3 Signs It's Time To Upgrade Your Home's Electrical Panel
If you think of your home's electrical system as if it were a circulatory system, your wiring would like be the arteries and veins, but your electrical panel would definitely be the beating heart. Your electrical panel is responsible for taking in power from the line outside your home and distributing it throughout your home where it needs to be. Unfortunately, if your electrical panel is a bit on the older side, it might not be equipped to direct power throughout your home to the degree that most modern homes require.
If you think of your home's electrical system as if it were a circulatory system, your wiring would like be the arteries and veins, but your electrical panel would definitely be the beating heart. Your electrical panel is responsible for taking in power from the line outside your home and distributing it throughout your home where it needs to be. Unfortunately, if your electrical panel is a bit on the older side, it might not be equipped to direct power throughout your home to the degree that most modern homes require.
How do you know if your current electrical panel is coping with the demand, or if it is time to invest in an upgrade? To answer that question, our team of professionals have taken the time to put together this short list that helps highlight a couple of the more prominent signs that you are overdue for an electrical panel upgrade.
You Have Fuses Instead Of Circuit Breakers
If your electrical system is old enough, you might actually still have fuses in place of circuit breakers throughout your home. While fuses aren't inherently dangerous, they were generally designed during a time when the average home required a much less significant supply or electricity to power, and as such, just aren't equipped to deal with the amount of power coming into homes these days. The fact that fuses weren't designed with this kind of power consumption in mind is what generally makes them unsafe. If you still have a fuse based system in your home, it is time to make the switch to a more modern system that utilizes safer circuit breaker technology instead.
Your Circuit Breakers Are Constantly Tripping
When a circuit breaker trips, it is doing so to stop the flow of electricity in an effort to keep a certain circuit from overheating or causing any damage to your home, but it can also occur when the energy demands of your home are exceeding the capacity of your current electrical panel. If you notice that you have breakers that are constantly tripping, it is likely a sign that your current panel just isn't able to keep up with the power demands of your home, and it is likely time to upgrade.
Your Are Thinking Of Installing New Appliances
While a new toaster oven or microwave likely isn't going to be much of a factor for your older electrical panel, if you are looking at installing a new HVAC unit, refrigerator, dishwasher oven, or even a hot tub, you are likely going to want to consider investing in an updated electrical panel that can cope with the addition of one of more of these new features. Most modern appliances require a bit more power in order to run effectively, and if your older electrical panel isn't able to cope with that load, you could easily find yourself constantly tripping breakers or overloading your panel entirely.