In this series, we’re helping you save energy at your homes and businesses, room by room.

We’re pulling out all the stops to give you the best tips to use in the bedroom – for energy-efficient lighting, that is!

1. Take a survey of all your light fixtures – table lamps, floor lamps, track lights, and any ceiling fans, chandeliers, or pendant lights. How many of these use incandescent light bulbs? If the answer is greater than zero, we’ve identified the first way you can cut down your energy consumption in the bedroom: Swap out all your incandescent household, chandelier, and reflector light bulbs for

Using only 0.3 watts of power, it won’t cost you more than $0.20 to operate each year. That’s 90% less than the traditional incandescent. Not to mention it has a 100,000-hour rated life!

4. What other light fixtures do you use? Wall-mounted reading lights? Shelf lights? Display lights? You can save even more energy by upgrading these fixtures to LED or fluorescent.

There are some home repairs you don’t want to tackle. Here are several red flags to look for when you’re buying a home.

common plumbing problems. Water damage is the homeowner’s mortal enemy. Water causes foundation problems, rot and mold. Want to move into that mess? Probably not.

To see if your potential purchase has suffered the consequences of water damage, start outside and

When you see water damage near an electrical outlet or a light fixture, you may have stumbled onto a fire risk. But outlets aren’t the only place to look for potential electrical problems.

Look for flickering and blinking, which signals a poor connection somewhere along the circuit. Check to see if both halves of electrical outlets are functioning. Make sure bathrooms, kitchens, garages and outdoors have professional electrician should determine whether the home’s circuits or fuses provide adequate power and service. The electrician can look for burned wiring, improper connections, dead-end wiring or ungrounded switches and outlets.

Your home inspector is a font of knowledge! Have the inspector check the air quality of the home to see if any mold spores are present — if water leakage or other common plumbing problems have been an issue, mold may be, too.

The inspector can ensure that the heating and cooling systems are properly installed. The inspector can also determine how old the HVAC system is and ensure that its been maintained

Your inspector will also determine the type of pipe that supplies water to the house—old lead and galvanized steel pipes are going to need replacing.

If the house you’re considering fails these tests, it may be best to move onto the next. If you still think it’s the right house for you, despite the presence of common plumbing problems or the need for an electrical overhaul, negotiate a lower price or ask the seller to pay for needed fixes.

Questions? Thoughts? Leave a note in the Comments section orschedule service today.

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.