Scherer Electric Blog: Posts Tagged ‘Electrical Repairs’

The Causes of Power Outages in Your Home

Monday, April 11th, 2022

Even with the best electrical grid available to provide power, power outages can still occur in homes. You’ve almost certainly experienced loss of electricity to at least one house you’ve lived in—maybe for a few hours, maybe for days. 

Although you can take steps to avoid losing power in your house because of malfunctions with your own electrical system, there are many external causes you cannot avoid. In these cases, your best tool is preparation, such as having a whole-house generator installed as a backup and having surge protection in place to prevent damage to appliances due to a catastrophic event (weather, downed power lines) creating an outage.

In this post, we’re going to explain in more depth the types of power outages and their sources. 

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The Importance of Properly Grounding Your Home

Monday, January 3rd, 2022
GFCI outlet

When we as electricians say a home is grounded, we mean that there’s a connection between the electrical components of the structure and the ground. Electricity naturally seeks the shortest path to the earth that it can, and when a house is grounded it provides electricity with the best path down into the ground and not into parts of the house where it can cause damage.

If you have three-prong outlets in your house, it means the house is grounded. The third circular hole in the outlet is to ground the outlet. 

Unfortunately, not all homes in this area are grounded. If you live in a house that doesn’t have three-prong outlets, we recommend calling our electricians for home grounding services in Buffalo, NY. And no, using three-prong adapters isn’t “grounding” the house. But even grounded homes can run into problems if they are improperly grounded. 

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Ways to Tell You Need Work on Your Business’ Wiring

Monday, December 20th, 2021
conference-table-under-lights

We don’t live in the coal or steam age—all businesses depend on electricity to run. Unfortunately, many businesses aren’t aware that they may have deficient or deteriorating wiring for their facilities until something serious occurs, such as a partial or total power outage or even an electrical fire. 

We know that you want your commercial electrical wiring to be up to code and reliable. Sometimes, this will require calling for service for commercial electrical wiring in Buffalo, NY from our expert electricians. We have more than 25 years of history helping handle the electrical needs of companies in Western New York, and we’re here to deliver the help your company needs. But first, you’ll have to know there’s a problem. In this post, we’ll look at how you can tell you may need professional wiring service for your business. Many of these are situations are emergencies or semi-emergencies, so don’t wait to make the call. We have 24/7 service available. 

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Why You May Have Failed Light Fixtures

Monday, November 8th, 2021
lightbulb-on-its-side

We’ve all experienced this annoyance before: we flip on a light switch as we step into the house, or into a dark room, and nothing happens. Sometimes, the light comes on for a second, then goes dark with a buzz sound—usually an indicator the bulb burned out.

But bulb burnout isn’t the only reason for a light failing to come on. When lights fail in your house, you can do some standard investigation to see what’s wrong. Check that the fixture is plugged in, put in a new bulb, see if a circuit breaker tripped. These are basic troubleshooting steps that don’t require calling an electrician.

But there may be a deeper electrical issue behind the failed light—you may have a failed light fixture, bad wiring, a broken switch. Don’t try to take out tools and see if you can make repairs for these problems! Yes, you can shut off the power to the fixture at the breaker to prevent a high voltage shock, but your amateur tampering with a fixture or a switch could create a fire hazard. Please leave any work on your indoor lighting in Orchard Park, NY to our licensed professionals.

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Electrical Safety Tips for the Halloween Season

Monday, October 11th, 2021
fall-decor

Halloween is more than a single night for trick-or-treating. It consumes the entire month of October, and no other holiday aside from Christmas is more focused on decorating with lights—and often candles. If you like to celebrate the October Country with lighting inside and outside your home, we want to ensure you enjoy the safest Halloween possible. It may be a spooky time of the year, but it should always be fun spooky, not actually dangerous!

Below we’ve put together several electrical safety tips from our licensed electricians. 

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Why Your Outlets Are Sparking (And Why You Need Them Repaired)

Monday, August 16th, 2021
electrical-outlet-wall

You plug an appliance into a wall socket. An everyday occurrence, nothing important. But as the plug goes into the socket, a spark flashes. When you take the plug out later, you also see sparking. 

Occasional sparking outlets are normal and not a reason to panic. What you’re seeing is a fast draw on electrical power, and the effect isn’t much larger than a static electricity spark. 

When sparks at outlets become regular events, ones you can anticipate each time you plug in a device, you may have a serious electrical problem. Don’t attempt to tamper with the outlets yourself. Stop using the sparking outlets and call our licensed pros for electric repair in Buffalo, NY. We can determine which of these common causes is causing the sparking and then have it safely fixed.

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Don’t Try DIY Electrical Work: Here’s Why

Monday, July 19th, 2021
electrical-outlet

We understand as well as anyone why “do-it-yourself” work has appeal for so many people. After all, we’re technicians who enjoy our work, and many of us first got interested in home services because of doing tasks around the house on our own. 

However, handling electrical jobs as a DIY project is something we have to warn against trying. It’s not like changing the aerator on a faucet or fixing a loose table leg. For any electrical job more complicated than replacing a lightbulb or resetting tripped breaker switches, you must have a licensed professional electrician in Buffalo, NY. There are several good reasons why.

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Some Ceiling Fan Problems You May Need Help With

Monday, June 21st, 2021
ceiling-fan-over-kitchen

Ceiling fans are great! They offer a way to keep cool that uses much less electricity than constantly running an air conditioner. The standard central AC in a home uses about 3,500 watts per hour to provide cooling. A ceiling fan, on the other hand, uses around 75 watts per hour. You may end up paying around $2.75 to run a ceiling fan during the year. The cost to run an air conditioner … well, it’s a lot higher, let’s leave it at that.

But ceiling fans need to have proper installation from an electrician in Lancaster, NY or they can become their own source of problems. When a ceiling fan malfunctions, it will also need a professional electrician to either fix or replace it. Below we’re going to look at a few common ceiling fan problems you might encounter that our trained and certified electricians can repair. 

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Summer Electrical Problems You May Encounter

Monday, June 7th, 2021
sunshine

Summer is approaching, and we can almost guarantee it will be a more enjoyable one than last year! But summer brings with it some major electrical challenges for a home. Households use enormous amounts of electricity during summer. For some homes, such as those that rely on gas-powered heaters, summer may have higher electricity use than winter—and the hotter the summer, the more electricity consumption rises. 

We’re experienced with dealing with summer electrical problems. Below we’ve listed a few of the most common electrical troubles you may run into this summer. 

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What You Can Do to Help Prevent Electrical Fires

Monday, April 12th, 2021
smoke-detector

One reason we tell our customers to only rely on professional Buffalo, NY electrical service technicians for any electrical need rather than to call an amateur or go “do-it-yourself” is because of the potential hazard of electrical fires. Electrical fires are one of the biggest sources of fires in homes: according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, electrical fires from outlets alone cause more than 5,000 fires per year.

We want you to avoid electrical fires in your house, and there are steps you can take to reduce the chance of them occurring with our help.

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