While renovating their older homes, many homeowners ignore upgrading their electrical systems. Electrical upgrades have multiple benefits, such as making life more convenient, preventing fire outbreaks, and boosting the value of your home.
You must consult an electrician to help you know the materials you require to upgrade your home.
Here we dive deeper into the electrical upgrades you need for your aging home.
What are the benefits of electrical upgrades for an older home?
Upgrading your electrical system is an important step that can help your home meet electrical code and safety standards. Here are the main reasons you should introduce electrical upgrades to your old abode:
o To meet electrical code
Regulatory bodies often change the electrical system codes from time to time. However, many aging homes need more electrical system upgrades to meet current construction codes. If, for instance, you wish to know the cost of rewiring your house to meet these safety codes, it’s critical to consult an experienced Arvada electrician.
Failure to enact electrical upgrades for your aging home flouts various building codes. As a result, potential customers might decline your offer if you plan to sell or rent your home without it meeting the expected electrical codes.
o Prevention of fire outbreaks
If your electrical system is outdated, there is a danger that your worn-out wires can lead to a fire outbreak. Upgrading your electrical system can reduce such risks, and a knowledgeable ElectriCall LLC electrician will examine and update your outdated electrical panel and the wiring system.
o Addition of new outlets
Moving appliances to a different wall can sometimes be problematic. This is especially true if your old home had a few electric outlets. Thus, electrical upgrades help you to add more outlets to different walls of your house.
o Leverage the opportunity in a home repair
If you have a home repair project, you can include electrical upgrades as part of the tasks to accomplish. Remember, it’s much simpler to undertake electrical upgrades when renovating walls.
o To boost value and increase comfort at home
Electrical upgrades can significantly boost the value of your home. So, before you sell your home, updating the electrical panel is a critical move to take. The old electrical system might not support your required modern home appliances, thus affecting the overall comfort of your home.
Essential electrical upgrades your aging home requires
Updating your electrical system can help meet the recommended safety requirements and boost the home’s resale value. Also, the upgrades can accommodate specific life changes, such as the need to make life easy for elderly parents.
Furthermore, lifestyle changes resulting from diseases or accidents can make electrical upgrades necessary, even critical. Here are the essential electrical upgrades that our qualified electricians in Arvada, CO manage:
1. Repair frayed wiring
The danger of fire outbreaks is a significant concern for outdated wiring. Remember, over time, wiring is prone to wear and tear, and frayed wiring exposes your home to the risk of a fire outbreak. Furthermore, the types of wiring used for years might fail to handle modern home appliances. Upgrading helps you to use the right wiring that provides sufficient power to operate modern home devices.
Do you have an old house with outdated wiring, exposing your home to fire risk? If so, contact Denver electricians today! We can teach you how to get your house rewired for free.
2. Update electrical panels
Old electrical panels cannot handle the energy that will operate modern appliances like refrigerators and dryers. However, knowing the type of electrical panel upgrades you need is difficult without consulting an experienced electrician.
The expert will look at various things, including the wattage and number of circuits in the breaker panel, and offer a realistic estimate for updating the electrical in the old house cost. Here are the signs that warn you that upgrading your home electrical panel is critical:
· Breaker trips: When you keep opening your breaker box to fine-tune the panel, it indicates that your system requires an upgrade. This could be quite common, especially when you plug in high-powered appliances.
· High power bills: An old electric panel that has worn out and rusted circuitry may increase the overall power consumption of your connected devices. If unaddressed, you may soon start encountering high utility bills each month.
· Frequent dim lights: When lights dim, often without power outage or properly fixed bulbs, it’s a sign that you require an electrical panel update. Such cases often arise from loose connections, faulty wiring, overloaded circuits, voltage fluctuations, etc. You’ll note this problem when using home appliances like dryers and microwaves.
· Strong burning smells: Burning smells from your electrical panels could mean rodent damage in the circuitry, overheating wires, or any other electrical components and a sign that you need to take prompt action for the safety of your home occupants.
3. Addition of enough outlets
Some aging homes need more outlets, or those present are located in inaccessible corners. If you buy more electronics, you’ll need additional outlets to plug them. Also, when your outlets are located in difficult-to-reach areas, electrical upgrades can help to add more convenient receptacles.
The main disadvantage of limited receptacles is that they encourage you to use power extensions, which might cause circuit overload. Also, few outlets force you to power your appliances in turns, thus affecting the overall machine efficiency at home.
Here are some key socket outlet upgrades you may need to consider:
· USB receptacles: This wall outlet has an inbuilt USB port together with the standard power sockets. This eases the time spent on charging devices as you can charge multiple devices simultaneously.
· High-power sockets: these are heavy-duty sockets vital for appliances that require significant power, such as heavy kitchen appliances. You must, however, beware that certain high-powered sockets require specific voltage ratings that have to be matched with compatible devices.
· Tamper-resistant receptacles (TRRs): TRRs have in-built shutters that prevent the insertion of foreign materials. These outlets are especially important for improving the safety of households for young children. Both slots remain closed with these outlets unless engaged by double or triple prongs simultaneously.
· Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter (AFCI): AFCI is designed to prevent fire outbreaks as a result of poor wiring. These outlets monitor electrical circuits for abnormal arcing conditions, at which point they immediately interrupt the affected circuit.
4. Installation of smart home technology
Smart home technology can help regulate your appliances and reinforce your home’s safety. With this feature, all you need is to connect your gadgets to the internet to control them. Implementing intelligent home fixtures can enhance the safety and convenience of your home. Here are some smart home features to install during an electrical upgrade:
· Smart receptacles and entertainment systems that you can virtually switch on and off
· Color-changing fixtures that help with virtual controls with voice assistants
· Smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors that send notifications to your phone in case of smoke in the house
5. Improvement of the lighting system
Your vision reduces as you age. So, besides having those sleek lights, you also need a functional layout. Such a layout comprises of enhanced lighting system that makes your room brighter. Also, you need to include task and accent lighting layouts in fitting rooms to help you access proper illumination that meets your goals.
6. Smoke detectors
When planning your electrical upgrades, it’s crucial to replace outdated smoke detectors. Though this investment looks unnecessary at first, it goes a long way in boosting the safety and well-being of your family. Remember, carbon monoxide can pose a fatal risk to your family.
Fixing a smoke alarm detector during electrical upgrades helps homeowners to know when temperatures surge. At that point, you can act quickly to forestall the likelihood of electrical fire.
7. Install surge protectors
These gadgets are critical in averting circuit overworks and fire dangers from unanticipated energy surges as it’s an added shield against electric fires during harsh storms. So, during your electrical upgrades, installing a surge protector is vital.
Conclusion
When planning to renovate their homes, many homeowners ignore the need for electrical upgrades. Upgrading your electrical system is essential to increase your home’s curb appeal, safety, and convenience. Here, we’ve deep-dived into the benefits of electrical upgrades. The article has also explored salient electrical upgrades you can introduce to your aging home.
Benefits of electrical upgrades include modernizing your electrical system that is critical due to various reasons such as promotion of safety, meeting building code requirement, and boosting your home’s convenience.
You can introduce multiple upgrades for your old home including the installation of additional outlets, implementing intelligent home fixtures, introducing new switches, and updating the electrical panels.