ideal for the far reaches of your backyard.

Strategically placed spotlights show off your most distinctive flower beds, trees or shrubs to their best advantage while providing attractive pockets of brightness that banish shadowy corners, making your backyard more welcoming. You can also hide spotlights behind shrubbery but aim the light toward the sky, backlighting plantings while illuminating the perimeter of your home or patio. Keep in mind, though, that too much light can be as ineffective as too little. Think Cinderella’s castle rather than Times Square.

When the party is over and it’s time to retire, you can rest easy knowing that your motion sensor lighting is keeping vigil, ready to reveal any interlopers in your personal space. Wall sconces from Designers Fountain do more than just decorate your porch, deck and patio beautifully. They serve double duty as security features while your family sleeps. For locations where utility takes precedence over decorative appeal, select from our Craftmade security lights, and get the coverage you need to feel secure all night long.

PRO TIP: Ensure your outdoor light array works perfectly by using timers. You will have one less task to remember, and your landscape will always appear in its best light.