An electrician should inspect your home’s wiring beginning with the supply feed to the home and the distribution panel. In older homes, there may be issues with the wiring which can be dangerous, but the average homeowner would not recognize these problems.
A licensed and experienced electrician can find these and repair them. The nation’s power grid is antiquated, but the wiring inside many houses is also antiquated. This results in straining the electrical supply to the average home’s ever-growing collection of electricity-using appliances, electronics and lighting. Many electrical circuits in older homes were not designed for all of the gadgets which modern life has introduced into the home. Many homes have multiple extension cords and power strips on one circuit.
Frayed wiring in the weatherhead, which is the outdoor fitting where the cables come from the power line into the house, will cause a short when the cables move in the wind. This condition can result in an arc and start a fire.
The home needs significant rewiring if there are not enough outlets, and there are several undersized extension cords carrying the load for appliances of any kind. The circuit breaker or fuse panel may be over-wired. This should be corrected.
Many homes have aluminum wiring which was a popular substitute for copper in the 60s and 70s. This wiring is unsafe and it should be replaced with copper wiring. The home wiring in Wichita can handle this task. New wiring provides the opportunity to fix other problems like uncovered junction boxes or junction boxes behind walls.
This is the time to add enough outlets so that extension cords are not needed. Frayed wire covering that cannot be seen will also be replaced. A new circuit panel can be added to accommodate the added circuits. You will now have a home which is wired for the modern needs of the occupants. This is the time to ask the electrician to install switches and outlets that have screws to secure the wire feed. This is safer than the often used “backstabbing” connections which can come loose and cause a fire.
Don’t take any unnecessary chances with your home’s wiring. Its not just your home you may loose but you could loose the occupants. It happens more frequently than it should.
