Helpful Tips

Make sure your bathrooms, kitchen and exterior receptacles are GFCI protected. These devices are also known as "people protectors" because they protect you from ground fault currents. A GFCI receptacle does NOT protect against circuit overloads and short circuits.

Your family should be protected in the event of a fire. Smoke detectors should be installed inside every bedroom and in the hallway adjoining the bedrooms. Every floor which has a bedroom should have a smoke detector and EVERY detector in the house should be interconnected. When one detector goes off every detector will sound.

If you have fuses in your home and you are constantly blowing fuses, the remedy is not to put in a larger fuse. This will create excessive heat on the wiring which could cause a fire. The circuit should be split into two circuits or find out what appliance is using the most watts and put it on a separate circuit.

All electrical appliances (e.g. Toaster, coffee maker, microwave, vacuum cleaner, etc.) have plates on them which provide electrical information about the appliance. Each 15 amp circuit will provide 1800 watts of power and each 20 amp circuit will provide 2400 watts of power. None of these circuits should exceed 80% of their capacity. When trying to figure out whether your circuit is overloaded count the number of watts on the circuit by looking at these plates. A 100 watt light bulb uses 100 watts of power. After you have counted all the items on the circuit you should have a good idea of how many watts are being used on the circuit. Remember the circuit should not exceed 80% of its capacity.

Using dimmers in place of switches will increase the life of the light bulb(s) in the fixture(s). The dimmer will also decrease the use of electricity resulting in a lower electric bill.