Most families have a fire plan, a tornado plan, and even a “what to do when you’re locked out of the house plan.” What many families don’t have is a practiced electrical safety plan. You may have told your children a million times not to put their fingers in wall sockets, but have you told them a million times not to fly a kite under power lines?

Here are five key safety tips that your children should not only know, but memorize, when it comes to electricity:

Kids love to climb trees, but trees under power lines may be too dangerous to climb. Teach your kids to always look up before climbing trees. If power lines are running through or near the branches, it is not a safe to climb that tree.

Teach children to never fly kites or carry helium balloons on long strings under or near power lines. Electricity is always looking for a route to the ground; kites and balloons make the perfect conduits.

In some neighborhoods, power lines are buried in the ground. It can be difficult to tell where these lines are located. Teach your children not to dig in the ground in any areas you have not told them are safe.

Transformers are often large, green, metal boxes sitting on the ground. Teach your children that these are not mountains to be climbed or treasures to explore. Tell your children that if they notice one of these boxes open, they should alert an adult immediately.

When lightning strikes, it’s time to head inside. Children should know to go indoors when storms are approaching, but especially when thunder sounds and lightning strikes.

Don’t tell your children these things just once! Make sure that an electrical safety plan is part of your overall emergency preparedness plan. When your children know what to do and not to do around electricity, accidents are less likely to occur.

While many home improvements are well-suited for DIY projects, electrical work requires the skill and experience of a fully licensed electrician. The potential for injury and damage to your home from improperly-installed electrical circuits and fixtures is too great to risk doing the work yourself. In fact, we’ve written about the many dangers of DIY electrical wiring before.

To avoid issues and keep your home running properly, you’ll need to hire a qualified Maryland electrician. Experienced electrical contractors can help you properly install new outlets, wire a new addition or remodeled room, install a ceiling fan, and so much more.

Finding a qualified electrician among the large number of choices in the Maryland can seem daunting. However, there are several good places to look for Maryland electricians whose work you’ll be happy with.

Once you’ve found a few qualified electricians, you can narrow down your list by looking at only those who are licensed in the State of Maryland. You’ll also want to check out ratings on review sites, how many years the company has been in business, and available service offerings—such as 24-hour electrical service.

At Kolb Electric, we have a full staff of licensed Maryland electricians with experience in a variety of home repair and construction projects. To learn more about finding a qualified electrician in Maryland and/or to schedule an appointment with our experts, call us at 877 287-1179 or fill out an online contact form today. Check out our reviews to see what makes us a great choice for any project!

It just makes sense to remodel a home to suit your needs rather than try to find a new house that will accommodate your desire for a home office or additional living space. A basement remodel is an excellent way to add a lot of living space without having to buy a whole new house. These jobs are best left to the professionals. However, there are plenty of handy folks who can complete some of the basic construction needs. One thing that should never be handled by someone who is not trained and certified is the Burbank electrical requirements that will be necessary. It is best and often required by city code to hire an electrician like those at The Electric Connection to complete the job.

There are too many things that can go wrong when somebody who is not familiar with the dangers of electricity attempts to wire outlets and lighting for a new space. An electrician in Burbank will be able to safely complete the wiring up to code. This is typically necessary to secure home owner’s insurance. It also gives you peace of mind knowing the job is done right and there were no crucial steps missed that could lead to an electrical fire.

During the construction process, you will be able to talk with the electrician and explain what your electrical needs are. If you are remodeling a room into a home office, you will likely want more outlets than a typical room would have. A brighter light fixture may also be warranted. If you hire a contractor to complete the remodel, you will certainly get to have a say in all of this. If you are taking on the bulk of the work yourself, make sure you meet with your electrician early on in the planning process to ensure things will go smoothly. Give The Electric Connection a call today to start discussing your home office addition.

Recently, Digital Trends profiled a Paolo di Trapani, and his work has a lot of people excited. For all the rapid progress that has been made with LEDs, no one else has made this important step towards recreating natural light.

The article explains how lighting innovations have allowed people to use artificial light in a number of amazing ways. We can change the color temperature of a light bulb with a smartphone, and we can grow food indoors, but we haven’t yet been able to mimic the way the atmosphere scatters the sun’s natural light…until now.

According to Digital Trends, di Trapani’s technology scatters the light of a panel of white LEDs with “a clear plastic panel studded with nanoparticles that are invisible to the naked eye.” What’s a nanopartical? A nanoparticle is what it sounds like: A really small particle. Nanoparticle research is currently hot because there are tons of ways that nanoparticle research could be applied in biomedical, optical, and electronic fields.

Smart technology is poised to take over the home appliance market. We already have smart thermostats, smart lighting and even smart refrigerators. If that's not enough for you, there are some new contenders on the market that allow you to turn any electrical device in the home into a smart item. The best part is that it's a simple DIY experience – no need to find an electrician to hook it up. It’s the smart plug, a small box that you plug into your home's outlets. From there, you can use your smart phone to control whatever light, television or other electronic appliance routed through the smart plug. Read on to learn more about these remarkable efficiency devices.

Control and Monitor Your Electronics

There are a variety of smart plug options on the market: The Satechi IQ Plug, the Belkin WeMo Insight Switch, the D-Link Wi-Fi Smart Plug and the Valta Starter Kit, among others. The cost and functionality of the different brands vary, but they all operate on a similar principle – allowing you to set schedules and remotely control whatever device you choose.

The smart plugs connect to your phone via Bluetooth or wireless Internet, so you can switch them on or off from anywhere in the home – or even from the other side of the country if you have an internet-optimized model. You can also program schedules so the plug automatically activates an appliance at appointed times – turning a coffee maker on first thing in the morning, for example, or switching on a space heater before you go to bed in a chilly part of the house.

Retro Meets Modern

The upshot is that there's no need to wait for cutting-edge smart devices to come out to keep your home on the cutting edge of technology. Imagine impressing your neighbor by demonstrating the new smart functionality of a retro 1950s television, or your old Victrola vinyl player.

Smart plugs also monitor how much electricity a given device uses and when, so you can make informed choices about increasing your energy efficiency though disaggregation, breaking it down appliance by appliance. You can also save energy by using the smart plug to turn off the power to devices when you aren't actively using them, preventing your electricity bills from skyrocketing due to always-on settings or “energy vampires.”

Savings and Control All at Once

If you have additional questions about smart plugs and how they work, find an electrician who can show you their utility and functionality. With surprisingly little effort, you can harness their power to save energy and control devices all throughout your home.