The kids are home from college for the weekend. The washer and dryer are running like some crazy commercial laundromat, the sub-woofer in the living room is pounding like a toothache, and you’ve just booted up your computer to check your savings balance and—wham!—your house goes dark and silent.

Do you have an overloaded circuit or a short? Did the breakers trip? Is there a smoky aroma in the house that doesn’t smell like barbecue?

Thank goodness the age of the glass fuse is behind us. But it can still be infuriating when you have to step outside in a rainstorm, open the electrical panel, and scan for evidence with your flashlight.

In the old days, the fuse would burn out and need replacement before you got things working again. Today, it’s easy to flip the breaker switch that prevented damage. But, beware, a breaker that trips over and over becomes more prone to snapping to the “off” direction as time goes on.

Tracing Your Electrical Woes

It takes a little detective work to find the cause of repeatedly tripped breakers, but it’s worth it.  More often than not, the circuit breaker may be too small to handle the stress on the circuit. So ask yourself, do you really want to overstress the circuit in the first place? Inventory the number of electrical devices or appliances plugged into a single-outlet box.

You may have a short circuit. Tracking down a short circuit takes a little patience. Is the root cause at the wiring, the wall switch, the plugs, or ungrounded wires?  Discover when outages occur. If the lights blink out when you flip a switch and the breaker trips, it may be caused by the fixture attached to the switch.

Do You Use the Right Breakers?

Circuit breakers fall into single- and double-pole varieties.  The single-pole units are used for most household wiring, offering protection for 120 volts from 15 to 20 amps. Double-pole breakers are used to regulate overloads for air conditioning units, washers/dryers, electric stoves on 240 volts from 15 to 50 amps.

If you need to fix a short circuit, don’t touch a thing until you’ve cut the power to the wiring that handles the suspect appliance or device. Inspect all your power cords, wires, and outlets for signs of burns, smoke odor, or other discoloring.  Finally, check insulation for melting or crossed wires. Stay ahead of trouble.

As I grow older, my feet get colder. Every winter I wish I had radiant floors. I first encountered a radiant floor kitchen in Washington State where friends had rehabbed a Victorian home. They used a hydronic tubing heating system, which is usually too pricey for most homeowners. It can cost more than putting in an entirely new boiler and forced air system. But the floor was toasty and muffled the shock of walking across the floor to make morning coffee.

Today, you can install an electric radiant floor heating system for your kitchen or bathroom floor for under $500–depending on square footage. I discovered two kinds of electric radiant heating systems with a wide range in costs for materials and labor. Both have gained in popularity over the last decade.

Some systems consist of cables that are wrapped with insulation and installed directly into concrete or gypsum sections that are embedded into your floor. These can be the more expensive choices because you need a sturdy sub-floor to handle the weight of the tiling.

Installing Radiant Floor Matting
The other option is installing radiant mats that have cables woven directly into them. The mats are installed directly below your tiles or onto the sub-floor and covered with  pad and carpet. The radiant mats come in a variety of sizes, are powered by 20 volts and 240 volt systems, and require about 12 watts per square foot to operate. A system installed directly beneath a carpet can heat up in an hour or so, while a system in the sub floor can take hours to reach your comfort level.

If you choose to install a radiant mat system in your bathroom, you have the option of covering it with any stone or tile that makes for a good conductor (ceramic, marble, granite, glass, or slate). There are also over-tile radiant heating systems comprised of mats that install directly over your existing tile and allow you to add a new tile floor on top. But you may need to reinforce the sub-floor to handle the weight and problems with deflected heat.

A more-recent radiant system uses mats that install directly beneath carpets and floating floors. Manufacturers claim that the systems are silent and can supplement your heating sufficiently to curb some usage from the forced-air furnace, fighting mold, pollen, and cutting heating costs. The greatest advantage, it seems to me, is that you can install these on your own.

In improperly installed or poorly maintained ceiling fan may become more ornamental than useful.  You may have selected your kitchen, bedroom, or living room fan based on appearance, choosing it for blade design or lighting options. But unless you’re just going to turn it on when company comes, you should make sure that your fan is not costing you more to operate than the potential energy savings it can bring to your home.

Let’s say you’ve included quotes for having a fan installed when renovating a bathroom. According to Home Energy Magazine,  a standard ceiling fan with a light fixture uses about 300 kwh/year to operate, while a certified Energy Star model fan uses less than half of that amount without compromising light and airflow capabilities. Makes sense to help distribute your HVAC load with an appliance that also runs efficiently.

Do You Need Lighting in the Ceiling Fan?
If your main reason is to curb heating or air conditioning costs, you may not need to buy a ceiling fan with a central light. It’s the light itself that draws the most power during operation and it generates heat.  Halogen and  incandescent bulbs typically use the greatest amount of energy.

The government’s Energy Star website provides downloads of tools to help you select the most energy-efficient fan based on the size of your kitchen or bathroom, on your regional heating and cooling requirements, along with installation tips. The agency also has suggestions in choosing the correct fan mounting system for your room: standard, extended, sloped, or flush mounts.

Fan Adjustments: Working Out the Wobble
There’s nothing glamorous about a wobbly fan. The noise or visual flutter in the spin can drive you to distraction. Worse, a wobbly fan can have a shorter effective life as well as use additional energy to run without providing circulation.

If you’re installing the fan in your bathroom or kitchen–or having someone do it for you–be sure the unit is fastened securely to a mounting box in the ceiling. This is a pivotal part of the procedure.  Most manufacturers balance the fan blades before shipping, but there’s no guarantee your unit will come that way.

A good method of diagnosing the fan is to run it without the blades installed to see if it still wobbles. If it runs smooth, you’ll need to balance the blades. Be sure to  ensure that all the set screws and mounting screws are tight. Then measure the distance from the top of each blade to the ceiling. Adjust each blade as necessary until all of them are true and even.

(Stats show that in 2003, the average American’s electricity bill added up to $81.42. http://www.grist.org/news/counter/2006/03/03/costs/

What would you do if you had that back? I might save up for a nice camera, a new bike… I’d wager you could come up with more than a few things you could throw that money towards. 

Who hasn’t imagined not having utility bills to pay every month? Even if the answer is no (unlikely) you could at least imagine if those bills were lower.  What if those bills went away entirely? What if, instead of owing money to the electric company, they owed YOU money? What a concept, huh?  That’s exactly what people who’ve invested in solar panels can expect to experience. 

Over the years, we’ve seen our electricity costs rise and the pinch is becoming more and more apparent as our resources strain to meet current demands.  Even if your concerns are less environmental and more economic, solar panels make more than enough sense to take a look at.

In some cases you can still receive tax credits for the panels: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=153397,00.html

Then you can sit back and relax knowing your electricity bill will be dwindling away into nothingness, while you save up for a new set of golf clubs or some scuba lessons. 

So, what would you do with it?

Photo Credit: ScubaMarcos.com