Lighting, and areas to consider.

Lighting and illumination can have many options and applications for your home or business. Take a look at each section to help you decide where you can improve the visibility for various reasons below. We’re always looking to help our customers by continually extending a helping hand. Contact us by email, phone or web submission, if you have any questions.

Home

One way of making great improvements to your home is adding/improving the levels light in/outside your home. We have Johnson County electricians and Kansas City area electricians to help meet your needs.

Outside

On the outside of your home, the two things that should be considered when determining your needs are safety/security and aesthetics. A well lit exterior enhances the security and beauty of your home.

Outside Security

Security lighting can be achieved by using a timer(s) on existing exterior to ensure lighting is present during the hours you prefer. In addition, motion detector can be installed in darker areas around the home or areas where it works best for you such as driveways, entrances, etc. LED’s should always be considered for these applications as they are frequently in use and difficulty of changing bulbs due to possible height of fixtures.

Outside Aesthetics

Landscape can also improve the security of your home and also make great improvements to the aesthetics of the home. Generally, a combination to lite the walls of the home and the bushes, trees, etc. in the landscaped areas achieves the best aesthetic results. Having a proper balance of lighting on the home is important to ensure security and street appeal. LED lighting is a must for this application as any other type bulbs/fixtures require a lot of extra maintenance and expense.

Interior

On the interior of the home, safety and more emphasis on the aesthetics is important.

Interior Safety

Areas to be considered for safety is going down steps, hallways, closets and other dark areas in the home. The more dangerous the task-walking down steps, showering, preparing food is more important for safety reasons.

Interior Detailed

Detailed areas of work should be considered next on proper lighting. Office areas, homework areas, bedrooms, living rooms, laundry areas, pantries, basements etc. are all areas that can benefit in making improvements on your lighting needs. Well lit detailed areas of work allow us to complete our tasks properly and provides a more mentally healthy approach in completing our tasks/enjoyment.

Interior Aesthetic

Other areas of the home can be described as aesthetic can make even bigger differences in home appeal. Installing new entry chandeliers, dining chandeliers, ceiling fans, vanity lights, under cabinet lighting, pendant lighting, sconce lighting, etc. can make major differences in the interior appeal.

Let Us Help

We provide electrical services in the Johnson County and Kansas City areas. We have electricians well versed in lighting needs and design. We would look forward to the opportunity to meet your needs and completing the projects to your expectations and satisfaction. Let us know if we might be of service to you!

Contact Ryan Electric

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Indoor space heaters

Since these are generally of the plug in type, there is not much to do on the installation side. Whatever circuit you are plugging the heater into, the installation is already present.

Our only safety concern is understanding the product we are using. A normal space heater uses 1500 watts of energy per hour. A good comparison is a standard microwave which generally uses 1200 watts of energy per hour. If we understand that each time we plug in a heater, we potentially are plugging in an appliance that uses more energy than a microwave. I am sure if we were carrying around a microwave and plugging into bedroom outlets we would think we might have an issue. In addition, we would be running the microwave for just a few minutes not the more energy using heater for hours! It is true you would use less energy turning a microwave on for 8 hours then a heater for 8 hours.

Most general circuits we plug a heater into would be a 15amp circuit or a 20amp circuit. However, we generally would be plugging into a 15amp circuit which are commonly used for bedrooms, living rooms and basements. The total wattage that circuit is able to operate at before the circuit breaker will detect an overload is 1800 watts. Since the heater can be rated up to 1500 watts, we already are reaching the capacity of that circuit. Depending on what other loads are on the same circuit, it wouldn’t take much to trip the 15amp breaker and disable the circuit.

We pay approximately 10 cents for every 1000 watts of energy per hour we use in our home. The 1500 watt heater would cost us approximately 15 cents per hour to use. If we have the heater on for 8 hours per day over the course of one month we would expect to see an increase of $36.00 per month-per heater we use. The best safety tip and utility bill savings I can offer is to purchase the most energy efficient heater you can find to alleviate the overload on your circuits and cut your utility payment. Otherwise, you should consider having a dedicated 15amp circuit installed for the heater(s) if there is a danger of overloading the circuit.

Decorative lighting

Most outdoor outlets in homes built in the 80’s or later are protected by or should be protected by Ground fault circuit interrupters (GFCI’s) These devices are meant to detect any current in the circuit that is not following the intended path. For example, if we plugged in an extension chord that was damaged and the current instead started to flow through our hand and body the GFCI would detect the diverted current and immediately “trip” and disengage the circuit. GFCI’s are to protect those outlets located by water, cement floors or outdoors. The reason is we make a better ground when we are standing at those locations and more current would flow through our body if there is a fault in the circuit. It’s literally like punching a larger hole in a water pipe and having more water leak and pour out. This is what our body offers the electrical fault current when we are in these locations.

It is not uncommon to have one GFCI located in a bathroom, basement or garage that “protects” other standard outlets throughout the home. For example, my Christmas lights are damaged and plugged into an outdoor outlet but has tripped the GFCI in hallway bath.

Thinking about what GFCI’s offer us in protection, it’s easy to understand why our decorative lighting can be a problem. The first thing to be concerned about is the connection points in all our lighting. If moisture is allowed to enter these points and begin to alter the flow of current we have created a hazard. The GFCI that protects these outlets will trip if the system is working correctly. Every spot where lights or chords are plugged into an outlet and timer stakes should be protected by a weatherproof bubble cover that totally encloses these connections. In addition, where each string of lights are connected to each other or at the end of the string of lights where there may be an open connection, electrical tape should be applied to protect those connections.

An overload could also exist if you use to many lights. Generally, if you are purchasing LED lights, you are not in danger of overload and you are doing well in energy savings.

These simple steps and understanding of our new loads we use in the winter time can help us ensure the Holidays are safe for our families. Let us know if we may help serve your electrical needs during these winter months.

We wish you the Happiest and Safest of Holiday’s!

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It may seem a little overwhelming on understanding what is best for your home/office but the thought process is quite simple.

Understanding the product

LED lighting comes in many varying products but several items remain the same and are the most important regardless of which product you use.

Color Spectrum: all lighting can emit different color spectrum. Most commonly, residential homes have “soft white” lighting due to its warm inviting look. “Soft white” is the light yellowish color spectrum most standard incandescent light bulbs emit. LED bulbs can emit many colors but most LED’s for residential environment emit from “soft white” to “daylight” which is your bright white light. Good applications for “daylight” light are for laundry, closet, office, etc. where the light is needed for detailed work.

“Daylight” lighting is not a warm and inviting look so color spectrum of your lighting is very important and should be your first consideration when purchasing an LED product.

Dimming capability: if the application for your product will require dimming function, you will need to ensure the LED product is capable of dimming. In addition, it may require a different dimmer then the existing dimmer you have as it may not be compatible for proper LED dimming.

Safety Benefits / Energy Savings

Led products offer great energy savings and safety benefits. The greatest safety benefit it provides is preventing the dangers for needing to climb a ladder to replace bulbs. Generally, you should expect 10 year life from an LED bulb/product and hopefully 20 year life. Think of the amount of times you are required to take out a ladder, safely traverse to the working area and back with the ladder and climb the ladder to change the bulb. The amount of time, energy and danger alone makes purchasing LED bulbs for the highest fixtures in/outside your home absolutely essential. Quite frankly, just the time it takes alone to maintain incandescent lighting makes for considering converting to LED lighting throughout the home.
Energy savings can be very large over the lifetime of a LED bulb. Generally, they use 6- 8 times less energy then regular bulbs. The best way to describe it over a 10 year period considering cost of product, how many times you would need to change the bulb and energy used comes down to this fact. After year 4-5 the LED bulb could be left on 24/7 for the next 5-6 years and you would still use less energy then if you had kept using the regular incandescent bulb. Include the safety benefit and maintenance time saved, it is our best/only option without argument.

Correct Applications

If you understand the color spectrum needs, dimming capability needs, height, location of fixture/fixtures you already understand the need to find the correct product. For any lighting installation such as general lighting, under cabinet lighting, outdoor lighting, etc., there is a product that is perfect for you to meet energy savings, safety benefits and providing beautiful lighting needs.

We understand LED lighting very well. Let us know if we can help you meet the challenges of smart, sensible conversion to LED lighting.

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