Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

The question of safety doesn’t have anything to do with round fuses or circuit breakers. Safety is not a concern until the fuse box is not damaged or deteriorated. Fuses are usually more sensitive than circuit breakers and are safer to use. But circuit breakers are preferred for two reasons – first, when the fuse is used to protect your home from overload circuits, it cannot be reused. This would result in the consumption of more fuses. The second reason why circuit breakers are considered safer is because more insurance companies now require fuse boxes to be replaced with circuit breakers.

Dimmers are rated on the basis of how many watts they are designed to handle. If the dimmer has to operate to its fullest capacity, it heats up. Few dimmers have metal fins to dissipate heat. You can choose to either use a high-rated dimmer or reduce the wattage connected to the dimmer to prevent the dimmer from excessive heat.

Recessed lights are supplied with a thermal overload. Since the fixture is inside the ceiling, it is important to ensure that excessive heat from the bulbs does not cause a fire. The thermal overload is designed to act as a thermometer – when the heat reaches the preset temperature, it will disconnect the electrical power and will light up once the temperature drops. As an alternative, using lower wattage lamps is a consideration, as they generate less heat.

Yes, but make sure you use a dimmer and light fixture that is designed specially for fluorescent lights.

Generally any level that exceeds 30 volts is considered dangerous.

You should use correct starter for specific tube. If tube still flickers, it means internal ballast has to be replaced.

Depending on how much critical equipment on the premises will determine the size of the generator. Typically for a single family residence of 3,000 sq./ft or less looking to power a boiler, sump pump, refrigerator, microwave / stovetop, some limited lighting and power circuits would require a generator with no less than a 7,000 watt capacity.

A generator equipped with an "Automatic Transfer Switch" will detect loss of utility power automatically and start the back-up generator and once utility power is restored will automatically switch back to "normal" power.

Upgrading your panel would be a first good step to alleviating overloaded conditions but normally new circuits will need to be run back to the new panel in order to properly re-distribute your load to stop circuit breakers from tripping.

Unfortunately many times when a fuse starts to burn up the homeowner starts to use larger size fuses so that the fuse stops burning up. After upgrading the electrician will go by the size of the wire and install the proper corresponding breaker size. For example a 14 gauge wire can only have a 15 Amp Circuit Breaker but may previously had a 20 Amp or larger fuse. Now the breaker will start to trip regularly because the circuit is overloaded. Putting larger size fuses in smaller size wire is dangerous because the wire can overheat and cause a fire. In this case a new circuit would need to be run back to the panel.