Working from Home? Recommended Improvements

SWITCHES

Now that home spaces have to serve many new functions, you might want to upgrade the functionality of your lights. For a home office, living room, media room, man cave, or bedroom, one great option is to add dimmer switches. They are an easy way to create dynamic lighting options for spaces. If you’re using a bedroom as a home office, for example, the dimmer switch keeps it bright during the day and dims to softer lighting at night. Bonus: they can also save you money on your energy bills!

Beyond offering some really cool functionality to your home lighting, switches are relatively simple to install.  If you’re comfortable with home electrical DIY projects and you’ve determined that your circuits can handle the new loads, here is a short video explaining how to replace a light switch. Otherwise, you can always talk to a licensed electrician about your options.

BULBS

Light bulbs are hands down the fastest and easiest way to change the look and feel of a room. Especially now, with modern LED bulbs, you can completely change the mood of a space with various tones and hues. If you have standard light bulbs in your home, an investment in LEDs could brighten your kitchen, for example, while also saving you money over time on power bills, since the operating costs of LED lights are a fraction of standard incandescent bulb costs. And while historically many of these high-efficiency lights gave off a harsh light, they now come in many different hues to match your room from a softer, yellower light, to a brighter, bluish light. Here are some pictures to illustrate the different hues on the Phillips blog post.

Make sure you’re getting the right tone for your room and for its purposes!

WORKSPACE LIGHTING

Perhaps when assessing your workspaces—laundry rooms, kitchen counters, craft rooms, and home offices, for example—you are trying to bring in as much light as possible without sacrificing counter and workspace. This is often achieved with under-cabinet lighting. There are lighting kits you can install to the bottoms of cabinets to illuminate work areas beneath them; however, make sure your switches and circuits are compatible. If you want to hide the wires, or if you need a new switch in the kitchen, you may need to get into the wall, which might be covered in tile or cabinetry and therefore trickier to access. So, this one might be a project better suited for a licensed electrician.

RECESSED LIGHTING

Recessed or can lighting is a sleek, modern, unobtrusive way to add light to a room without adding bulk, or without losing overhead space. This can be especially important in basements if you’re utilizing that space as an office, or kitchens where space is a premium. However, installing can lights are not for the faint of heart—especially if you’re installing them in a room that doesn’t have attic access. It could mean quite a bit of drywall work otherwise. If you have an electrician you trust, have them come and do an assessment and give you a bid for what it would take to install recessed lighting.

If you have any questions at all about whether your home circuits can handle the load of your new lighting, don’t hesitate to call a professional electrician. He can assess your needs and make recommendations if you’d like to perform the work yourself, or help create new circuits, run wiring, order in your lighting, and perform all the work for you.

LOOSE OR WIGGLY OUTLETS

Being home all the time might make you aware of problem outlets in the house that you never noticed or used before. Some people solve the problem of a loose outlet by bending the prongs of their plugs out so they’ll stay in. This is dangerous! If you’re plugging cords into outlets and they’re falling out on their own, it means the pins in your outlet that are supposed to hold the plug are loose. And loose pins mean that there is space between the prongs of the plug and the actual pins. This space could cause arcing and heat, which is a fire hazard. These outlets should be replaced! Considering a standard outlet isn’t very expensive, and if you feel comfortable doing a project like this yourself, it’s well worth it to take care of the problem and update your jiggly, wiggly outlet.

Here is a video showing how to replace your outlets.

OVERLOADED OUTLETS

Outlet can’t take what you have to give it? Are your breakers tripping because you’re overloading your outlets? With all the devices and electronics the standard household relies on every day, and even more so when everyone is home and using electronics and appliances at once, your outlets need to have the functionality to match. Because extension cords should not be used in any permanent application and because overloading outlets with too many cords is a fire hazard, adding more outlets is a great idea to keep everyone in your house fully charged and fully functional. In most cases, this can be done without having to update your fuses and breakers; however, sometimes these additional outlets require more electrical work than just a new outlet. In order to add new outlets to a room, you may need to upgrade your fuses or your panel as well, which requires the help of a licensed electrician. But the addition of new outlets makes work and play more convenient for everyone!

USB OUTLETS

While working and doing school at home, everyone in the house will be on their devices--and will need to be able to frequently charge their devices! So, a great upgrade idea is a USB outlet. These outlets are perfect for areas where devices are frequently charged during the day, or where devices are docked at night. Upgrading a standard outlet to a USB outlet is also relatively inexpensive, easy, and something the motivated DIY-er can do herself. Not to mention, it’s also something every kid in the house will appreciate!

Here is a video showing how to install a USB outlet.

BABYPROOFING YOUR OUTLETS

This is a pretty inexpensive DIY project that could really give some peace of mind to parents who now have to work with babies and small children in the house. There are some solutions for babyproofing outlets that include an apparatus to put over your sockets, but those are unsightly and less effective. Additionally, many newer houses already have tamper-resistant outlets built-in. But many houses don’t. So, it’s a good idea to look at either upgrading your outlets to tamper-resistant ones, or simply replacing the plate.

Upgrading the plate itself is as easy as unscrewing the old one and placing the new one over the top. This doesn’t require any electrical knowledge or wiring at all. These sliding cover plates shift the position of the receptacles so they don’t line up. However, if someone wanted to use the outlet, it’s as easy as moving the spring-loaded cover over to stick the plug in. When you’re done using the outlet and remove the plug, the cover snaps back into place. Babyproof plates can be found at most any hardware store.

Click here for more ideas on childproofing outlets in your home.

FANS

Sometimes, if you’re converting a bedroom or other small space into an office, or if your living spaces are starting to feel cramped and stale, installing a ceiling fan could be a game-changer. Especially if the living room has now become the home gym--you need ventilation and fast! However, if you’re looking to add a fan where there isn’t already a fixture, you’re going to want to call a licensed electrician to run the necessary wires, cut out a hole in your ceiling, and install a specific box that can handle the weight of your new fan. If your location already has a fan but the fan is dysfunctional, outdated, or otherwise insufficient, you can replace it with a new fan. We have a video here showing how to do it yourself!

In the end, we’re all hoping that we can get back to our normal lives as soon as possible. In the meantime, now is a perfect time to do some home improvement projects and make some of our shared living spaces a little better!

Click here to watch the video on how to replace a broken ceiling fan.

SURGE PROTECTION

80% of all power surges are generated within the home. That’s right: when it comes to power surges, we create most of them ourselves. Now that everyone is home and using outlets, electronics, and appliances at the same time, it’s a great idea to think about surge protection--especially if you have important information on your work or home computers.

The most common culprit for power surges is the appliance we start running during warm spring days: the air conditioner. Perhaps you’ve noticed that, when the air conditioner kicks off and on, the lights in the house dim or flicker and household appliances either lose or get a surge of power. Surges like this can happen on a large scale with a major appliance like an air conditioner, a generator, or a clothes dryer. But it can also happen on a smaller scale, with blow dryers, microwaves, or vacuum cleaners. 

Each of these surges in power puts strain on the delicate circuitry in your appliances and electronics, but it also puts a strain on the wiring in your home. Over time, small but frequent surges can and do break down the integrity of the outlets, switches, light fixtures, meters, panels, and breakers as well.

Surge protection power strips are effective for local electronics but it’s almost impossible to protect every appliance in the house. When you consider fridges, washers, dryers, microwaves, personal computers, and laptops, modern homes can easily have around $10,000 in unprotected electronics. And when these are potentially all going at once, surges are inevitable. A quality whole-home surge protector essentially allows only the necessary voltage in the home and keeps the surges at bay, protecting your home and all the expensive electronics inside. Ask a licensed electrician you trust to help you understand your options and choose the best whole-home surge protection solution that’s right for you.

Speaking of sharing living space, another way to improve your home conditions is to try a number of easy solutions for improving your indoor air quality. If you'd like to read more, here's a post on Ways to Improve Indoor Air Quality.