Homeowners – take note.
Sixty-five percent of deaths in home fires occur in houses without smoke detectors. Additionally, around 51,000 home fires happen each year from electrical issues.
The sad part is that most home fires are preventable through electrical work, updates, and repairs. However, home fires aren’t the only issue you can have from electrical problems.
You can hire an electrician to fix these things to keep your home and family safe, but it’s helpful to know the signs that indicate you need services.
Keep reading to learn three sure signs that you may benefit from hiring an electrician for updates and repairs.
1. You Have Flickering or Dimming Lights
Hiring an electrician is probably a smart idea if you ever have issues with your lights. The problems that call for hiring an electrician include flickering or dimming lights.
When you’re in your home, do you ever notice these things? For example, when lights start flickering or dimming, even if it happens only periodically, it can indicate a potential problem with your electrical system.
You might want to consider whether you have this issue with just one fixture or many. If it’s happening with numerous fixtures or all of them, you likely have a problem that needs your attention.
An At-Home Test to Try
If it’s happening with just one fixture, you may want to test the fixture before contacting an electrician. You can do this by tightening the bulb or replacing it.
If a bulb is not tight, it might dim or flicker. Additionally, when a bulb starts wearing out, it might also do these things to alert you that it’s time to replace it.
You might discover that taking this step fixes the issue. If so, you won’t need an electrician.
Causes of Flickering or Dimming Lights
When this doesn’t fix the issue, you might wonder why it’s happening. The truth is that you’ll need an electrician to find out the cause, as it can happen for many reasons, including the following:
- Bad switch
- Faulty wiring to the switch or fixture
- Insufficient wiring in the home
- Faulty circuit breaker
- Overloaded circuit
Your home might need updates to the circuit panel, wiring, switches, or fixtures to solve this problem and reduce the risk of electrical fires.
2. Your Circuits Trip Often
Your home has an electrical panel that you can access, but homeowners generally only use this panel when a circuit trips.
Every wire in your home connects to the circuit breaker, and your wiring should be spread out between numerous circuits. Each circuit can only handle a certain level of electricity, though.
If a circuit trips, it means that it shuts the circuit off. When this occurs, it cuts off the power supply to the fixtures connected to that particular breaker. Why would this happen?
Causes for Circuits Tripping
Most electricians will tell you that it’s not normal or good for circuits to trip often. A circuit may trip once in a while, but it shouldn’t happen all the time. Here are some of the common reasons circuits trip:
- Too much electricity on the circuit
- Short circuits
- Arc faults
- Ground faults
A residential electrician can inspect your system to diagnose the cause.
The Solution for This Problem
Ignoring a circuit that continuously trips can be a fire hazard in your home. A circuit only trips when there is a problem, and this should alert you to seek help from an expert.
After an electrician examines your electrical panel and system, they’ll determine the cause of the problem and the best solution for it.
They might suggest spreading out the wiring from that circuit to another one. When a circuit is overloaded, this will generally solve the problem.
Another solution is to update the wiring in your home. Of course, there are other solutions, but an electrician suggests the best solution based on the cause.
3. You Have Issues With Your Outlets and Switches
The third sure sign that you need an electrician involves issues with outlets or switches in your home. Here are several problems that should alert you to hire an electrician:
- Hot outlets or switches
- Shocks from your switches or outlets
- Sparks from your outlets
Outlets and switches shouldn’t spark, heat up, or shock you. When they do these things, it indicates a problem that you shouldn’t ignore.
Causes of These Issues
Your outlets and switches might do these things for several reasons.
An overloaded circuit has too many fixtures tied to it, and it’s a leading cause of heat reaching the outlets in a home. Faulty wiring is another concern that leads to all three of these issues.
Getting shocked by touching your switches might mean that the wiring is faulty or the switches are bad. An electrician can test each one to determine the cause and make the necessary repairs to stop this from happening.
Benefits of Hiring an Electrician
Electrical systems are vital for homes, yet they are also prone to problems. Fortunately, you can improve your home’s safety by hiring an electrician when you have concerns or issues.
The primary benefit is avoiding fires in your home by fixing the issues quickly. An electrical fire can happen quickly and unexpectedly and can devastate a home.
Secondly, you can save money by addressing the problems you experience. Energy costs will likely continue to rise as time goes by and this could end up costing you more every year.It’s only going to be more expensive but there will be restrictions. Generator installation can help you get a couple of extra hours of power during winter time when this is likely to happen.
One of the best tips for hiring an electrician is to hire one when you experience any of these signs or other issues that concern you.
Hire an Electrician to Increase the Safety of Your Home
Homeowners can increase the safety of their homes by performing the proper maintenance and repairs. If you have electrical concerns, hire an electrician. If you have other concerns, hire other contractors.
Your house should be a safe place for you and your family, and you can make sure it is by repairing your home’s electrical issues.
Did you enjoy this blog? If so, you can learn more about home safety by reading other articles on our site.
