Sitting here in Los Angeles, I’ll be keeping my eye on an ingenious new program in New York designed to save energy and create green collar jobs. On June 22nd, the State of New York adopted a law which will provide billions of dollars for property owners to make energy efficiency improvements. What’s so ingenious about that? The State funding won’t be for grants, but for loans. The loans will be paid back to the State in installments whenever an energy bill like an electric bill is paid.

Install a Ceiling Fan — Save Electricity Here’s how it’s supposed to work. Let’s say a property owner takes out a loan for improving insulation and installing a ceiling fan. This should save on the electric bill for A/C in the summer, freeing up the property owner to pay an installment of the loan. The utility company will charge as much as before the insulation and ceiling fan were installed and put the savings on the electric bill towards paying off the loan. When the loan is fully paid, the property owner will start seeing a lower electric bill. This is “on-bill recovery” — the loan is repaid with each payment of a lower utility bill.

The beauty part for New York is that the State won’t have to administer these little loans. People are good about paying their electric bills so the State can expect that most of the loans will be repaid. Of course, this puts the utility company in the middle, adding to its administrative load. But in some cases, the utility company may benefit in the long run by reducing the need to build new power plants.

Save Energy and Create 60,000 Green Collar Jobs New York hopes that 1,000,000 property owners throughout the State will take out loans for improved insulation, ceiling fans, installation of more efficient Energy-Star appliances, etc. Of course, this will mean more efficient use of electricity, heating oil, etc. And also importantly, New York hopes that these loans will create 60,000 “green collar” jobs. These will be new jobs in a sector that has been particularly hard-hit by the recession, construction.

As an electrician, I’m well-aware that construction jobs and jobs in many other sectors have been hard hit in L.A., too. I’m going to be watching how this program works for New York and will keep you updated. In the meantime, if you need electrical work in Los Angeles County, please give me a call at (800) 990-9490 or click my The Electric Connection homepage.

As you go through your home and do some spring cleaning, you are probably doing some needed updates to your home. While you are taking care of jobs that have been stacking up for months, you should also consider evaluating the safety of your home. Things like smoke detectors are often overlooked. We are so used to seeing them in the corner of the room, you rarely give them much thought, that is until you need them. An electrician in Pasadena can install hard-wired smoke detectors that really can be forgotten about, but will still work. That is important. You can rely on The Electric Connection to send out an experienced electrician to complete the installation for you.

Smoke detectors are typically out of sight, out of mind, until they start chirping to remind you the battery is low. If the chirping is ignored, the battery will die and the smoke detector will become nothing more than a fixture on the ceiling. With hard-wired smoke detectors, you don’t have to worry about the batteries going dead and your home left vulnerable. The smoke detectors are wired directly into your home’s main power. As long as your home has power, your smoke detectors will work. There is also a spot for backup batteries in case of a power outage.

When the Pasadena electrician installs the smoke detectors, you will get the added safety feature of all the smoke detectors being interlinked. When one detector goes off, every detector that is hard-wired will sound. This can add several seconds to your alert time. If you have ever seen a house fire or been involved in one, you know how fast it can go. Every second counts. If you are ready to add an additional layer of safety to your home, give The Electric Connection a call today and schedule your installation.

Fun Fact: According to studies conducted by photobiologist Dr. John Nash Ott, overall academic achievement improved and hyperactivity problems dissipated when students were taught in classrooms containing full-spectrum lighting. *Full spectrum light fixtures emulate natural light from the sun. You can find many contemporary lighting options at Capitol Lighting that feature full spectrum lighting.

Supplying our children with the full spectrum light is more important to promoting their academic success than providing them with the greatest tutoring services in the world. Full-spectrum lighting should be standard in all rooms where children spend a considerable amount of time. Children’s bedrooms and study areas should be furnished with layered sources of full spectrum light, including dimmers, to accommodate their daily circadian rhythms. This promotes restful sleep, and allows children to perform at their best in school.

Full spectrum lighting from Capitol Lighting offers benefits for beyond the classroom, office spaces should be equipped with full spectrum lighting to promote maximum productivity and energy levels.

Visit a Capitol Lighting showroom to view contemporary lighting ideas in table lamps, floor lamps and overhead lighting. Capitol Lighting has the best selection of contemporary lighting ideas in the country. If there isn’t a showroom nearby, go to 1-800Lighting.com to view our vast selection. The experts at Capitol Lighting can offer you advice regarding placement of light fixtures, installation of different types of lights, and tips on types of lighting. Let their certified lighting professionals help your family reap the benefits of full-spectrum lighting for optimum health and mental acuity.

Temperatures are still mild enough that you likely aren’t thinking about the implications of snow and ice just yet, but now is actually the perfect time to start considering it, and deciding what you’re going to do about it when it hits.

A driveway heating system will help you with the inconvenience of shoveling snow and the safety concerns involved with walking on icy surfaces, but what about your roof? Winters are particularly harder on roofs than any other season, especially if you have an asphalt or shingle roof.

The buildup of ice and snow adds weight to your roof that it is not designed to handle. Your roof is your home’s first line of defense against inclement weather, but it can only take so much pressure. The ice that forms in the winter creates ice dams—formed from melted snow refreezing and creating a blockage—as well as gutter ice.

Gutter ice can cause gutters to become too heavy and rip away from your home. Not only does this mean you’ll have to repair and/or replace your gutters, you may also have to contend with the property damage that this could very well leave behind.

Even without ice as a factor, snow itself poses a risk to your roof. This is especially true if you have a flat roof, or an older home with a weakened roof structure already. The problem is that as the snow builds up, it creates too much weight, and your roof can crack or even collapse under all the strain.

The solution to this problem is having roof heating cables installed. These cables do just what the name implies: they keep your roof warm so that snow and ice never have a chance to buildup. Rather, it melts upon impact and drains from your gutters and downspouts just as rainwater would.