Fuses and circuit breakers are part of any home or business that has electricity. These devices are extremely important to your safety, but what exactly are they?

It can be easy to take the technology around us for granted, and that includes the collection of strange switches in that metal box in the basement you never mess around with. You might have heard something about a “tripped circuit” or a “blown fuse,” possibly around the time the air conditioner shut off when someone plugged in a new appliance. But you might not be clear on what exactly these terms mean. Read on as we uncover the mysteries surrounding fuses and circuit breakers.

Circuit breakers and fuses (which can sometimes be found instead of breakers) are safety mechanisms put in place to ensure you don’t exceed certain current limits. If the wiring in a building has too much electrical current moving through it, these devices stop the flow of electricity until you address the problem.

House wiring has undergone some dramatic changes in the last hundred years. What was once a relative luxury is now accessible (and even required) in just about everyone home in the country. That isn’t to say that all wiring is created and maintained equally, nor can we confidently say that any Des Moines home is safe for your family without giving it an on-site look.

If you’ve ever done a renovation or addition to your home, you know the nightmare that city and county building codes can be. It seems like someone at the city and county clerk’s office is sitting around all day dreaming up new ways to make your progress come to a screeching halt. While your home may not have been built anywhere near today’s level of code, it still works just fine. Right? Well, while some building codes may be a tad excessive, often they use technologies that the electricians of the past would love to have had a chance to use. While it may come as an inconvenience, remind yourself that the technology available today can keep you and your family safe in a number of impressive ways. From safer walls and greatly decreased risk of house fire to GFCI outlets that will automatically detect an unsafe circuit and trip the breaker, killing the power and potentially saving a life.

Homes built after the 1940s were made with far safer wiring than any before that. Hopefully, by now, any home that predates that period would be completely re-wired with a new electrical panel for the longevity of the home, but this is wishful thinking. Today, millions of homes across the country and a good deal in Des Moines are essentially ticking time bombs, putting all of those inside at risk for electrocution or worse. While we don’t want to spread fear heedlessly, if you are considering the purchase of, or currently own, an older home, then you should get in touch with a licensed electrician to check the safety of your electrical system. Hopefully, everything will look and respond correctly, but there could easily be opportunities for improving the safety of your home.

In addition to the much older homes in the Des Moines area, newer homes are home to their own problems. If you ever notice an outlet begin to stop working unexpectedly, hear a buzzing in the wall, or even feel a current running, then you should make calling an electrician your top priority. Thousands of homes catch fire every year due to poor or faulty wiring, making this nothing to wait on, ignore, or even attempt to DIY; electricians should handle any blatant problems with your house wiring to keep your home safe. With homes popping up in and around Des Moines, our electricians have seen a surprising number of errors that could have been avoided by a more attentive installation, but that is a blog for another time.

If you suspect that your home’s wiring may be facing some issues, it really isn’t worth delaying to get in touch with the local electricians at Electrical Gurus. We have the tools and experience necessary to quickly determine what, if anything, the problem may be and then implement a fix that will keep your family safe. We understand how important it is to find affordable, trustworthy service for your household, which is why we take each call seriously and employ only the best local electricians.

Plenty of DIYers can complete an electrical project on their own without the help of a certified electrician. Sure, it’s easy to fix minor annoyances with light fixtures or outlets, but not installations, renovations, and major repairs. That’s because what starts out looking pretty straightforward can quickly turn into a disaster. Here’s a look at four specific examples that ElectricMan Inc. can help sort out.

Contact ElectricMan today to prevent a DIY disaster, or for any other electrical needs. ElectricMan is your trusted, local certified electrician with 27 years of experience. For more information, visit the ElectricMan website. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter.

It is completely understandable you would want to try and save a few dollars by completing some of your home repairs on your own. This is a very noble idea and in many cases, it is an absolutely fabulous way of staying within your family’s budget. It can actually be very rewarding to fix the little things around the house like a leaky faucet or a squeaky door.

However, there are times when it is better to be safe than sorry. When dealing with serious electrical problems in your home, you should never attempt to handle the situation on your own. Your electrician in Santa Monica is there to take care of these potentially dangerous problems. Electricity is not something anybody who is not trained should ever handle.

Some times when you will need to call an electrician include;

*Installing or replacing light fixtures is a job that seems easy enough, but is actually quite technical. Not only will you be dealing with electricity, you may also have to do a bit of construction. Fixtures that will require a new electrical outlet can be extremely tricky to handle.

*Upgrading or adding a thermostat to your furnace or air conditioner is another job that requires electricity knowledge.

*Installing ceiling, bath or attic fans requires wiring the fan into an existing power supply. However, there are many times an additional outlet will need to be added, which is definitely a job that should be left to an electrician. Santa Monica residents can call the experienced and professional crew at The Electric Connection to handle those small jobs that require a certified electrician.

It does not make sense to try and save a few dollars when your safety and the safety of your home are put at risk. Please take the time to call

stimulating sensors in the eye that then send signals to our internal clock. It also Nobel Prize in Physics. So how can someone suffering from insomnia enjoy the technology that this marvelous invention forged?

“If you can block blue light, you can actually create something called circadian darkness or virtual darkness” says Researcher Dan Pardi in an Studies have shown that by wearing these amber-tinted glasses, you can produce almost as much melatonin as if it were pitch black, even in a fully lit room or while looking at a bright screen on your tv, phone or tablet.