Spring in Hampton Roads is a busy time of year for a home’s electrical system. The air conditioner starts its six-month run, and the outdoor outlets go back to work for lights, fans, and tools. The dock and the pool come back to life, and storm season is only a couple of months off. Electrical systems do not have a filter to change, so this is the one time of year we suggest walking the house with a short list. Everything below is safe to do yourself, and the items that are not are marked for a technician.
Outside the house
Outdoor electrical equipment spends the winter in salt air and damp, and spring is when you find out what that did to it.
- Press the test button on every outdoor GFCI outlet, then the reset button. An outlet that will not reset, or that trips constantly once the weather turns humid, has reached the end of its life, and our outlet and switch team can replace it before the season.
- Look at the outlet covers, the exterior light fixtures, and the meter base for green or white crust, which is corrosion from the salt air, and for covers that no longer close.
- Check the outdoor lighting for fixtures that have filled with water or insects, and replace any bulbs that have failed, since a dark walkway is a hazard on its own.
- If you have a dock, a boat lift, or a pool, have the wiring, the GFCI protection, and the bonding checked before the first swim. Water and electricity around a dock is a specific danger on the coast, and it is not a place for a homeowner’s best guess.
The air conditioner’s electrical side
The electrical parts of a cooling system fail more often than the mechanical ones, and heat and salt are what wear them out. A spring tune-up tests the capacitor under load, inspects the contactor for pitting and for the ants that are drawn to it, tightens the connections inside the outdoor unit, and checks the disconnect box on the wall for corrosion. Those are the parts that leave a house without cooling in July, and finding them in April is the point of the visit. If you notice the outdoor unit humming before the fan turns, or a click that repeats without a start, mention it when you schedule.
Getting ahead of storm season
Hurricane season begins in June, and summer thunderstorms arrive before that. Two items belong on the spring list for that reason.
- If the house does not have whole-home surge protection, spring is the time to add it. It mounts at the panel and absorbs the surges that come with lightning and with power returning after an outage, which are the surges that take out air conditioners, appliances, and electronics across the region every summer.
- If you have a standby generator, confirm it has been running its weekly self-test and schedule its yearly service now rather than in August. If you rely on a portable generator, check that the transfer switch, if you have one, works, and plan where the unit will run, well away from windows and doors.
Inside the house
- Test every smoke and carbon monoxide detector and replace the batteries. A detector past the date on its back should be replaced, and our smoke and CO services page covers what a home should have.
- Run each ceiling fan and switch it to counterclockwise for summer, so it pushes air down. A fan that wobbles or hums has a loose mount or a failing motor, which our ceiling fan team can address.
- Walk through the rooms and feel each outlet and switch plate for warmth, and look for any that are discolored or loose in the wall.
- Retire any extension cord that has become permanent wiring over the winter. A cord running under a rug or behind furniture for months is a fire risk, and it usually means a room needs another outlet.
A look at the panel
The panel itself deserves a glance each spring, though the cover stays on unless you are comfortable and know what you are looking at. Listen for buzzing, look for rust or water staining, and note whether any breaker has been tripping more than it used to. If the home still has a 100-amp panel, or a fuse box, and you are adding an electric vehicle charger, a heat pump water heater, or a generator this year, the panel may not have room for it, and a panel upgrade is a project better planned in spring than discovered in August. Everything else about the panel belongs to a technician, and an electrical inspection covers it.
Having a technician handle the rest
Russell’s American Mechanical has served Hampton Roads since 1977 with electrical, heating, cooling, and plumbing under one roof, which means a spring visit can cover the air conditioner’s electrical side and the panel in one trip. Members of the Premium Home Care Agreement receive an annual electrical inspection along with their cooling and heating visits. Scheduling is online, by website chat, or by phone, with same-day appointments available by phone when the day allows, and our electricians are trained continuously throughout their employment, and they are glad to explain what they find rather than simply hand you a list.