Info for Sump Pumps & Generators
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Storm Watch…Middlesex County, NJ
This weekend has been a busy and stressful time for many of our customers We have received several emergency calls from our existing customers who were in need of sump pump battery back-ups, generators, and panel repairs. Our service technicians have been working extra hard to take care of you and we want to do everything we can to help. Saturday night we were out there cutting trees & clearing roads. Remember, if you have power outages, report them to the utility company and not the townships.
For all of our friends and customers… If you’re using portable generators, PLEASE make sure that you’ve placed the generator OUTSIDE! If it is in the garage, the carbon monoxide will travel into the home – even if the garage door is open. Don’t worry about the generator getting wet – it will be okay.
If you are using a standby generator and may not have gotten regular maintenance, please make sure that your exhaust is unobstructed.
Also – remember, that if you are in Middlesex County, the water contamination is still in effect. Flooding may have caused contamination at a local plant so stock up on bottled water and remember to boil your water for at least 1 minute before consuming it, using it to cook or bake with, or giving it your pets.
Keep your eyes out for an email we will be sending to our loyal customers with some money saving coupons for sump pumps and generators. If you haven’t signed up for our newsletter, do so now! http://www.friendlyelectric.com/electric-news.html
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Consumer Product Safety Commission: Extension Cords Fact Sheet
THE STATISTICS
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSO) estimates that each year, about 4,000 injuries associated with electric extension cords are treated in hospital emergency rooms. About half the injuries involve fractures, lacerations, contusions, or sprains from people tripping over extension cords. Thirteen percent of the injuries involve children under-five years of age; electrical burns to the mouth accounted for half the injuries to young children.
CPSC also estimates that about 3,300 residential fires originate in extension cords each year, killing 50 people and injuring about 270 others. The most frequent causes of such fires are short circuits, overloading, damage, and/or misuse of extension cords.
THE PROBLEM
Following are CPSC investigations of injuries that illustrate the major accident patterns associated with extension cords, namely children putting extension cords in their mouths, overloaded cords, worn or damaged cords, and tripping over cords:
A 15-month-old girl put an extension cord In her mouth and suffered an electrical burn. She required surgery.
Two young children were injured In a fire caused by an overloaded extension cord in their family’s home. A lamp, TV set, and electric heater had been plugged Into a single, light-duty extension cord.
A 65-year old woman was treated for a fractured ankle after tripping over an extension cord.
THE STANDARDS
The National Electrical Code says that many cord-connected appliances should be equipped with polarized grounding type plugs. Polarized plugs have one blade slightly wider than the other and can only be inserted one way into the outlet. Polarization and grounding ensure that certain parts of appliances that could have a higher risk of electric shock when they become live are instead connected to the neutral, or grounded, side of the circuit. Such electrical products should only be used with polarized or grounding type extension cords.
Voluntary industry safety standards, including those of Underwriters Laboratories Inc.(UL), now require that general use extension cords have safety closures, warning labels, rating information about the electrical current, and other added features for the protection of children and other consumers.
In addition, UL-listed extension cords now must be constructed with #16 gauge or larger wire, or be equipped with integral fuses. The #16 gauge wire is rated to carry 13 amperes (up to 1560 watts), as compared to the formerly-used # 18 gauge cords that were rated for 10 amperes (up to 1200 watts).
SAFETY SUGGESTIONS
| CPSC has the following recommendations for the purchase and safe use of extension cords:
* Use extension cords only when necessary and only on a temporary basis. * Use polarized extension cords with polarized appliances. * Make sure cords do not dangle from the counter or table tops where they can be pulled down or tripped over. * Replace cracked or worn extension cords with new. #16 gauge cords that have the listing, of a nationally-recognized testing laboratory, safety closures, and other safety features. * With cords lacking safety closures, cover any unused outlets with electrical tape or with plastic caps to prevent the chance of a child making contact with the live circuit. * Insert plugs fully so that no part of the prongs are exposed when the extension cord is in use. * When disconnecting cords, pull the plug rather than the cord itself. * Teach children not to play with plugs and outlets. * Use only three-wire extension cords for appliances with three-prong plugs. Never remove the third (round or U-shaped) prong, which is a safety feature designed to reduce the risk of shock and electrocution. |
* Check the plug and the body of the extension cord while the cord is in use. Noticeable warming of these plastic parts is expected when cords are being used at their maximum rating, however, if the cord feels hot or if there is a softening of the plastic, this is a warning that the plug wires or connections are failing and that the extension cord should be discarded and replaced.
* Never use an extension cord while it is coiled or looped. Never cover any part of an extension cord with newspapers, clothing, rugs, or any objects while the cord is in use. Never place an extension cord where it is likely to be damaged by heavy furniture or foot traffic. * Don’t use staples or nails to attach extension cords to a baseboard or to another surface. This could damage the cord and present a shock or fire hazard. * Don’t overload extension cords by plugging in appliances that draw a total of more watts than the rating of the cord. * Use special, heavy duty extension cords for high wattage appliances such as air conditioners, portable electric heaters, and freezers. * When using outdoor tools and appliances, use only extension cords labeled for outdoor use. |
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Save money this heating season
Don’t be fooled today – the cold air is coming and this weekend we’re expecting snow again!
Here’s a great article we found that we thought we’d relay over to our customers. It’s a rough time out there and we try to do everything we can to help our customers save their hard earned money. Follow these tips in the article and you’re sure to see results!
10 tricks for reducing your heating bill
Here’s how to keep your house warm without draining your wallet
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1. Learn to love socks. If your feet are cold, your whole body will feel cold, so make a point of wearing socks around the house in the winter. The next step if you’re still feeling cold: Bundle up in a sweater or a blanket rather than cranking up the heat.
2. Tap heat that’s there anyway. There are plenty of activities you do around the house that generate warmth, such as cooking a meal or taking a shower. When you shower, keep the bathroom door open so steam spreads to other rooms, and don’t turn a ventilation fan on; it will rapidly remove the warm air you’re hoping to keep around.
3. Lower your thermostat. You likely won’t notice a huge difference if you turn it down just a few degrees, a move that can shave 5 percent to 10 percent off your heating bill. It’s especially wise to turn down the heat whenever you leave your home for several hours.
4. Watch that water heater. It’s also not likely to be noticeable if you turn down the thermostat on your water heater to, say, 120 degrees from about 140 degrees.
5. Consider a programmable thermostat. They cost between $30 and $100, but that’s money you’re sure to make back over the course of a year because your heating bills will drop. A programmable thermostat allows you to adjust the heat on a predetermined schedule, so you can lower the heat when you’re not home or when you’re sleeping.
6. Don’t let heat escape unnecessarily. Keep your doors and windows shut when the heat is on. If your home has a fireplace that you aren’t using, be sure the flue is closed and glass doors are in place to minimize heat loss. In addition to those bathroom ventilation fans, turn kitchen ventilation fans off when they aren’t needed.
7. Call for a checkup. Proper maintenance will help your heating unit run more efficiently. Electric and oil heaters should get professional attention at least once a year and gas heaters every other year. Also, here’s a step you can take all on your own: Remember to check the filters in your heating system and make sure they’re clean and clear. Dirty filters lead to higher heating costs.
(By Laura T. Coffey – msnbc.com contributor – Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/16176373/ns/today_technology_and_money-10_tips/)
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No Heat?
HEATING TIP: Due to the exceptionally cold weather, if your furnace is to go off, do not try to heat your home with your oven. The carbon monoxide release from the oven door being open is harmful! Give us a call right away instead at 732-821-0200! We have 24/7 Emergency Service…www.friendlyelectric.com…
You may want to check out our pre-season $79 heating tune-up. We’ve extended it due to the warm winter we’ve been having – up until now, that is!
By the way, 1.5 hour lines today at Target…Due to the recession??? You tell me…
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Prevent Home Fires: Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters (AFCIs)
Problems in home wiring, like arcing and sparking, are associated with more than 40,000 home fires each year. These fires claim over 350 lives and injure 1,400 victims annually.
A new electrical safety device for homes, called an arc fault circuit interrupter or AFCI, is expected to provide enhanced protection from fires resulting from these unsafe home wiring conditions.
Typical household fuses and circuit breakers do not respond to early arcing and sparking conditions in home wiring. By the time a fuse or circuit breaker opens a circuit to defuse these conditions, a fire may already have begun.
Several years ago, a CPSC study identified arc fault detection as a promising new technology. Since then, CPSC electrical engineers have tested the new AFCIs on the market and found these products to be effective.
Requiring AFCIs
AFCIs are already recognized for their effectiveness in preventing fires. The most recent edition of the National Electrical Code, the widely-adopted model code for electrical wiring, will require AFCIs for bedroom circuits in new residential construction, effective January 2002.
Future editions of the code, which is updated every three years, could expand coverage.
AFCIs vs. GFCIs
AFCIs should not be confused with ground fault circuit interrupters or GFCIs. The popular GFCI devices are designed to provide protection from the serious consequences of electric shock.
While both AFCIs and GFCIs are important safety devices, they have different functions. AFCIs are intended to address fire hazards; GFCIs address shock hazards. Combination devices that include both AFCI and GFCI protection in one unit will become available soon.
AFCIs can be installed in any 15 or 20-ampere branch circuit in homes today and are currently available as circuit breakers with built-in AFCI features. In the near future, other types of devices with AFCI protection will be available.
Should You Install AFCIs?
You may want to consider adding AFCI protection for both new and existing homes. Older homes with ordinary circuit breakers especially may benefit from the added protection against the arcing faults that can occur in aging wiring systems.
For more information about AFCIs, contact an electrical supply store, an electrician, or the manufacturer of the circuit breakers already installed in your home. Sometimes these components can be replaced with AFCIs in the existing electrical panel box.
Be sure to have a qualified electrician install AFCIs; do not attempt this work yourself. The installation involves working within electrical panel boxes that are usually electrically live, even with the main circuit breakers turned off.
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Certified Installers for Home Technology Installations
Friendly Electric is pleased to announce that three members of their team, Gabriel,Matt & Travis have successfully completed a certified training course on home technology installation. Gabriel, Matt & Travis join the other members of our team in being certified to install quality home technology products from such fine retailers as Lutron, Pass & Seymour and HAI. With the ever changing technology available to homeowners, electricians must constantly be educating themselves on new products. Friendly Electric is committed to providing our employees with on-going training programs, such as this to further enable them to serve our customers to the best of our ability. We strive to be the best in our industry. We work hard every day to make sure that we are providing quality products and a quality installation. Through the help of companies such as these, we can offer the most cutting edge technology to our customers. Congratulations to Gabriel, Matt & Travis!
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Swimming Pool & Hot Tub Weather is Around the Corner
Although it seems like Winter may never end ( it’s suppossed to snow again this Friday) it will and it’s just around the corner. What does that mean to us? It means that soon we’ll be able to leave the house without being bundled up like eskimos. We’ll be able to enjoy the beautiful outdoors and fresh air once again. Before you know it you’ll be in your backyard in front of the BBQ cooking up some burgers. Perhaps you’re planning on installing that pool or hot tub this summer? Just think, for the cost of a pool you can have mini vacations at home in your own backyard year after year. So, if you think that a new pool or a hot tub might be included in your summer plans …. start planning now! Friendly Electric would be delighted to help you with the entire project from start to finish. However, you should know that projects of this nature require a little advanced planning so that you can reap the rewards the entire summer. Often times clients wait until we are already in the middle of the summer fun to purchase and install their pools, which means that they end up only enjoying the water for a brief portion of the season. So I suggest you start today. It only takes a day for Friendly Electric to wire the pool, but the paperwork and the inspections require a little more time than that. Some townships take weeks just to approve your permit package, and summertime is their busiest season. So why not avoid the rush, and get started on your summer projects today. Give Friendly
Electric a call, we’d be happy to guide you through the entire process.
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Fire Prevention
Home can be your shelter from the storm. Home, according to American writer and philosopher Elbert Hubbard, is the abode of the heart. But home can also be a dangerous place as attested to by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).
The NFPA reports that fire departmens answered calls to nearly 400,000 home fires in 2006. The leading causes of home fires are associated with cooking, heating, electrical problems, and smoking.
To protect your home, follow the following guidelines:
- Beware of leaving flammables on or near the stove, including paper plates, plastic bags, pot holders, and oven mitts. In 2005, 67 percent of home fires started with the range or stove.
- Don’t leave the kitchen when you are using the stovetop or broiling in the oven. If you have to answer the door or tend to the children, turn the stove off until you get back.
- Immediately replace any damaged electrical cords. If you have small children, install tamper-resistant electrical receptacles.
- Keep lamps and light bulbs away from curtains, bedding, and anything else that can burn.
- Install and test your fire alarms and carbon monoxide alarms.
- If you smoke, do it outside. Never smoke in a house where oxygen is present. Keep any lighters or matches locked up and out of reach of children.
Deaths from residential fires occur most frequently between midnight and 4a.m. when the smoke and darkness can cause confusion.
Be sure everyone knows two ways to get out of the house. Have them practice finding their exits with their eyes closed. If a window is involved, be sure it’s easy to open. Have frequent fire drills with your family to make sure that everyone gets out safely incase of a fire.
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GFCI Receptacles
The GFCI
A “GFCI” is a ground fault circuit interrupter. A ground fault circuit interrupter is an inexpensive electrical device that, if installed in household branch circuits, could prevent over two-thirds of the approximately 300 electrocutions still occurring each year in and around the home. Installation of the device could also prevent thousands of burn and electric shock injuries each year.
The GFCI is designed to protect people from severe of fatal electric shocks. Because a GFCI detects ground faults, it can also prevent some electrical fires and reduce the severity of others by interrupting the flow of electric current.
The Problem
Have you ever experienced an electric shock? If you did, the shock probably happened because your hand or some other part of your body contacted a source of electrical current and your body provided a path for the electrical current to go to the ground, so that you received a shock.
An unintentional electric path between a source of current and a grounded surface is referred to as a “ground-fault.”
Ground Faults
Ground faults occur when current is leaking somewhere, in effect, electricity is escaping to the ground. How it leaks is very important. If your body provides a path to the ground for this leakage, you could be injured, burned, severely shocked, or electrocuted.
Some examples of accidents of this nature include: five and six year old children in Texas being fatally electrocuted when a plugged-in hair dryer fell into the tub while they were bathing; a three-year old child in Kansas being fatally electrocuted when she touched a faulty counter top.
These two electrocutions occurred because the electrical current escaping from the appliance traveled through the victim to ground (in these cases, the grounded plumbing fixtures). Had a GFCI been installed, these deaths would probably have been prevented because a GFCI would have sensed the current flowing to ground and would have switched off the the power before the electrocution occurred.
How the GFCI works
In the home’s wiring system, the GFCI constantly monitors electricity flowing in a circuit to sense any loss of current. If the current flowing through the circuit differs by a small amount from that returning, the GFCI quickly switches off to that circuit. The GFCI interrupts power faster than a blink of an eye to prevent a lethal dose of electricity. You may receive a painful shock, but you should not be electrocuted or receive a serious shock injury.
Suppose a bare wire inside an appliance touches the metal case. The case is then charged with electricity. If you touch the appliance with one hand while the other hand is touching a grounded metal object, like a water faucet, you will receive a shock. If the appliance is plugged into an outlet protected by a GFCI, the power will be shut off before a fatal shock would occur.
Availability of GFCI’s
Three common types of ground fault circuit interrupters are available for home use
- Receptacle type–This type of GFCI is used in place of the standard duplex receptacle found throughout the house. It fits into the standard outlet box and protects you against “ground faults” whenever an electrical product is plugged into the outlet. Most receptacle-type GFCI’s can be installed so that they also protect other electrical outlets further “down stream” in the branch circuit.
- Circuit breaker type–In homes equipped with circuit breakers rather than fuses, a circuit breaker GFCI may be installed in a panel box to give protection to selected circuits. The circuit breaker GFCI serves a dual purpose – not only will it shut off electricity in the even of a “ground-fault,” but it will also trip when a short circuit or an over-load occurs. Protection covers the wiring and each outlet, lighting fixture, heater, etc. served by the branch circuit protected by the GFCI in the panel box.
- Portable type–Where permanent GFCI’s are not practical, portable GFCI’s may be used. One type contains the GFCI circuitry in a plastic enclosure with plug blades in the back and receptacle slots in the front. It can be plugged into a receptacle then the electrical product is plugged into the GFCI. Another type of portable GFCI is an extension cord combined with a GFCI. It adds flexibility in using receptacles that are not protected by GFCI’s.
Where Should GFCI’s Be Installed?
In homes built to comply with the National Electrical Code, GFCI protection is required for most outdoor receptacles, bathroom receptacle circuits, garage wall outlets, kitchen receptacles, and all receptacles in crawl spaces and unfinished basements.
Owners of homes that do not have GFCI’s installed in all of those critical areas specified in the latest version of the Code should have them installed and brought up to code. For broad protection, GFCI circuit breakers may be added in many panels of older homes to replace ordinary circuit breakers. For homes protected by fuses, you are limited to receptacle or portable-type GFCI’s and these may be installed in areas of greatest exposure such as the bathroom, kitchen, basement, garage, and outdoor circuits.
A GFCI should be used whenever operating electrically powered garden equipment (lawn mower, hedge trimmer, edger, etc.). Consumers can obtain similar protection by using GFCI’s with electric tools (drills, saws, sanders, etc.) for do-it-yourself work in and around the house.
Installing GFCI’s
Circuit breaker and receptacle-type GFCI’s may be installed in your home by a qualified, licensed electrician. Receptacle-type GFCI’s may be installed by knowledgeable consumers familiar with electrical wiring practices who also follow the instructions accompanying the device. When in doubt about the proper procedure, contact a licensed electrician. DO NOT INSTALL IT YOURSELF!
Testing the GFCI’s
All GFCI’s should be tested once a month to make sure they are working properly and protecting you from fatal shock. GFCI’s should be tested after installation to make sure they are working properly and protecting the circuit.
To test the receptacle GFCI, first plug a nightlight or lamp into the outlet. The light should be on. Then press the “TEST” button on the GFCI. The GFCI’s “RESET” button should pop out and the light should go out.
If the “RESET” button pops out but the light does not go out, the GFCI has been improperly wired. Contact an electrician immediately to correct the wiring errors.
If the “RESET” button does not pop out, the GFCI is defective and should be immediately replaced.
If the GFCI is functioning properly, and the lamp goes out, press the “RESET” button to restore power to the outlet.
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