When to Have Electrical Panel Services Performed

Circuit breakers regulate the amount of electrical energy that flows into a circuit. If a circuit is overloaded, the breaker trips and shuts down the electricity flow. You might have encountered this, if on the same circuit you had multiple devices running at once. You can fix this by unplugging the device and resetting the breaker. If this is something that happens regularly, then you need to have a technician replace it with a new one and get a professional recommendation on how to prevent this from continuing in the future. If there is only a breaker for those trips, then you may just have to replace that bad breaker.

Signs that Your Electrical Panel Needs to be Replaced

• The panel is warm or hot to the touch
• Lights flickering when appliances are in use
• Hissing sound
• Burning smell coming from the panel
• Burn marks in panel
• Popping or other noises coming from the breaker box
• Melted electrical wires

Fuse Panels

Most homes built before 1960 used fuse-style panels to manage electrical circuits. When circuit breaker panels became more prevalent, fuse panels started to be considered unsafe. Fuse panels are not, in themselves, danger. The issue with fuse panels is that it is too easy to oversize the fuse for the circuit. Many people started to use larger-rated fuses to replace fuses that frequently went bad due to too much load on them. What people don’t realize is that the fuse is paired to the size of the wire used for the circuit. The larger a wire is, the greater the current it can handle without generating too much heat. When too much current is put across a wire, it works like an element in an oven and gets hot, which can create a fire hazard. A breaker is more difficult to change and should be done so by a licensed electrician who should not install a breaker that has a capacity greater than what the circuit wire can handle. Instead, the electrician should divide the circuit into two and add a breaker to your panel. This is not possible with a fuse panel because they are typically not expandable.

Electrical Panel Replacement in Pennsylvania

Does it seem like you are always running to the breaker box every time someone plugs in an appliance? Are you looking for ways to upgrade your electrical system to accommodate your family’s technological lifestyle? Then it may be time to invest in an electrical panel replacement. Some property owners choose to replace their existing panels for convenience and efficiency, while others simply want to avoid further electrical hazards. No matter what reason you have for making the switch, our specialists are ready to put their tools to work to ensure that your system can handle the needs of your household or business.