Day: September 7, 2023

How Home Standby Generators Can Save You Money in the Long Run

September 7, 2023 /

Home standby generators monitor the power 24 hours a day and detect outages within seconds. They then disconnect your building from the power lines, turn on the generator engine, and supply electricity.

Unlike portable generators, a Briggs & Stratton standby generator is permanently installed, which must be wheeled out of storage and connected to your circuit-breaker panel before they start working. It automatically starts when the power goes out and operates with natural gas or propane.

Save Money on Utility Bills

Pro: Home standby generators provide backup power for appliances and equipment you may not be able to afford to lose during a power outage. These include a home’s HVAC system, water pump, sump pumps, refrigerators or freezers, central air conditioning units, security systems, and more.

Con: While the initial investment in a home standby generator is high, so are the potential costs associated with losing food, damaging expensive equipment, and living without essential services like home internet and wifi. Also, many life-saving medical devices require electricity and are left unpowered during a power outage.

A generator sized correctly to your household can automatically supply power during outages and transition back to utility lines as soon as the power returns. This saves you time and prevents costly inconveniences.

Protect Your Refrigerator or Freezer

A generator can power refrigerators and freezers so food stays cold or frozen during a power outage. This saves you money on grocery store bills and prevents spoilage of valuable food items.

It also protects specialty items like breast milk, which will thaw and go bad in a few hours if left without power. A generator can save you time and money from having to drive out to purchase more milk or waste months of precious work.

A whole-house standby generator connects directly to the breaker box, making it easier to keep important appliances like sump pumps, central air heat, and security systems working during a power outage. This can also help you avoid costly damage to your property from flooding or burst pipes caused by the loss of power to your sump pump.

Protect Specialty Items

A standby generator delivers steady power that prevents spoiled food and iced-over pipes. In addition, it can keep medical equipment operating and a host of other important items running.

A more complex but cost-effective approach is using N+1 isolated redundant generators. This allows generators to back up each other, eliminating a common point of failure within the standby power distribution system.

Installing surge protectors on appliances connected to generators is also a good idea. Generators produce large spikes of energy when they turn on, which can damage some devices. Surge protectors can help minimize the potential for such spikes and protect sensitive electronics.

Protect Your Medical Equipment

Medical equipment requiring electricity to function can become a life-or-death situation during a power outage. Backup generators can help ensure that these types of medical devices stay running.

Home standby generators protect specialty items like newborn babies’ milk supplies and other breastmilk storage products. These supplies would go bad if they thawed during a power outage, wasting months of work and costing parents hundreds of dollars.

Hospitals and healthcare facilities rely on backup generators to keep their essential equipment functioning during utility power failures. They also keep heating & cooling systems working, security & detection systems active, and powering operating rooms. Many of these units also include automatic transfer switches with a power management strategy. This helps determine how much power the generator can supply before it overloads.

Protect Your Internet Connection

Home and business owners working from home must stay connected during power outages. A generator can keep a home or business’s Internet connection up and running, which can help you avoid losing work, important documents, and other critical information.

Portable generators have a limited lifespan and must be manually refueled several times a day during power outages. On the other hand, a standby generator automatically monitors utility voltage 24/7 and turns itself on within seconds of a power outage.

Investing in a residential or commercial standby generator is an investment that can save you money in the long run. Talk to a trusted home energy expert about how a generator can fit your home or business needs. 

How Should You Clean Your Carpets?

September 7, 2023 /

Carpet cleaning frequency depends on many factors, such as how often you entertain guests and if people in your household suffer from allergies. Proper vacuuming, removing shoes when entering indoors, and addressing spills immediately will help prolong the life of your carpet and extend the time between professional janitorial services Egg Harbor Township, NJ.

Vacuuming

Vacuuming is one of the most important cleaning habits to prolong your carpets’ life. It’s also essential to keeping your home healthy as it removes unwanted dirt, dander, and hair – things that aren’t always visible to the naked eye.

When vacuuming, use the beater bar to agitate and lift carpet fibers in a straight line, and make sure you fill your bag appropriately, or it could create an uneven clean. You can even turn your vacuum 90 degrees and do a side-to-side sweep to help ensure the carpet is as clean as possible.

If you have children in your home, it is a good idea to vacuum all carpeted areas daily or as often as needed. This is because kids are lower to the ground and tend to inhale more nasties that build up in carpeting.

Shampooing

The carpet acts as a filter in your home, trapping dirt, dust, and allergens. These particles then become airborne, triggering allergy symptoms and other health issues. Shampooing carpets keeps these pollutants trapped and helps to improve your family’s health and the overall quality of indoor air.

Cleaning your carpets every three or four months is best for families with children and pets. This prevents the build-up of pet hair, dander, and tracked dirt that causes allergies. It also eliminates odors and keeps your carpet looking great.

You can minimize how often you need to shampoo your carpet by putting down entryway mats and encouraging everyone in the house to remove their shoes when entering the living areas. Regular vacuuming should also keep your carpets clean and extend their life. However, you may still need to shampoo or steam clean your carpets every 12 to 18 months. This is based on how much traffic your carpet receives, if there are smokers in the home, and if you have pets or children.

Deep Cleaning

The number of times you shampoo your carpets depends on various factors. A weekly pass with the vacuum may suffice for a small house or family rarely at home during the day. High-traffic areas and households with children, pets, and allergies must clean carpets more frequently.

Kids bring a lot of dirt into the home, from dropping food, spilling juice, and fingerpaint to tracking in mud, dust, and pet hair. Dirty carpets can also trap mold spores, bacteria, and other pollutants that affect the health of household members, especially young children.

Shedding, loose hair, and muddy paw prints are additional factors that require more frequent cleanings and a deep cleaning every six months. Regular cleaning will extend the life of your carpet and keep it looking its best. It will also help maintain your indoor air quality and reduce odors.

Maintenance

Vacuuming regularly prevents dust and dirt from becoming embedded in the fibers of your carpets. However, more than vacuuming is required to ensure your carpets are clean and hygienic. You should hire professional cleaners to clean your carpets deep once or twice a year.

Other factors to remember when performing maintenance on your carpets include the size of your household and how much foot traffic the rooms with carpet get. Consider whether you have pets and children at home. Pets tend to shed a lot of hair, and they can also have accidents that cause odors in the house.

Children are more likely to put their hands in their mouths than adults, which means they can be exposed to bacteria and dirt. It is important to regularly clean the carpeting in their rooms to reduce the chances of bacterial build-up and allergies. You should clean your carpets every 6 to 12 months if you have children and pets at home.

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