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If you have a summer home, especially one a good distance away from your primary home, you know how hard it can be to keep it up. More than just brushing off the dust off surfaces, you also need to check and make sure everything electrical is working properly when its been sitting idly for so long. Consider these ideas to help keep your summer home functional and safe even when you’re not there on vacation.

Think Ahead The Next Time You Leave Your Summer Home

With enough foresight, you can make a world of difference in maintaining your summer home. The next time you venture out for a getaway, take some time at the beginning and the end of your trip to do some routine maintenance. Check for rust or condensation in your wiring and clean up any residue. Your vacation time is valuable, but setting aside just a little bit of time can ensure that your home is good for the rest of your trip.

Upgrade Your Wiring and Appliances

One of the best ways to limit electrical mishaps is to make sure you’re home is completely up-to-date. This is especially true for summer homes, which often don’t get nearly as much attention as your main home. If you’re vacation spot is an older home, you may want to consider checking and seeing if you need to rewire the whole thing. Otherwise, upgrading your appliances, outlets, and other electrical devices will minimize the risk of a faulty cable giving you issue when you’re gone.

Hire an Electrician to Inspect Your Home

Sometimes you just simply can’t get out to your summer home as much as you’d like. This is especially if you live a fair distance away the rest of the year. Even if the house is empty, you still don’t want to run the risk of a wiring issue. The best thing you can do is to hire an electrician to come out to your home and do an inspection. You can request a thorough report back. Ideally they’ll come back without much at all. However, it’s better to have peace of mind than a disaster to have to clean up later on.

Looking for an electrician to check out your summer home in the Seattle area?

Wire Craft’s team of electricians can help. Experts in our field, our electricians will check through every nook and cranny to make sure your home is safe. Even while you’re away and ready to go when you return.

Give us a call today.

Typically when we talk about preparing for summer blackout, the conversation centers on how to stay warm and push through the harsh winter. But during a heatwave where circuits are being overloaded from people blasting their AC and fans, you’ll find you a whole other set of challenges to face. How do you keep cool, keep your food, and stay prepared for a summer blackout? We’ll show you how.

Invest in a Generator

First and foremost, if it’s vital that you have power ASAP then you’ll want to have a generator handy.  For families with specific medical needs that require machinery or just people who are running a business from home, sometimes you can’t afford to have any downtime. Whether you invest in a portable or standby generator is up to you, but either will help you get your home running power again quickly.

Stock Up on Water and Non-Perishable Food

Those jugs of water you’ve been keeping in the garage have a purpose. While most plumbing systems don’t require electricity to function, there are some concerns to consider other than lacking hot water. The CDC points out that a widespread power outage might affect water purification systems. You can go through the purification yourself by boiling water, but you can also invest in bottled water and storage gallons to get you through while you wait for the power to come back.

With your fridge temporarily out of water, one of your best bets is investing in non-perishable foods. Typically this means pre-packaged and canned foods that don’t require cooking. If you have an outdoor grill or camping stove handy, you can use those to cook. A cooler will help you keep food for a couple days, but you’ll quickly find yourself running to the store to buy more ice (assuming they still have power as well).

Keeping the House Cool Without A/C During Summer Blackout

We’ve talked here before about keeping cool in the summer without breaking the bank, but what about when you don’t have any power at all? Summer blackouts often happen from too many people trying to run their cooling systems at the same time, meaning it’s pretty stinkin’ hot out! Without power, being in your own house can feel miserable. Instead of hiding in the car and blasting the air conditioning, first take a look around your house. Make sure you have the blinds down so that the sun won’t come in and heat things up. Wait to open your windows at night when you’ll hopefully be able to let in a cool breeze. Also try and stock up on battery operated fans. Having a few handy is always a good idea. They’ll likely be in high-demand if there’s a widespread blackout, so invest in some now before they become a necessity.

Has the power gone out in your home and you’re not sure why? Don’t wait and suffer it out in the summer heat.

Call Wire Craft today and we’ll send one of our expert electricians to inspect your home. We will identify the problem, and help you figure out the next steps. Summer blackouts aren’t any more fun than winter outages – make sure your home is properly prepared this season.

Summer’s coming, everyone. We’ve had a few gorgeous days of weather over the last couple of months, which has reminded us that now is the time to prepare for the season ahead. June and July is when the heat comes on full-blast in the Seattleland area, so we’ve compiled 5 helpful hints to cool your home, aside from the obvious solution of A/C or a multitude of fans taking up every outlet of your home. Even just following these simple steps can help immensely!

Ways To Cool Your Home

Lower the Shades

You can use the option to close your windows for the entire day to keep heat out, but if you miss the scent of fresh summer air, you can still cool your house down without going that drastic. Survey your home to determine when the sun hits the hardest and keep your shades and windows closed during that time. White window shades can be an added cooling aspect, but darker colors will absorb more heat. If you want to use air conditioning sparingly, this would be the best time of day to turn it on, using an energy-efficient setting. If you use a ceiling fan with your air conditioning unit, the air circulation will also increase the cool air flow.

Don’t Increase the Heat Load

Obviously, cooking creates a greater heat load in the house (summer is a great time for fresh salads and outdoor BBQ, or even an occasional set-it-and-forget-it crockpot meal, like this coffee-rubbed roast), but while we’re talking indoors: appliances such as washing machines, dryers and dishwashers can also generate a considerable amount of hot air. This can make it tough to cool your home for hours, even after they haven’t been in use. Keep appliances off during the day whenever possible, and if you must turn on the gas range or oven, only do it during the coolest times of the day.

Ventilate to Cool Your Home

Take advantage of the cooler days by using window fans. Window fans will maximize the cooling capacity by taking the cooler air from outside and bringing it inside. Keep all of your doors open and the fans situated on your house’s downwind side, facing out. When the temperature gets warmer, close the windows and trap the cooler air from earlier in the day inside.

Insulate

Make sure that your home is well-insulated around your windows and doors. Don’t forget to double check the insulation around air ducts in the basement and attic. If you have a fireplace, you should make sure that it is sealed. It may be allowing outside heat in.

Cast shade

Planting trees outside your house will cast large shadows on the sides of your house. It will significantly cool your home inside if you can invest the time it takes for them to grow. Keep in mind that even small trees can generate breeze. With that, you will experience some heat relief immediately upon planting.

Do you have any helpful tips for cooling down your home when the weather heats up? We’d love to hear from you. Feel free to leave a comment or your feedback on what’s worked for you. Also fee free to contact us if you need help with your home plans.