From the field
Electrical Safety Blog
Articles from the Sparkswerks team on electrical safety for Alabama homeowners.
- Rewiring a historic Birmingham home without gutting itAn old house can be made electrically safe without tearing out the plaster that makes it worth owning. Here is what is usually behind the walls, and how the work gets done.
- A house fire in Alabama is about a third more likely to result in loss of lifeThe national numbers on electrical fires are bad enough. The Alabama numbers are worse, and the reason is not what most people assume.
- Federal Pacific, Zinsco and Challenger: the three panels we will not add breakers toWhy we quote these as a replacement instead of doing the cheap thing you asked for.
- Surge protection and the Alabama springOne storm can take out every piece of electronics in a house. Two stages of protection is the standard we recommend, and here is what each one does.
- Electric shock drowning: the lake hazard you cannot see from the dockFresh water conducts badly enough that a small AC leak turns the water around a dock into something a swimmer cannot get out of.
- What an AFCI breaker actually doesThey are the breakers people complain about. They are also the ones aimed directly at the fires that take lives.
- Aluminum branch wiring in 1960s and 70s Birmingham homesIf your house went up between about 1965 and 1975, there is a real chance the branch circuits are aluminum. Here is what that means and what it does not.