Building a new home requires significant pre-planning and the electrical systems can sometimes get overlooked. Most home designs lack whole house lightning protection, but you can easily add it to any home design. What do these lightning protectors do, and what options does a homeowner have?
Whole Home Lightning Protection Systems
A whole home lightning protection system ensures that the home doesn’t experience damage from a lightning surge or strike. The most common method of home protection comes from lightning antennas, also called lightning rods. Other lightning suppressor systems include air terminals, bonds, grounding terminals, and conductors.
System Costs
The cost of a lightning protection system depends on the type you choose and local installation costs. Most of these systems require a certified electrician to install. The price of a whole home lightning protection system ranges between $450 and $2,700.
Other Important Electrical Considerations
If you purchase an existing home, hire a certified electrician to inspect the wiring before making an addition to the house or renovating it. Besides the health of the wiring, consult with the electrician on matters of surge protection and the home’s breaker box. Addressing both issues before renovations can save you money and prevent problems like house fires.
Three Tips for Preparing Your Home for Renovation
There are many vital systems and components that go into making a home what it needs to be, and one of these components includes proper electrical system installation. By making use of residential electrical services and electrical design services, you can have an electrical system properly installed and maintained over the years. Apart from making sure proper electrical system installation is done, there are several tips that can keep your home’s electrical system in good shape and this article will take a look at a few of them.
- Make Sure Surge Protectors Are Installed: One tip for keeping your home’s electrical system in good shape is to have proper surge protectors installed across your home’s entire electrical system. Any commercial electrical company will tell you that surge protectors are an important part of any electrical system. This is because, without them, an electrical system is subject to the risk of power surges which can short out and possibly damage important pieces of equipment. As a result, 82% of surveyed professionals indicated that surge protection is necessary to protect expensive equipment.
- Make Sure the Electrical System Can Handle the Load: Another tip for keeping your home’s electrical system in good shape is to make sure the electrical system in your home can handle the load. The fact is, home’s today are handling a larger power load than ever before. It’s all well and good for homes that are built today, but the systems of older homes might have difficulty in handling higher power levels, especially if the electrical system hasn’t been updated in a while. If necessary, bring in emergency electrical contractors to look over the electrical system and make sure it can handle a modern power load.
- Make Sure the Electrical Wires are in Good Shape: And finally, a third tip for keeping your home’s electrical system in good shape is to make sure the electrical wires are in good shape. Electrical system installation has changed over the years, and systems installed a number of decades earlier might not be up to current standards. If you’re moving into an older home, you’ll want to make sure the wires are in good shape and not damaged. If the wires are in good shape, then your system will be much more likely to run smoothly.
In conclusion, there are several tips that can keep your home’s electrical system in good shape. These tips include: making sure surge protectors are installed, making sure the electrical system can handle the power load, and making sure the electrical wires are in good shape. These are just a few tips that can keep your home’s electrical system in good shape.