Our dependence on electricity is truly astonishing. In every room of your home you’ll find multiple ways electricity is used that we often take for granted. If not handled with care, electricity can pose serious threats of electric shock and burn. One way that these types of accidents can occur is when babies and children are able to roam freely and get their hands on electrical devices. Consider ways of childproofing your house from potential electrical hazards before a serious accident occurs. Our well-trained team at Expert Electric has compiled a list of measures so that you can get started.

To identify any electrical hazards in your home, start by going room by room. For a more thorough approach, get down on your hands and knees to view the potential hazards from a child’s perspective. At this lower vantage point you are looking at all the electrical outlets, power strip bars and power cords. Be sure to look behind furniture and up on any side tables, dressers or counter tops. Make a list of electrical hazards that you have identified and get to work addressing those issues.

Childproofing your electrical outlets will be one of the most basic and simplest solutions. There are usually multiple outlets in each room and they seem to be attracted to them. Outlets are very tempting little spots on the wall for children to stick random objects into. To prevent this dangerous behavior from happening, install electrical outlet caps or safety plates over the top of unused outlets. This will block children from sticking their fingers and other items into the holes, which can cause the electrical current from flowing to the child. All unused outlets that are accessible to children should be covered.

Power bars are commonly used around the home to power numerous electrical devices located in the same room, such as a television system or computer setup. In these areas, multiple cords are often found tangled up in a pile and are all plugged into one power strip on the floor or in a cabinet. Childproofing a power strip can easily be done to protect your child from dangerous electrical shock or burn. Purchase and install power strip covers on child-accessible power bars. These covers wrap around the power bar and have a hole for the cords to exit. This helps to prevent children from tampering with and pulling out cords. At times gaps may occur in the covers hole, duct tape these areas to prevent little fingers from entering into the cover.

Securing electrical cords will be an important safety measure. If a child can pull on an electrical cord to dislodge the prongs it can create an opportunity for electrical shock. Alternatively, the connected electrical device could fall down due to the tugging and cause an injury to the child’s head. Secure these types of hazards by tucking electrical cables safely out of reach or plugging them in different areas of the room not accessible to children. If the cords are too long, shorten them by rolling up the cord into your hand and tying with a zip tie. Any cords that run along the floor can be a tripping hazard and should be secured with strong tape or a rubber cord cover that can be purchased in any length.

We want to help you have piece of mind about your home and rest easy knowing you’re safe from electrical accidents. For more ideas or questions that you have regarding childproofing your home for electrical hazards, contact our trained and courteous technicians at Expert Electric. Call us today at 604-681-8338.

If you need to add more light to the dark corners of your home—whether they are inside or outside—an electrician who specializes in custom lighting projects might be exactly what you need. The projects done by a licensed electrician can be customized to include all types of home lighting, including interior lighting, recessed lighting, landscape lighting as well as security lighting.

Your first step is deciding what style of lighting fixtures you’ll want to add to the interior or exterior of your home. Along with functionality, remember to choose lighting fixtures that complement the style of your home decor.

Once you’ve made the decision on what style of lighting fixtures you want, there’s one more step before finding the right electrician in Los Angeles.  That step is to purchase the lighting fixtures that you want to have installed. Now that you’ve made all of the decisions, it’s time to find the right electrician. Los Angeles residents and business know that they can count on The Electric Connection as a reliable and professional electrical contracting company that’s been in business for over 30 years.

We’ll be able to quickly install your new interior lighting or outdoor lights for you.  We’ll even rewire your entire home for you if necessary and bring your old wiring up to the current code requirements. We have years of experience when it comes to wiring installations as well as any other types of electrical services you might need such as new outlets, ceiling or bath fans, panel upgrades and more.

We’re fully licensed, bonded and insured electricians, and we’ll do it right the first time. Come visit us at: www.theelectricconnection.com today and see what we can do for you!

The costs of lighting changes from year to year. As technology gets better and demand increases, prices drop, effcicieny increases, and everyone is in a win-win situation. With this ever changing landscape comes misinformation, which is why we have put together this post.

This post is going to lay out the true tennis court lighting costs for 2017. On top of that, we are going to go over some tips and things to be on the look out for in regards to choosing the best light fixture for your tennis court that will save you money and produce the best illumination possible.

This post will be broken into two parts; the average costs that are associated with the actual light fixtures themselves and the costs associated with them. Then, the average costs of powering your lights and how to achieve a higher return on investment by being a smart buyer.

Let’s start off with defining what exactly tennis court lighting is, and why it matters.

For starters, tennis court lighting is the application term for high mast lighting. High masts are the other technical terms, there are many that go far beyond the scope of this post. But, we think you should know the definition of lumens as we use it quite often. Technically, a lumen is the SI unit of luminous flux. Although that doesn’t say much, just know that lumens, in simple terms, is the amount of light being emitted by a given fixture. The more lumens, the more light you will have being output.

Now that we have a basic understanding of what tennis court lights actually are, we can get into the real costs of tennis court lights. Hopefully, these costs allow you to be aware of all the options and give you a better understanding on how to go about selecting the proper lighting technology for your court.

The costs associated with your tennis court / retrofit kits are typically much cheaper)

4. Quantity of fixtures needed

5. Your tennis court lux requirements or desires

As with any industry, what brand you buy from and what technology you buy is going to be the biggest cost variable. The most important thing to keep in mind is not only the initial costs of a fixture, but also the costs of running such fixtures over the span of it’s lifetime.

If, for example, you have one light that consumes 1000 watts of light and another that consumes 400 watts but the first one was only $500 and the second one was $1,000, which would you buy all else equal? Well, assuming they both output the same amount of light it actually makese sense to go with the second light, even though it costs twice as much.

Why you ask?

Because the cost to operate the 1000 watt light is more than double that of the 400 watt light, which over the lights lifespan can actually end up costing you much more to run the 1000w light.

These numbers aren’t entirely fictionary either, in fact; they are very close to real life examples we have seen when other tennis courts convert to LED technology from metal halide or HPS. What we haven’t described in the above example though is other cost saving benefits that LED has besides just being more efficient; but we will get to that later.

As for actual costs, they can vary far too greatly for us to list here. It all depends on what lighting technology you choose (think LED, metal halide, etc), which company you buy from, the quantity you need, if you are retrofitting or fully replacing your fixture, and what your lumen output requirements are.

A quick note on retrofitting or replacing in simple terms; retrofitting is typically cheaper for a couple of reasons. Retrofitting in short, is the process of replacing only the luminaire source from your fixture, instead of the entire fixture itself. LED vs metal halide cost to run in our example, the cost analysis can be run between any technologies in the same way. As you will see though after comparing metal halide’s  cost to run vs LED, that LED is far more efficient and costs significantly less to run.

Let’s get into the example:

Let us assume you have 10 lights. Currently, your high masts are metal halide and use 1,000 watts per fixture. Now, let’s assume you are looking for a more efficient technology and you come across LED high mast lights. You find a comparable light which will output the same amount of light (or lumens), but only consumes 400 watts per fixture.

In total, the metal halide lights are consuming 10,000 watts (assuming you have 10 lights) and the LEDs would be using only 4,000 watts if installed. That is 2.5 times less energy being consumed, which can visibility lead to huge savings.

This reduction from 1,000 watts to 400 watts per fixture in the metal halide to LED conversion in exactly why sports field, including tennis courts, are converting to LED.

Extra Tips for Reducing Costs

Conclusion

Hopefully the explainations of where the cost of tennis court lights are in 2017 have been thorough. While it’s impossible to give exact prices for every scenario, we hope this has been a starting point to your tennis courts lighting system.

Hi Nick,

Mike and I just wanted to thank you and Rick for the excellent service yesterday, a Sunday during a major power outage at that.  From the time I placed the call for help to the time Rick walked out of our soon-to-be-warm-again home, it was only an unbelievable 1.5 hrs!!  I so appreciate your ‘straight-shooting’ with me on the phone about whether our problem could be Oncor related or in our wiring and the option to switch our dead furnace thermostat to the one working leg of power we seemed to have.  Rick arrived just when he said he would, went right to work and determined that we were indeed receiving full power from Oncor, but one of our breakers was bad.  He replaced it, checked things out and was on his way.

You have impressed us with your quality of service.  We certainly will use you again and recommend you when someone asks if we know a good electrician….we do now!

If you cannot answer this question with confidence please ask yourself…  WHO DID I JUST LET INTO MY FAMILIES HOME?  Many people have made this mistake and some paid the ultimate sacrifice.  Some just fell victim to theft, such as the scam where a handyman would offer services to gain access into someone’s home and then steal from them.  You can read more about this crime here.  Unfortunately, there have been more victims experiencing much worse crime.  We do not need to get into the details for the purpose of this blog but we have all heard about them on the news, social media and the stories are very easy to find and numerous.

An electrician on drugs is a recipe for disaster.  Yes an electrician on drugs may not intentionally try to harm you, but how many traffic deaths happen every single hour in the US from people under the influence of drugs or alcohol?  You wouldn’t let a person under the influence of drugs or alcohol drive your children to school, so why would you let them perform electrical work in your home?  Our service electrician’s undergo a drug screen and are also subject to random checks throughout the year.

Our service professionals undergo a thorough background check before being hired.  We won’t just send anyone into your home.  We are going to send a true professional that meets our stringent guidelines.  He is not going to steal from you.  He is not going to harm you.  He is there to help you.  Our electricians truly care about you and the work they are performing for you.

We are here to serve YOU, our customer!  We want a customer for life.  We are not here to steal from you or take advantage of anyone!  We are here to provide a VALUABLE service to you.  We will stand behind our work and make sure you are 100% satisfied.  We guarantee it with the way we act in our organizations culture, and also in writing.  If for some reason you are not 100% satisfied please let us know.  We will not leave until we get it right.  It’s our guarantee to you, our valued customer.

Many contractors say that.  You win some you lose some.  Not with us!  No we do not get every job we bid on, but we realize there may be other factors at play.  What we care about is you truly understand the price presented to you.  You know what options and solutions you have.  You know what will be done, how it will be done, and that we will stand behind our work.  You know the value you are getting when you choose Custom Electrical Services.

It’s common to be nervous when a service person shows up to your home.  Your thinking how much is this going to cost me?  Am I getting the best bang for my buck?  Do I have other options?  At Custom Electrical Services, our technicians are trained for this.  We will work to put you at ease and make sure you fully understand everything presented to you.  We will take the time to fully evaluate your situation and present it to you in a professional manner that you can understand.  Price is not everything.  We will not change the price of the work performed.  The straightforward price you receive will not change if it takes our electrician longer than expected.  You won’t be left thinking, “I hope he can work faster so my bill will be less”.  Lets think about this common statement for just a second.  Would you really want a mechanic hurrying up to put new brakes on your families car?  Of course you wouldn’t!  You would want the mechanic to perform the job as best as possible.  And that is our promise to you.  Give you the best possible job and the most reasonable rate possible.  We are professionals.  We are Custom Electrical Services.

But wait!  A Custom Electrical Services technician is not just there to give you an estimate or fix that minor problem you called about.  We are here to truly help you.  When is the last time someone checked the connections in your electrical panel?  1 year, 10, or never?  Electrical connections can loosen over time.  Electricians are trained to look for this.  As part of our service fee we will inspect your breaker box or electrical panel.  Identify any problems such as loose connections, non code compliant breakers, under sized wire, corrosion, heat, and more!  What if you have an old Federal Pacific Panel and you didn’t even release the dangers they present.  Our technician will identify and let you know of any potential safety problems.

Are all of your smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms functioning properly?  For no additional charge we will test all your smoke alarm units and identify any that are not functioning properly.  We will also replace all your batteries at the same time.  It is all part of the service designed to keep you, your family, and your home safe.  Our commitment to you!