Christmas is upon us again and more than any other time of year, it’s the time of year where people put strain on their electrical system.  The lights on your house and the beautiful decorations you’ve been storing in your attic finally are brought out and plugged in for your friends and neighbors to view and appreciate.  And, of course, the vast majority of homes you visit have at least one Christmas tree.  Since most of these things are electrical, it’s probably not a surprise to you that, as a top Dallas electrician, I start getting a lot of calls this time of year.  Though it’s always nice to have the business with Christmas so close, I thought it’d be great to share with ways to avoid wiring problems with your Christmas decorations this year:

 In general, there are a few important tips that can help you avoid wiring problems.  If your lights look frayed or dangerous, they should always be replaced or repaired before using them, frayed wiring are hazardous.  You should take care that your electrical source is safe before you even begin the installation process.  To avoid the potential for overloads, you should have dedicated circuits installed for your holiday decorations.

Most importantly, you should never try to supply power for your lights without contacting a top Dallas electrician to help you install the necessary equipment and make the necessary safety precautions.  Short cuts are potentially dangerous. I can remember one example where a customer had supplied power to their lights by splicing an extension cord directly into their circuit breaker box!  Even worse, they’d shut the breaker box door, pinching the cabling!  Left unchecked, even if this hadn’t started a fire, damage from a power surge or overload could have easily destroyed their whole breaker, meaning they’d have to spend thousands to repair the damage at the absolute worst time of year!

If you are planning to start working out of home, it’s crucial that you have a designated work space. The best way to create a home office work area that’s productive and functional is to update your home office wiring. Turning that spare bedroom or a new room over the garage or even an extension into a home office is something that you would have to plan well.

Even the simplest of work spaces have some or the other electrical equipment and appliances and you would need appropriate electrical wiring, powerpoints, and circuits and plug points etc. for it. Aside from this, you would require Internet connectivity as well. Most homes have Wi-Fi, and even if all your office equipment like the PC, printers, scanners, phones and tablets are Wi-Fi enabled, it’s best to have a hardwired Ethernet connection in your home office.

That increases the reliability of the service and you won’t be inconvenienced due to an erratic Internet connection. While it may seem like a very simple job, the fact is that installing home office wiring isn’t an easy job and has to be done with care.

Sometimes, it seems easier and faster to try and fix what you assume to be a small electrical problem yourself. Maybe you have a light that is flickering or an outlet that sporadically works. You may think that a few loose wires directly behind the outlet or light socket are causing the problem. What if you are wrong? What if the problem is much bigger and by trying to fix what you assume to be a few loose wires, you end up hurting yourself and making the problem worse? It is always best to leave these situations to a Santa Monica electrician. You can rely on The Electric Connection to provide you with prompt and experienced electricians who can take care of even the smallest problems the right way.

While a loose wire behind an outlet or a light fixture can cause some things like flickering lights or intermittently working outlets, the problem may extend to the wiring hidden in the walls. It may even be the breaker that is causing the problem. You wouldn’t be able to tell by simply looking. You will need the expertise of an electrician. Santa Monica homeowners obviously want to make sure their home is safe and not at risk of an electrical fire.

When you hire an electrician to check out what you perceive to be a tiny problem, you are getting peace of mind that any larger problems will also be identified and addressed. It is crucial that a problem be taken care of the right way. If you fix those loose wires you thought were the problem, you could end up exacerbating the situation and cause an electric fire or even electrocute yourself in the process. The process of finding the problem can be a little time consuming, but it is always better to be sure and safe than to guess and put your home at risk.

Over time, things can go wrong with any electrical system. It’s part of the nature of wiring:  wires deteriorate and connections can break down.  But what if the problem that develops is because of something that happened when the electrical system was installed, something you didn’t have any control over?

There’s nothing so treacherous to the safety of your home as faulty wiring. Mistakes in the initial wiring of your home can lead to serious safety hazards and property damage.

So what can you do about faulty wiring?  A licensed Dallas electrician can help you find the problem areas in your wiring and repair them, but we generally don’t get called in until the faulty wiring causes a serious problem.  Nobody really has the time or money to deal with these problems, so it’s better to not have to suffer through them in the first place. The best way to do that is to be aware of the electrical warning signs that your wiring might be faulty.