How the Internet of Things Will Affect Residential Electrical
Think of a home that cools the air when you walk in the door, that makes a grocery list for you based on the food you take from the refrigerator, and that turns your sprinkler off and on depending on the local weather reports. This home of the future is now, and it’s based on a concept called the Internet of Things. It’s the basis of houses called “smart homes”: a super-connected network of appliances and systems that run as one smooth process to make your life more comfortable, save energy, and be frugal, all at the same time.
Electrical Costs
Homes with advanced residential electrical systems will eventually base their cost and usage on the time the electricity turns on, as well as the amount of power used. Electricity is more expensive to produce during the middle of a hot summer day than on a fall evening. Electrical usage costs should be based on the actual cost of producing this power, not an average cost over the length of the month. If you’re frugal and only use lights at night when needed and keep your air conditioning usage to a bare minimum, you should be able to reap the benefits of that frugality. With the Internet of Things, a home’s electrical system will be so connected that you’ll see energy savings on a daily basis simply because of the way you use your utilities.
Smart Appliances
The idea of finding energy savings simply by timing your dishwasher and dryer loads may seem too complicated, but with smart technology it will be a basic part of running the appliances. When electrical power is cheaper in the evening or in the middle of the night, large appliances will have settings allowing you to fill them and then pause the action until later in the day. Your clothes and dishes will still be clean tomorrow, but you’ll use much cheaper power for doing the same job. Household chores will no longer be solely the province of someone filling time during an off day. It will be natural for everyone to fill and set machines, since it will be more important to have them run later than to have the work done at the certain time during the day.
Air Conditioning
A good part of energy conservation in south Florida depends on air conditioning usage for a great part of the year. More than any other appliance, the air conditioning unit uses up power at an increasing pace as the year moves forward. The Internet of Things will include smart A/C units and thermostats connected to heat sensors in each room of the house. When the system finds a human body in one room, it can kick on and cool the air selectively to make that person comfortable. Once the residents leave the home for the day, a smart home system will shut down to use a minimum of power, creating energy savings for the duration of the day. Cooling the home later in the day when the residents are home will reduce power usage while still keeping everyone cool and comfortable.
Anticipation
The Internet of Things doesn’t just mean having a toaster and dishwasher that turn themselves off when you’re off to work. It’s an interconnected system that combines smart appliances, an intelligent utility system and a power grid that is responsive to power usage and able to ebb and flow with the environment as well as human usage. Homes with this type of system will notice when people haven’t been in the home for a day or two and will turn off the water heater to save power. It will automatically turn alarms on and off based on when body heat is present or absent in the building, and even email the utility company when power needs to be throttled down to the home when you’re on vacation. The Internet of Things is the use of technology in ways that achieve energy conservation, but it’s also about having a more comfortable and convenient lifestyle.
Read More5 Benefits of an Electrical Maintenance Agreement
Unexpected repair bills can hurt your bottom line at the absolute worst time. Maintaining your equipment before it breaks down is the best way to avoid costly repairs, but maintenance tasks can take valuable time out of already-tight schedules. The best way to deal with this problem is to have an electrical maintenance agreement with a commercial electrician. A professional electrician in south Florida will know what systems need to be monitored more closely because of the environment you’re in, and he will create a plan with you to ensure all your major systems stay in good working order. An electrical maintenance agreement is like insurance for your electrical system, and can pay off in a number of ways.
Cost Containment Strategy
Everything you can do to nail down your costs for the year is another step toward keeping your bottom line in the black. Emergencies happen with any business, but caring for your equipment on a regular business will reduce the chances of an electrical emergency to an absolute minimum. Whether it’s tiny expenses like replacing blown out light bulbs or major repairs like a broken backup generator, it’s still money in the bank that you won’t have to spend. Not only will you have peace of mind knowing your system is more reliable, you’ll free up cash you might otherwise have to save and earmark toward future unexpected repair bills. Use this extra cash to pay down your debt, invest in better equipment, or simply grow the profits in your business.
Improves Employee Productivity
In south Florida the quality of life depends on serious and dependable air conditioning units. There may be no other system that affects your workers more than the A/C in the building. During some weeks of the year, the heat and humidity may be too high for your usual business day to proceed. If you’re in the restaurant business, or have a shop that depends on customers coming in and browsing, rooms nearing 100 degrees are simply too hot to deal with. Even with factories or other industries, heat and humidity will impact your workers. Heat will cause people to slow down and increase absenteeism among the workforce.
Reduce Energy Costs
Air conditioning units with clogged filters, lights with incandescent bulbs and broken, inefficient machinery all add up to increased energy costs. Every one of these circumstances is one that’s usually taken care of during visits laid out in an electrical maintenance agreement. It’s simple for any electrician in south Florida to take care of these problems before they happen. The money you save on the FPL bill can more than cover the costs of your regular maintenance contract.
Can Pay for Itself
Maintenance agreements come with a monthly bills, but they can pay for themselves by avoiding costly experiences from expensive equipment breaking down:
- Increased repair costs from after-hours repair bills
- Loss of productivity from broken equipment
- Employees calling off or slowing down from an overheated environment
- The cost of replacing broken equipment
Protects Expensive Equipment
Whether you’ve got a conveyor oven, a walk-in freezer, or a manufacturing setup, your business equipment is the heart of your company. Avoiding regular maintenance is just asking to have a piece of equipment break down before its natural life is over. Each piece of equipment comes with a service manual that lays out recommended maintenance tasks and a schedule on which to base the upkeep. Discuss this schedule with your electrician in south Florida to tie it in with the rest of his electrical maintenance agreement.
Read MoreCreating the Electrical Plan for a Home Renovation
A crucial part of your home renovation plan is to figure out the placement of your residential electrical outlets. The outlets in a room are the most visible sign of electricity in a home, and it’s important that you include them in the right places to make using the room convenient without over-using the system. The right electrical renovation plan can increase your new rooms looks as well as it functionality. Professional electrical remodeling services will know local codes and rules when it comes to numbers and types of outlets used in each room of the house. You can generally add outlets where necessary; it’s simply the matter of using the right type of outlet in most areas. Assess each room in your house that’s undergoing the home renovation before building an electrical plan with your contractor.
The Furniture Layout
Although homeowners like to move their furniture from time to time, most rooms have a signature piece that the room is built around. In the bedroom it’s the bed, of course, but in the living room it may be a sofa, an entertainment center, or a matching set of chairs. Always take this signature piece into account when determining where to place electrical outlets. Do you commonly place lamps around this piece? If so, you’ll need outlets on the wall or in the floor next to the furniture. If you have a large set of shelves to anchor the room, you’ll need to make sure these shelves don’t block any planned outlets or switches. It’s simpler if there’s only one obvious place for a piece of furniture to go, but take into account the most common placement you can find.
Lighting Sources
What are the lighting sources planned for the room? A kitchen will need central lighting over any eating areas available, plus dedicated task lighting over counters, work spaces, and stoves. In a living room, you’ll need outlets for ambient lighting for the room in general, plus reading lamps next to cozy chairs and task lighting for crafts or study areas, if needed. You’ll need wiring for any ceiling light you have planned as well as basic outlets planned for around the room.
Powered Items
Your residential electrical plan depends not just on where the outlets should go in reference to your furniture placement, it also depends on how much power you’re likely to need for each room in the house. Kitchens and laundry rooms need heavy duty outlets for large appliances, plus a number of conveniently placed regular outlets for counter top appliances such as microwave ovens and coffee makers. More power is needed in modern living rooms, which should be a concern for anyone considering a home renovation. Today’s living room is likely to contain a large screen television, a stereo system, a gaming system, and possibly a computer or two. Compared to decades ago when many houses were built, this takes up an enormous amount of power.
Special Events
If you normally decorate in a large way for holidays and special events, extra outlets should be part of your plan, but in number and in placement throughout the house. If you typically have a holiday tree in front of the living room window, install extra outlets on that wall or floor to account for the strings of lights you’ll be adding to the tree. If you have massive parties during football season in one room of the house, make sure extra outlets for plugging in warming trays, slow cookers, and portable fridges are a part of your residential electrical plan. Traditions are important. It’s also important to take these traditions into account when drawing up the electrical plan for your home remodel.
Read MoreHow to Prepare Food During a Power Outage
For Florida residents, a power outage is a regular fact of life. Between hurricanes and tropical storms, massive amounts of lightning and the age of some utility systems, Floridians rarely go through a year without losing power at least some of the time. Savvy residents do some form of preparation in case of electrical emergencies. Depending on how long the power is out, you may be fine with some bread and peanut butter, or you may need to use more elaborate methods. Planning ahead for all these circumstances is the only way to make sure your family (and, face it, your neighbors) gets a good meal during an extended power outage.
A Few Hours
If the power is out for an afternoon or half the day, food preparation isn’t going to be much of a problem. Most people can go on with their same meal plans for breakfast or lunch, switching from soup to sandwiches, if need be. Salads, fruit, bread, cheese, nut butters and jelly or honey, and tuna fish are all foods that you can quickly and easily fix without power in your kitchen. Keep the menu simple and use the cold perishable foods first, just in case you’re stuck during a prolonged period without power.
Extended Time
If the power outage lasts most of the day or longer, you’re going to have to start dealing with the cold and frozen food you have on hand. Almost every Floridian has some type of barbecue grill, so unless a storm is still raging outside it’s smart to cook up a good portion of the meat you have on hand. Cooking it will extend its life a little longer, giving you and the neighbors a chance to eat a feast instead of throwing out a lot of garbage. Fresh vegetables cook great in foil packets or on skewers, making that grill do double duty for both the meat and vegetable courses.
If the power is out and you don’t have a freezer full of food, you can still use a barbecue grill to cook basic stored supplies. Anything that cooks on top of the stove will cook on the grill. Fill a pot with soup and heat it on the grill, heat refried beans for vegetarian nachos, or make pasta and use the last of your fresh vegetables in a salad on the side.
The Smarter Way
Instead of worrying about food going bad in the refrigerator and feeding your family an all-barbecued diet for days on end, installing a home standby generator will solve all these problems before they even start. With a whole-home generator, you may not even know when the power goes out in the rest of the city. Your backup power supply will click on as soon as the electrical power goes out, so you’ll rarely suffer any loss of power.
Speak with your residential electrical contractor when you remodel or decide to install a whole-home generator. The size of your home and the amount of power you’ll need will determine the size of your future generator. Smaller units will power a few lights, your refrigerator, a microwave, and a few smaller appliances. If you want to go for complete coverage, larger units will run everything the power company does with virtually no change in your lifestyle. Your frozen food will stay frozen, refrigerated food will stay cold, and you can cook any meal you normally would without any compromises at all. Instead of having a virtual campout in your living room, you’ll enjoy your normal life when you have a home standby generator just waiting for a power emergency to kick in.
Read MoreReasons Why You Need Lightning Protection for Your Home or Business
There are more lightning strikes per square mile in Florida than in any other state in the country. Floridians are used to lightning storms and the damage they can cause. While you can’t prevent all the damage these storms create, you can install electrical protection in your home or business, cutting down the chances of your suffering damage or financial loss because of lightning strikes. Lightning protection comes in many forms, and each one can cover a portion of your property or one type of belonging. One size doesn’t fit all. You have to look at your particular needs before contacting a commercial electrical contractor to install your own lightning protection.
Fire Damage
The largest danger, certainly in terms of money, is from fire caused by lightning bolts striking buildings. Lightning rods, or air terminals, take the energy from a lightning strike and direct it to a grounding pad in the soil beside the building, keeping the energy from catching the roof on fire. Many people believe that lightning rods attract lightning. They don’t. What they do is take care of lightning that’s going to strike your building, anyway, changing it from dangerous to harmless.
Data
Almost every home and business has multiple places that store data of one kind or another. The electrical surge from a lightning strike can ruin sensitive hardware and erase years of saved data. Among the vulnerable machines are:
- Desktop computers
- High definition televisions
- Game consoles
- High end stereos
- Laptops and tablets plugged into chargers
Any piece of electronic gear not plugged into some sort of surge protection is likely to suffer data loss or complete breakdown in the event of even a minor power surge caused by lightning. The best protection you can have is a combination surge suppressor and mini power source that minimizes the damage from the original surge, plus provides power so you can shut down your electronics in case of a power outage.
Insurance
Almost every insurance company in the country offers discounts for providing lightning protection. In some parts of the state, it may be a required portion of your policy, especially for some business plans. Anything that minimizes the chance of danger and loss is a smart financial move, and insurance companies recognize this. Check with your insurance broker to find out how much of a discount you can get by installing extra electrical protection.
Landscaping
Landscaping adds to the value of your home or business. You may have hedges or high bushes installed, or even tall trees on your property. In a storm, lightning is likely to hit the tallest object around, and this is often a large heirloom tree that’s been on the property for decades. If the tree isn’t protected, it can catch on fire or even be killed outright. A commercial electrical contractor can install lightning protection on your biggest trees. These systems include copper poles that lead lightning to the ground, keeping the power away from the tree itself in case of a lightning strike. Installing one strategic piece of lightning protection can save your trees, or avoid damage to your roof from broken branches due to lightning striking the heart of the tree.
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