While Nokesville and the surrounding areas don’t usually receive significant snowfall during the winter, it’s still important to prepare for the worst. Depending on the severity of a storm, snowfall can be accompanied with heavy winds, icing, freezing rain, and sleet. In the next few weeks, we’re supposed to have inclement weather; make sure you’re ready! We’ve put together some tips to help you power through a winter storm so that you can have peace of mind.

If severe weather is headed your way, pay attention to your local news stations. They will keep you in the know on everything, from the current weather conditions to which roads and highways are closed, as well as areas experiencing power outages.

Preparedness is key. When you have the necessary tools and plans to get through a winter storm, you won’t feel as stressed or that you’re without. Of course, when it comes to natural disasters, there are some things that are simply out of your control; however, it is better to be proactive so that when it comes time to be reactive, you’re ready.

Fact: There are 7 species of sea turtles and 6 of those are found in the United States and all 6 are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Sadly, they typically end up being eaten by predators or die from not being able to enter the water quickly enough. To combat the reduced population, regulations have been made to help protect the nesting areas of the turtles on beaches.  A special LED light that uses amber colored LEDs that have longer wavelengths undetectable to turtles are now being used to illuminate coastal areas.  This allows hatch-lings to not be distracted by the street lights and enter the ocean just as nature intended! How amazing!

Do you ever lie awake at night thinking about new ways to cut back on your energy consumption? You'll soon be able to rest soundly, because there's a new piece of technology that can make all your dreams come true. One of the trendiest ways to save energy with your home electrical work is by disaggregation, or breaking down consumption appliance by appliance so you can easily identify where you need to cut back. Now there's a way to hack into your circuit box and make disaggregation easy. Read on to learn more.

Reading the Data from the Circuit Box

There are a few different ways to acquire the data you need on the energy consumption of your various appliances and electronics in order to make informed decisions about conservation. One is to purchase all new smart devices, linked up to the Internet of Things, that let you monitor their performance individually. If you don't want to replace all your appliances and equipment just yet, you can purchase smart plugs that monitor the electricity usage of whatever you connect them to. There are also utility companies that are piloting disaggregation programs in homes that are hooked up to smart meters.

There's at least one device available, however, that allows you to look at all your appliances at once, without having to buy new equipment or rely on your utility company. The Neurio is a gadget that connects to your main circuit panel and monitors all the electricity that goes out through the various circuits in your home. Next, it sends the data to the Neurio server, where it is broken down even further to identify which devices are using how much energy. Then the data comes back to you, where you can read it using your smart phone or computer.

Informed Decisions About Your Electrical Work

From there, you can use that data and make decisions about when to cut back on using certain devices or appliances, or to run them at different times of the day. The Neurio will let you know just how much you're spending on powering things like dryers, and also tell you how much power you're wasting due to phantom loads or always-on technology. If you keep an eye on the data, you'll get an early warning when an appliance is lagging in efficiency, and know where you can make the most impact when it comes time to replace some of your older equipment with modern, energy-efficient devices.

Installing the Neurio is a somewhat complicated affair, involving connecting it to your main panel, so your best bet is to get an experienced electrician to handle the task. If you need help disaggregating your energy consumption, or any other modifications to your electrical work, contact a qualified residential electrician today.

Acquiring Pennington generators falls under preparedness for emergencies. With such equipment available, there is no need to worry about unexpected power outage for there is a ready alternative source of energy to run several appliances, depending on the power capacity. In purchasing such apparatus, several aspects should be considered. It offers an array of advantages and disadvantages, thus these should be weighed before considering the purchase of equipment that will best fits a household’s needs.

Also referred to as the emergency power source, it is generally known to produce clean energy, converting fuel into electricity in the process. Most use gasoline, because this is one of the cheapest fuel alternatives. However, some run with diesel or propane. Fuel is readily available almost everywhere, but some prefer storing fuels at home so that when the need arises, it can be easily loaded to the generators. Note however that fuel, especially those that are fossil based have short shelf life. Storing would entail the purchase of anti-coagulants to lengthen the storage life of fuel. Therefore it is not also advisable to keep the fuel inside the generator set for it may pose a certain degree of risk to the system, which may lead to permanent damage.

The engine of the equipment requires regular test runs. It is not recommended to allow it to stand idle for a long time. Allowing it to stand idle would lead to malfunction. Once every month, even in the absence of a power outage, Pennington generators should be run and allow to run so as to optimize its operation. This is to prevent the scenario of having a dysfunctional system when real power emergency occurs.

In running the engine, an average noise level of 60-70 decibels is produced for portable type and even higher for heavy duty types. Portable Pennington generators actually exceed the noise level produced by normal conversation by a few decibels, thus it is more advisable to choose this instead. In general, noise is a distraction that can hinder the normal flow of activities in the household. But it should be noted that power outage does not happen often and the noise is just a little sacrifice compared to the benefits that we reap from a reliable alternative energy source in times of emergency.

The dimensions of the entire package should likewise be considered. Compact versions, considered to be space savers, are more favorable because it is easier to keep and store compared to the bulky heavy duty type. However, if the heavy duty type is preferred, especially for larger Pennington households with larger electricity demand, transportability and mobility can be assured if the generator has built in wheels.

Lastly, it should be made sure that the product purchased complies with the safety and environmental standards. This way, it can be assured that only clean energy is generated and no harmful fumes that can adversely affect the health of family members are emitted.

In choosing Pennington generators, make sure that it is worth the investment by studying carefully all the aspects of the equipment.