Scherer Electric Blog: Posts Tagged ‘Depew’

How to Tell Your Home Has Outdated Wiring

Monday, October 9th, 2023
circuit-breaker-panel-close-up

Because we live in an area with many vintage older homes, it’s essential for residents to pay attention to the heartbeat of their houses: the electrical wiring. If your home has weathered more than four decades, it’s time to consider the condition of its wiring. Outdated electrical systems can pose serious risks, from potential fire hazards to compromising the safety of your family. This guide will walk you through the signs of outdated wiring and when it’s prudent to contemplate an upgrade, which may require whole-house rewiring in some cases.

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Understanding Circuit Breakers: A Guide for Homeowners

Monday, September 25th, 2023
outlet-with-scorch-marks

We often talk about circuit breakers and electrical panels on our blog because they’re essential parts of household electrical systems. In fact, one of our most important electrical services in Depew, NY and the rest of our service area is helping clients upgrade out-of-date circuit breaker panels. 

In this post, we’re going to take the educational approach and provide a short guide to understanding circuit breakers, how they function, the different types, and why they’re essential for home safety.

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Some Misunderstandings About LED Lights

Monday, June 5th, 2023
lightbulb-LED-100-dollar-bills

We think making an upgrade to your outdoor or indoor lighting in Depew, NY or elsewhere in Western New York to all LED lights is a fantastic idea. Although LED lights are more expensive than incandescent or fluorescent lights, they have numerous benefits such as lengthy lifespans, low heat emissions, lower energy usage, and reduced negative environmental impacts.

Although LED lights aren’t a “new” technology, the explosion of their popularity is a recent phenomenon—and that means there are many misunderstandings about LED lights making the rounds on the internet. We want to clear up a few of these misconceptions so you have a better understanding of what you’ll get when you choose to upgrade your home lighting to LED.

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Old Fuel and Your Generator: A Bad Combination

Monday, February 13th, 2023
emergency-home-generator

We strongly recommend whole-house generators to our customers. There are few things more reassuring than knowing that your home will have the electrical power it needs in case of an extended outage.

Power losses are most common during periods of extreme weather, and a home that cannot run its HVAC system for several days at a time under such conditions is likely to be unlivable.

Generators also make homes safer in general, stop refrigerated and frozen food from spoiling, and ensure that powered medical equipment continues to operate.

The best way to power a generator is with natural gas, since this fuel source is piped directly to the generator and there’s no need to keep a separate fuel supply of liquid propane, gasoline, or diesel on hand.

But not all homes have access to a natural gas line. For those homes that rely on a different fuel source, we have some important advice about old, stale fuel.

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Some Common Generator Problems You May Encounter

Monday, December 5th, 2022
generator-residential

One of the best ways to have a happy, relaxing, and low-stress holiday season is to know that you have a whole-house generator that’s ready to go to work if the power goes out. An extended power loss during the winter does a lot more than shut off the holiday lights: it will result in spoiled food, cold discomfort, and even life-threatening situations for anyone who uses powered medical equipment.

The best way to ensure you have a reliable generator is to schedule routine maintenance for it. This will help prevent most potential malfunctions. Even with the best maintenance, you may still encounter a need for our technicians to come out and provide generator repair in Depew, NY. In this post, we’ll look at several of the more common generator troubles we fix.

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Do I Need GFCI Outlets for My House?

Monday, August 15th, 2022
GFCI outlet

If you’re asking this question, it probably means that you know what GFCI outlets look like and you know your home doesn’t have them.

The simple answer to the question is “yes.” You don’t need these outlets in every room (in fact, we don’t recommend that), but they are important safety devices to have in some key rooms such as the kitchen and bathrooms.

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Outdated Wiring Systems We Recommend Changing

Monday, July 18th, 2022
electric-house-rewire

We offer many important services to upgrade the electrical systems of homes throughout Western New York. Since the area has so many vintage homes, there’s a large number of houses with wiring decades out of date. Not only do these antiquated wiring systems have trouble handling modern electrical loads, they can create fire hazards.

If you have a home built before 1980, we recommend contacting our electricians to inspect your house and see if you need electrical wiring and rewiring in Depew, NY. 

There are two specific cases of outdated wiring common in New York that we recommend fully upgrading: aluminum wiring and knob-and-tube wiring.

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