The MD, DC, and VA area is known for getting slammed with violent and powerful thunderstorms that produce severe lightning. Electrical surges, which are caused by lightning, can wreak havoc on your expensive electronics and appliances.

A lightning strike that hits a power line several miles away from your house can impact all your electronic items. Whole-house surge protection is the best option you have to protect your home electronics and wiring from the damage caused by lightning strikes.

Everyone from the National Fire Protection Association to the Institute for Business and Home Safety recommends the use of whole-house surge protection. As a homeowner, the good news for you is that protection is readily available, and even top-of-the-line solutions are affordable. The gold standard in whole-house surge protection is a two-tiered system—a whole-house surge protective device, or SPD, installed at the circuit breaker box, and plug-in SPDs on individual outlets. A whole-house SPD can protect against up to 40,000 amps of current flowing into your home from the outside; normal household power is between 200 to 300 amps. When an electrical surge occurs as a result of a lightning strike, the device detects the excess current and safely diverts it through the house’s grounding path. Whole-house surge protection provides homeowners in MD, DC, and VA peace of mind when a powerful thunderstorm passes the area.

Whole-house surge protection can typically be installed in a home for around $200—it’s an easy job for a top electrician. The cost of replacing electronic equipment in an average home is a whopping $8,000, and it may be even higher for homes in MD, DC, and VA. Whole-house surge protection is cheap insurance against electrical surges caused by lightning strikes. It provides a layer of protection to all the electronic items in your home.

To ensure complete safety, Kolb Electric recommends that you allow a qualified, experienced electrician to complete the wiring for whole-house surge protection—there are several steps involved that are best left to a professional.

If you require surge protection wiring or want a full whole-house surge protection installation, contact Kolb Electric.

Electricity is like a kitchen knife. If you use it wisely, it can cut food and prepare delicacies. If you use it unwisely, it can end up cutting your finger. Electricity flows through anything that is a “conductor.” Interestingly, humans are very good conductors of electricity!

Since electricity is a form of energy, a strong current has the ability to seriously harm you. If the current is strong enough, you can be fatally injured. Due to the strong possibility of a fatal injury occurring, electric cables are insulated. Another important reason why they are insulated is to prevent energy from dissipating into the surroundings, allowing it to be conserved.

It is a good time to consider updating the existing lighting in your home. It is one way to quickly update the look of a room without getting into a big project that involves remodeling, painting or even buying expensive furniture or new carpet. A new light fixture is a quick and fairly inexpensive fix to add new life to your home. A Santa Monica electrician will need to complete the installation of your new fixture. You can always count on the team at The Electric Connection to take care of your home lighting upgrade needs.

With the phasing out of incandescent bulbs in favor of CFLs, you may need to update your light fixture. There are some old lamps and ceiling lights that are not suitable for the CFL bulbs. And although you may need to spend a little money to get your home up to date, it will ultimately save you money in the long run on your electricity bills. There are plenty of different styles of light fixtures for you to choose from. You don’t have to worry about being stuck with the old standard, center of the ceiling light fixture that you will find in millions of houses. You will be amazed at how unique the designs of today truly are.

Because there is some wiring involved, it is best to leave the fixture change to your electrician. Santa Monica residents will want to make sure the fixture is installed up to code and by having an electrician complete the work you can feel confident knowing it is wired correctly. If you are ready to transform your dull lighting into something beautiful, head to your local home improvement store and pick up your new fixtures. Once you have your new lights, call The Electric Connection and schedule your installation.

For the average homeowner, electrical panels are not very well understood. Since the job of an electrical panel is to deliver electricity, the common assumption is that if you need more electricity to support your household, you should just be able to add more circuits. This is incorrect, though.

This is only part of your electrical panel’s job. It also acts as a safety device, channeling the electrical flow into circuits so your home gets the amount of electricity that’s allowed by the panel. If your home doesn’t have enough electricity, then it’s time to upgrade your electrical panel, but how do you know when this time has come?

Have you noticed any lights in your home that flicker, dim, or brown out when you turn on major appliances such as your dishwasher or microwave? This is a sign that the draw on your system is too strong, and that you would benefit from adding more amps to your electrical box.

If you have multiple circuit breakers that trip on a regular basis, this is probably a sign that you don’t have enough power coming into your home. If you’re constantly flipping circuit breakers back on in your electrical panel, you could very well need an upgrade.

This is actually an outdated method of managing the electricity in your home. In fact, it can be downright dangerous. Many homeowner’s insurance companies won’t even insure homes that still have fuse boxes instead of an electrical panel. Fuses simply can’t provide the amount of power that the average home needs. The best thing you can do is upgrade your fuse box to a standard electrical panel as soon as possible.

This months roundup post is for the month of November, 2016. It’s been a crazy month, but nonetheless; happy thanksgiving!

This month has been filled with tons of crazy news, and we are about to share it all with you in this months LED lighting link roundup. From insects and LEDs to towns and cities retrofitting their streetlights, we are going to cover these and many more in this edition.

Now… Here is the third addition of A Month in The LED Lighting Industry Link Roundup…

Several Cities Convert To LED Streetlights In Conservation Efforts

Listen (or read) in on this conversion where they talk about cities that have made the conversions, what it has done, and who is planning to convert next. It’s exciting stuff to hear about all of these cities making the conversion, especially since they are all saving money and producing better light.

East Lyme to begin retrofitting streetlight with LEDs

This town is making a smart move by retrofitting their streetlights throughout the town. Not only will they save in energy consumption reductions, but they will also reduce initial investment costs by Insects and LED Lights New Research

How are wildlife and insects affected by outdoor LEDs? This *video* goes over the topic, and how they may be affecting insects specifically.

LEDs Light Up Indoor Farming and Marijuana Cultivation

Marijuana growing is becoming a huge industry, and quickly too. LED technology is making growers be able to turn a better profit all while growing better crop.

LEDs come in rainbow colours

A new way to achieve various vibrant colors is making it cheaper and more efficient to do so. Learn how it’s done by reading this one!

New LEDs may offer better way to clean water in remote areas

Engineers at The Ohio State University are developing foil based LEDs which will allow people to purify water for drinking and sterilize medical equipment on the go.

Would you like to suggest an interesting piece of news or related topic to LED lighting for future publications of our lighting link roundups? Simply comment below and we will consider it for future publications!