Don’t Try to Install Your Own Spa Electrical System!

January 30th, 2023
pool-at-night

Having a spa or hot tub for your house is a wonderful luxury: you can enjoy the refreshing quality of a pool without all the space that a pool requires, and few sensations are more relaxing than soaking in the water of a hot tub at the end of the day.

Hot tubs are also great for socializing and they can significantly increase the value of a home.

Can you install a spa on your own? Well, we don’t recommend trying it. It’s a lot more complicated than buying a hot tub and plugging it in.

You have to consider the deck, the support, the plumbing connection, the massive weight, the chemicals … there’s far too much to it.

Furthermore, hot tubs and spas have local code and safety requirements they have to meet, and it takes professionals to ensure that your new hot tub meets these codes.

And, above all, you can’t install your own electrical system for your spa!

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Switching to LED Lights: 2023 Is the Year to Do It!

January 16th, 2023
lightbulb-LED-100-dollar-bills

We don’t like making New Years’ resolutions for others, but sometimes people feel at a loss for what they want to achieve in the new year. So we’d like to make a suggestion, one that’s not too difficult to achieve when you have the right people working with you. 

Change your home’s indoor lighting over entirely to LED lights.

Part of this job you can do on your own. For basic lamps or anyplace you have easily accessible light bulb fixtures, you only need to purchase LED bulbs of the same wattage and replace the old incandescent bulbs with them.

LED lights cost more to purchase, but they aren’t super expensive, and the long-term benefits and savings are well worth it. 

But you have more complex lighting in your house, and this is where you’ll need electrical professionals to handle the retrofit that makes your home into a true LED home. Scherer Electric is the company to trust when it comes to indoor lighting in Orchard Park, NY.

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What Types of Wiring and Electrical Panels Are Outdated?

December 19th, 2022
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Residential electrical technology continues to march forward, and that means out of date older systems. In many cases, you won’t need to worry about technology in your house that’s a couple of years old. But you may need to worry about technology that’s several decades old!

We’re going to look at four outdated types of wiring and electrical panels we find in many homes. We recommend our customers have these replaced or updated.  

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Some Common Generator Problems You May Encounter

December 5th, 2022
generator-residential

One of the best ways to have a happy, relaxing, and low-stress holiday season is to know that you have a whole-house generator that’s ready to go to work if the power goes out. An extended power loss during the winter does a lot more than shut off the holiday lights: it will result in spoiled food, cold discomfort, and even life-threatening situations for anyone who uses powered medical equipment.

The best way to ensure you have a reliable generator is to schedule routine maintenance for it. This will help prevent most potential malfunctions. Even with the best maintenance, you may still encounter a need for our technicians to come out and provide generator repair in Depew, NY. In this post, we’ll look at several of the more common generator troubles we fix.

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Our Electricians’ Tips for a Safe Winter Holiday Season

November 21st, 2022
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The end of the year is always a “Season of Lights,” no matter which holidays you’re celebrating. It’s only natural as the weather turns colder and the night falls earlier that people want to feel brightness and cheer all around them, and this means festive lighting displays both indoors and outdoors. 

We want you and your family to have a bright and wonderful winter holiday season. We also want you to be safe! 

Our team of electricians in Orchard Park, NY and throughout Western New York have tips for ways to keep your house safe during the holidays, free from fire danger and electrical shortages.

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Ways to Tell You Need Commercial or Industrial Wiring Upgrades

November 7th, 2022
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It’s hard to imagine there’s any commercial or industrial business that operates without electricity. The electrical demands for most facilities are enormous, and interruptions with the electrical system will usually bring operations to an abrupt halt and result in costly downtime.

You can’t avoid all electrical problems in your business, but if you have damaged or old wiring, you’ll suffer a larger amount of problems and even safety issues. Scherer Electric offers commercial and industrial electric service in Buffalo, NY to upgrade and rewire facilities to meet contemporary demands. 

Below are some of the signs you may notice that will warn you it’s time to call us for upgrades to your commercial/industrial electrical system.

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Track Lighting, Recessed Lighting, Or…? Looking at Indoor Lighting Options

October 24th, 2022
recessed-LED-lights

One of the most cost-effective ways to change the look of your home without having to resort to expensive remodeling is with an update to your indoor lighting in East Aurora, NY. We don’t mean just upgrading old incandescent lights with LED lights—although this is a fantastic idea and will help you save money on your electrical bills. We mean changing the type of lights you have.

If you have overhead lighting that leaves certain areas of your house either too dim or too overlit, or you don’t like the space consumption of using older pendant lights, you have several options to change your home’s indoor lighting. The two prominent ones are recessed lighting and track lighting. We’ll look at the pros and cons of each of these options.

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When Should I Replace My Whole-House Generator?

October 10th, 2022
generator-residential

A whole-house generator can be a literal life-saver for a home during an extended power outage. If you have a whole-house generator, you want to know that you can trust it to work when necessary.

Since no mechanical device can last forever, you might wonder when you’ll need to have your older generator replaced. This is tricky because you don’t use the generator often—in fact, you hope you don’t have to use it at all—and so it’s difficult to determine when it’s declining. 

We’ll look into the question of when to replace a whole-house generator, and when it’s better to arrange for generator repair in Clarence, NY with our electricians.

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Looking Closer Into Circuit Breakers

September 26th, 2022
panel-replacement

One of the most important jobs we do for our many customers is replacing indoor electrical panels in Buffalo, NY and throughout Western New York. Too many homes have outdated electrical panels, or even ones that were never safe in the first place. There are also older homes in the area that still use fuse boxes rather than a circuit breaker panel. We also handle replacing electrical panels that have sustained damage and are no longer reliable or safe.

Today we want to look in more depth at the circuit breakers in your electrical panels. Please note that this isn’t a DIY guide: you shouldn’t attempt to repair or replace any circuit breaker yourself, as this can create major hazards. Always trust licensed professionals like us. We’re offering this information to help you understand circuit breaker problems and when you’ll need to call for assistance.

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What to Do in a Power Outage

September 12th, 2022
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We often talk about the importance of installing whole-house generators. There’s no better way to avoid the serious problems of an extended loss of power to your home than having a permanent backup generator to take over. With enough fuel (easy if your generator runs on natural gas), you can make it through many days without trouble keeping your family safe, your HVAC system running, your refrigerator working, and any vital medical equipment powered. 

But you may not have a generator (at least, not yet), and we have some recommendations on what to do in case your home suffers from an extended power outage.

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