1. Outdoor Lighting
Enhance Property Value and Curb Appeal
Any addition to your home will increase your property value. The beauty of outdoor lighting is you will get an immediate return on your investment, while enjoying all the great benefits it will provide you and your family. According to the National Association of Home Builders, 41% of potential buyers rate outdoor lighting as an essential quality for their desired home, and 49% rated it as a desirable quality. By strategically placing outdoor lighting throughout your yard you can showcase the great features, and increase your curb appeal. Outdoor lights can also be used to highlight the special architectural features of your home. One technique that many designers use is the moonlight effect. With this design plan, light is soft and no brighter than that of a full moon, but still illuminates special outdoor spaces. You’ll make all your neighbors jealous with your unique and exquisite outdoor lighting!
Keep Everyone Safe
Not only is outdoor lighting beautiful, it is also an excellent way to make your home a safer place for your family, friends, and any other guests that visit your property. As mentioned earlier, you can you use light posts to illuminate paths, walkways, and even your driveway. It is also important to put lights near any stairs, or uneven areas. The lights will guide people at night which will help prevent injuries from falling or twisting an ankle. This will also reduce the risk of passerby slipping and falling near your property, and suing you for damages. Consider installing outdoor lighting in high traffic areas like patios, decks, around the pool, and outdoor seating areas. By using outdoor lighting, you can keep you family safe while enjoying your yard at night.
Outdoor Lighting Deters Crime
One of the most important features of outdoor lighting is adding security to your home and deterring crime. According to most sources, burglary is the most common threat to your home, occurring every 13 seconds in the US. Flood lights are a good way to brighten dark nooks and crannies created by the design of your home. Guests will also feel more comfortable coming to your home at night if they can see a clear path to your front door and your porch is well-lit. Well maintained landscape lighting shows people that your home is well cared for, which can deter trespassing and theft. If you are worried that constant light will increase your utility bills, you can use lights with motion sensors so that they only come on when people are in range. This will save you money, and surprise people who try to trespass on your property. You can also set timers on your outdoor lights, so that they come on as soon as it gets dark outside or when you are away on vacation.
2. Interior Lighting
Save Money
One of the biggest advantages to updating the lighting in your home is the cost saving you will see from its energy efficiency. New LED lights can cut down on your energy use, saving significantly month-to-month on your energy bill. Not only do LED lights draw less power, but they are an attractive way to increase the lighting in your home while keeping within your household budget.
Improve Your Health
There is something to be said for adding more light into your life. There is a range of health benefits that can come from both natural and artificial light. Natural light from the sun can improve your mood and ward off depression. Artificial light can act in a similar fashion by helping the brain to produce more serotonin and less melatonin, reducing depression and premenstrual dysphoric disorders as well as helping with depression during pregnancy.
Helps With Aging Eyesight
As you age, your eyesight may start to dwindle. It becomes harder to see fine print without the help of reading glasses. To help with aging eyesight, bright and effective lighting is recommended. This can prevent the eyes from working overtime and straining to see in darker conditions. With a few luminous lights, you can assist your eyes with reading and help them from degrading even further.
Add Value To Your Home
If you are looking to sell your home in the near future, you may want to consider adding more lighting. Light can do wonders for a potential home sale as it adds value and can entice a buyer into choosing your home over another. Light creates warmth and can help a buyer see the potential of every room they enter. They will be able to envision living in your home and literally see the benefits of makes your home so special to them.
3. Electrical Heating
The Better Electric Baseboard Heater
SoftHEAT hydronic baseboards takes everything that’s great about a standard baseboard and takes it to the next level with features that improve comfort, save on energy use and make it a great choice for homes with kids or pets.
SoftHEAT hydronic baseboards, front left, uses a non-toxic mineral oil to deliver consistent heat to your room.
So how exactly does the SoftHEAT hydronic baseboard improve energy efficiency and comfort? It’s all about the element.
A standard electric baseboard generates heat when electricity passes through a heating element. The element spreads heat to the surrounding air through metal fins attached to the element.
With SoftHEAT, the heating element is enclosed in a copper tube that’s filled with a non-toxic mineral oil. The element heats the fluid, which disperses the heat to the aluminum fins along the heater tube. It may sound like a subtle difference, but it’s anything but.
That mineral oil holds onto heat when the element switches off, which provides consistent warmth into and minimizes temperature fluctuations in your room. In other words, it keeps you more comfortable while saving energy.
Lower Surface Temperatures
The enclosed element also comes with lower surface temperatures than a standard baseboard. That’s great for homes with children. It also helps those with allergies because the heater doesn’t singe airborne particles in the air or dry out the air as much as a standard baseboard.
Final Review
- Operates silently with no moving parts
- Is made with quality materials
- Is assembled in the United States
- Keeps you and your family warm.
4. Ceiling Fans
The cooling benefits of energy efficient ceiling fans in summer are widely understood, however ceiling fans are also useful in creating a comfortable environment in winter. They do this by evenly distributing warm air around a room. Quality modern ceiling fans also include a ‘winter mode’ to prevent the cooling draft that is so useful in summer.
Warm Air Distribution
In winter we typically close up our houses and heat them. This creates limited circulation resulting in warm air rising to the ceiling and cool air pooling on the floor. Unfortunately we spend most of our time in the cool air closer to the floor leading to our turning up the thermostat to ensure the space we inhabit is comfortable. In rooms with high ceilings this effect is particularly apparent.
This problem of cool air on the floor and warm air on the ceiling is easily solved by turning on your ceiling fans in winter. All quality modern ceiling fans have a ‘winter mode’ that reverses the direction of rotation of the ceiling fan, preventing the cooling draft that is so valuable in the hotter months. It does this by drawing air up to the fan from the middle of the room and then pushing it out along the ceiling and then back down the walls, gently mixing the air.
How to turn on a ceiling fan’s ‘winter mode’
All good modern fans have a ‘winter mode’ that reverses the fan’s direction of rotation. Usually this is a switch on the hub or motor housing of the fan. Better fans will inset the switch so that it doesn’t detract from the styling of the fan.
When running the fan in winter it is nearly always best to run it on low speed. All you are trying to achieve is to gently mix the air without creating a draft. The exception to this is when you have a particularly large space and vaulted ceilings.
Window Condensation and dry air
An additional benefit of the recirculation of the air around the room is that air is less prone to stagnate against the windows, where it cools and then sheds its moisture content onto the window. This has the double benefits of reducing window condensation and increasing the humidity of the space, helping to limit the dehydrating effect on your skin of cold environments.
Energy savings
Importantly using your ceiling fans in winter also reduces your energy bill. When you bring the warm air down from the ceiling you can lower the temperature of the thermostat for the same comfort level. It has been estimated that this can result in a saving in your heating costs of 24%. Of course this depends on your climate, house, heating method, and
may other factors. However regardless of your situation it is nearly always more energy efficient to redistribute already warm air using an energy efficient ceiling fan than heating more air to raise the ambient temperature within your home. Ceiling fans are a great way to conserve energy during the fall and winter months. Running your fans in reverse keeps the hot air in your home. Installations are fast, budget friendly, and can be installed just about anywhere in your home.
5. Bathroom Fans
Benefits of Bathroom Exhaust Fans
For air conditioning to work properly, there need to be exhaust fans throughout your home, including in your bathroom.
You probably use it every time you take a shower or bath: the exhaust fan in your bathroom plays an important role in the comfort of your home. For air conditioning to work properly, there need to be exhaust fans throughout your home, including in your bathroom.
The Purpose
The main reason why you have an exhaust fan in your bathroom is to help decrease the amount of moisture that gets trapped in there. Think about what you do in the bathroom – the sink, toilet, tub, and showerhead are using up and dispensing water all the time. You’re so used to this that you don’t much of it, if at all. They also help to get rid of smells in the bathroom, remove potentially toxic fumes, and make the air in the bathroom cleaner and easier to breathe.
They Get Rid of Smells
There are many different ways to cover up unpleasant smells in your bathroom – candles, incense, and even bottles of scented room spray. All of these do work, but they are also temporary solutions. Plus, if you or anyone else in your family is sensitive to smells, the other smells on top of the original bad odor that you are trying to mask will only aggravate those sensitivities. Turning on the exhaust fan improves the ventilation in the bathroom. It’s also good manners since you can make the experience more pleasant for the next person who needs to use it.
They Lower Humidity
Humidity in the summertime can also be another huge problem. Heat is one thing, but dry heat behaves differently than wet heat, and both can cause different health problems. Exhaust fans help lower the humidity in the bathroom. Using the fans can help protect the paint, wallpaper, and even the door!
They Get Rid of Contaminants
The fumes left behind by chemicals used for cleaning the bathroom, or hidden mold that is hiding behind the toilet or under the cabinet can easily make anyone sick. Bathroom exhaust fans help deal with these problems.
6. Smoke/Carbon Detectors
Styles
There are many different types of smoke alarms for your home. For a whole home coverage, we recommend that you install interconnected smoke alarms. Instead of your smoke alarms operating independently of one another, interconnected smoke alarms work as an interlinked system. If one alarm goes off, the rest of the alarms will follow suit. This creates an entire smoke alarm system that is dedicated to your family’s safety. Below are some benefits of having interlinked smoke alarms in your home.
Full Home Coverage
When it comes to staying safe from home fires, time is of the essence, with only a couple minutes to escape from a house fire. If a fire starts on the top floor of your home and you are in the basement, there’s a chance you may not be able to hear the alarm going off. If you have an interlinked smoke alarm system in your home, the basement smoke alarm will sound when the top floor alarm goes off. You will be able hear the alarm regardless of where you are, compared to where the initial alarm is. In fact, according to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the majority of fatalities stemming from home fires in the United States were located in a different room than where the fire started. An interconnected smoke alarm system will help give you and your family peace of mind knowing your entire house is fully protected.
Wireless Connection
Past interlinked smoke alarm systems were hardwired to each other through your home’s electrical system in order to work properly. Thanks to new technology, you have the option to install wireless interconnected smoke alarm systems in your home. These alarms are easy to install and are battery operated, so your family is still protected in the event of a power outage. First Alert’s wireless model also offers voice and location alerts, which tells you the type of emergency and where danger is, allowing you can choose the safest evacuation route.
7. Home Entertainment
Benefits of mounting your t.v.
A large flat screen, which is mounted on the wall, can add a good finishing look to the interior of the living room. The missing cupboard or TV table creates more space in the living room. Along with it, the TV hung on the wall looks classy and modern. However, it is not only useful in the living room to hang the TV on the wall. The TV in the kitchen or in the bedroom is also suitable for hanging installation. It saves space and creates an attractive look.
Many TV sets are already wall-mounted at the factory. In our guide, we will tell you which aspects you should consider while hanging TV installation on the wall and how to hide the cables skillfully.
TV wall mounting offers many benefits
There are many advantages to mounting the large flat screen on the wall:
- The device cannot be accidentally knocked over – a great advantage in households with small children or pets
- The space in the room is used to the last centimeter
- The viewing angle and the height can be perfectly matched to your own requirements
- The result is a very elegant look
- Of course, it is important that a suitable wall bracket is selected and that it is correctly mounted on the wall so that the device cannot fall off the wall.
Wall mounting an LCD or plasma TV has many advantages. In addition to the enormous space savings, a flat-screen on the wall looks like a “moving” picture.
For this reason, there are several wall brackets available in the market for every TV size and with multiple functions. Mounting your TV on the wall guarantees you an unforgettable and overwhelming viewing experience from every corner of your living room
8. Generators
Benefits of a Generator to Power the Whole House
The benefits of owning a whole house emergency generator are many. They include, among others:
- Indoor climate control during a power outage. Remember, even natural gas heating needs electricity.
- Preventing food spoilage.
- Lighting as needed.
- Power to radio, television, or computers–including for weather bulletins.
- Ability to run any home medical devices that run on electricity.
- Qualifies for a discount on your insurance policy.
- Adds actual value to your home or business.
- Overall peace of mind and sense of security.
Advice for Using a Generator to Power the House
Along with the safety precautions mentioned above, we have one more piece of advice: if you decide to purchase an entire house generator, take good care of it since it will have been a large investment.
David Agrell of Popular Mechanics says that “Your generator will stay healthy through a lifetime of outages if you”:
- Check the engine oil daily during use,
- Run it at no more than 75 percent of its rated capacity,
- Replace overworked or deformed motor brushes,
- Avoid starting or stopping it under load whenever possible.
So Let’s Get That Generator Up and Running
People who have bought generators to power whole houses will tell you these were wise investments. And you can easily tell who these people are. They are your neighbors–the ones whose lights are still on during a blackout.
Buying a whole house backup generator is not a decision to take lightly, but when you finally decide to do it, we doubt you’ll have any regrets. Go ahead and call us today and find out more details.
9. Security Cameras
What are the Benefits of Having a Surveillance Camera?
Not that long ago, surveillance cameras were only used by businesses, parking garages, and government agencies.
But now, outdoor security cameras are all over suburban neighborhoods and urban residential complexes. People are increasingly demanding high-tech home security systems, and these systems are now more powerful and affordable than ever.
With increased availability and ease of installation, homeowners can easily take advantage of the many benefits of surveillance cameras around the home.
If you’re looking for a way to boost your home security, security cameras are a fantastic place to start.
Here are the top benefits of home surveillance cameras, as well as some must-have features to help you choose a surveillance camera system that’s just right for your home.
Considering surveillance cameras for your home? Here are some of the biggest benefits.
Surveillance cameras can deter crime!!!
Visible surveillance camera systems have the potential to reduce and deter crime.
In 2013, a UNC Charlotte researcher conducted a study on the habits of burglars. During the study, more than 400 convicted offenders were surveyed about their habits and motivations during a burglary.
Among several factors that participants considered before going through with the crime, the presence of security cameras and home alarm systems played a significant role. If a home security system was prevalent, more than half of the burglars said they would leave that house alone.
Package theft is a common type of crime that can be addressed with security cameras. Even basic surveillance cameras can prevent criminal activity from happening on your property, including package theft.
10. Honey Do-Lists
How long is your “Honey Do!” list?
How often have you wished your spouse would quit nagging you to finish a project of fix a small item around the house.
Does your list get longer and longer and you never seem to remember or get the time to do all the chores?
An even more important question is WHY haven’t you fulfilled those requests?
Our busy lives have people pulling us in a zillion different directions all week long.
It seems reasonable that we should have our evenings and weekends to sit back, watch tv, enjoy a cocktail and relax a bit.
But that isn’t the way it works in mosts home with busy work schedules, kids and their own schedules to attend to makes it almost impossible.
No matter how big or small the task at hand is leave it up to All City Electrical to tackle all your electrical needs.
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