LIGHTING UPGRADES

One of the best upgrades you can do to your home or office is installing updated or custom lighting. In doing so you can change the appearance of the room as dramatically as changing the flooring or painting. By replacing your outdated surface mounted ceiling lights with recessed lighting, the room can gain the feel of a more spacious area. Whether you are entertaining friends or enjoying a movie, installing art lighting, wall wash lighting or indirect lighting along with area lighting and dimmer switches will give you the ability to set the mood of the room. And what better way to compliment your kitchen or just show off your counter tops, appliances and custom back splash or tile work than with above cabinet and under cabinet lighting.

LANDSCAPE LIGHTING

Landscape lighting is another great way of enhancing the looks and security of any home. Wall wash lights and path lights can illuminate the immediate area around the home, creating a warm and welcome feel and eliminating the dark and shadowed entries that typically attract intruders. Well lighting and spot lighting shining on tree canopies, plants and other landscape features add depth and warmth to the area away from the home, inviting yourself and guests to enjoy the outdoors after sunset. Landscape lighting is also a great way to add safety to areas around swimming pools or pathways by highlighting any trip hazards or elevation changes that may not be visible after dark.

ENERGY SAVINGS

You can save on energy costs by installing high efficiency compact fluorescent fixtures and bulbs, occupancy sensors and timer switches. Many of these items are currently being required in states that are “building green” as a way of helping with the growing demand for energy production and to reduce the generation of greenhouse gases. Retrofitting of the existing fluorescent lights in your home or office to high efficiency electronic ballasts and lamps is rapidly becoming another way to save energy as well as doing away with the annoying hum of magnetic ballasts. Not to mention that many existing styles of existing fluorescent lighting will no longer be available in the near future.

CEILING FANS

Installation of ceiling fans will help give the room a cooler feel due to the moving air. This will allow for the thermostat to be set at a warmer temperature, which in turn will help with energy costs.

ATTIC FANS

Here in the heat of the desert southwest, some other great additions for energy savings are thermostat controlled attic fans and whole house fans. Attic fans help clear out the hot air in your attic by pulling in cooler outside air and pushing out the hot attic air that usually surrounds the duct work, making the air conditioning work harder to cool down the air inside the home. The thermostat control allows you to set the temperature you desire then let the fan do its work without the trouble of remembering to turn it on and off. Whole house fans will let you open the doors and windows and draw in the cool outside air during the spring and fall months instead of running the air conditioning thus lowering utility costs as well.

STRUCTURED WIRING

Structured wiring is fast becoming the standard for low voltage communication and cable wiring in new home construction. This type of wiring can be set up for many custom applications such as centrally located computer network hubs feeding multiple computers, multiple televisions with signal from one device such as a DVD player or remote mounted multimedia equipment for wall mounted televisions to allow for clean installations without wires showing from around the electronics.

HOME INSPECTION REPAIRS AND CODE COMPLIANCE UPGRADES

Every three years the National Electric Code is updated. These changes may affect your home based on the year it was constructed and work that may have been done to the home by a non-licensed contractor or “handyman” not familiar with current codes. These items will typically be found during a home inspection when buying or selling the home or while having other work done to the home by a contractor that knows the code. You may also know the age and construction of the home is in need of some upgrades to the current electrical system. Some of the most common items needing updating are GFCI protection for bathroom, outside and kitchen counter top outlets as well as swimming pool lights and decorative fountains and waterfalls.

CIRCUIT UPGRADES

Circuit upgrades are the solution to many common problems happening when an item is used in the home and an outage occurs due to a tripped circuit breaker. These are usually caused by an overload to the existing circuit that may be directly related to the newer appliance drawing more electrical current than the circuit was designed to handle. Some of the most common items causing these overloads are hair dryers, above range microwaves, refrigerators in areas other than the kitchen and laser printers.

SURGE PROTECTION

Proper grounding of your electrical service and installing whole house surge arrestors can help protect the electronics inside of the televisions, computers and other items that fill our homes from the damaging effects of utility and lightning surges that are common during the monsoon season.

SWIMMING POOL ELECTRIC

This is a repair that is needed when the underground wiring that was installed when the pool was built deteriorates and causes an outage. This is also work that will coincide with a remodel of an existing swimming pool that may be getting added equipment like a remote control system or water features.