Roberts Electrical Services

Holiday Tips for all of you.

12.13.12 Counting Down to Christmas with 12 Electrical Safety Tips The holiday season is in full swing and Christmas is right around the corner! It's a wonderful time of year and staying safe around electricity will keep the holidays bright for you, your family and friends. As you "deck the halls" and make other preparations, please pause to review our electrical s...

Please do not hesitate to call us for any project! From adding a light or receptacle in your family room to a high voltage transformer for your plant, we can help you with it all. We would appreciate the opportunity to serve you and make you apart of the family!

TIP OF THE DAY: If the electrical outlets and switches in your home haven't been replaced in 10+ years, it's something to consider! It's easy to forget and take these things for granted, but certainly worth the effort.

Here are some good safety tips for the Christmas season .

1. Inspect electrical decorations for damage before use.
Cracked or damaged sockets, loose or bare wires, and loose connections may cause a serious shock or start a fire.

2. Do not overload electrical outlets.
Overloaded electrical outlets and faulty wires are a common cause of holiday fires. Avoid overloading outlets and plug only one high-wattage into each outlet at a time.

3. Never connect more than three strings of incandescent lights.
More than three strands may not only blow a fuse, but can also cause a fire.

4. Keep trees fresh by watering daily.
Dry trees are a serious fire hazard.

5. Use battery-operated candles.
Candles start almost half of home decoration fires (NFPA).

6. Keep combustibles at least three feet from heat sources.
A heat sources that was too close to the decoration was a factor in half of home fires that began with decorations (NFPA).

7. Protect cords from damage.
To avoid shock or fire hazards, cords should never be pinched by furniture, forced into small spaces such as doors and windows, placed under rugs, located near heat sources, or attached by nails or staples.

8. Check decorations for certification label.
Decorations not bearing a label from an independent testing laboratory such as Underwriters Laboratories (UL), Canadian Standards Association (CSA), or Intertek (ETL) have not been tested for safety and could be hazardous.

9. Stay in the kitchen when something is cooking.
Unattended cooking equipment is the leading cause of home cooking fires (NFPA).

10. Turn off, unplug, and extinguish all decorations when going to sleep or leaving the house.
Unattended candles are the cause of one in five home candle fires. Half of home fire deaths occur between the hours of 11pm and 7am (NFPA).