3 Signs That It Might Be Time To Upgrade Your Home's Electrical Panel

Your home's electrical panel is that gray or white box that you might have seen in your home, but if you are like many homeowners out there, you likely don't give it much thought on the average day. The truth of the matter is that your electrical panel is responsible for a great deal of the comfort and convenience that you and your family enjoy from your home on a daily basis. Your home's electrical panel serves as the brain for your entire electrical system, taking the power from the line outside your house and distributing it throughout your home where it needs to go. Sometimes, when your panel starts to get older, or it suffers damage of some kind, you might find yourself in need of a professional electrical panel upgrade. The real question then becomes one of how to identify when it's the right time to call in the professionals and have them perform such a task. In an effort to help you identify just when to make the call to an electrician, our team of professionals have taken the time to put together this short list detailing just a few of the more common warning signs to be on the lookout for that might indicate when the time is right to upgrade your home's electrical panel.

You Have Fuses In Place Of Circuit Breakers

While there is nothing inherently wrong with having a fuse box instead of a circuit breaker in your home, they are a more outdated safety method than newer circuit breaker technology, and they aren't designed to handle the kind of electrical flow that is required in most modern homes. The electrical needs of the average home have changed over the years, and while the average fuse box might have been equipped to deal with those needs back when your home was first constructed, the plethora of appliances, computers, and other electronic devices in most homes these days just prove to be more than the average fuse box was designed to handle. While this normally just means that you are likely to experience blown fuses more often, they can prove to be an electrical fire hazard in some cases if the fuses melt, and there are some insurance companies out there that will actually refuse to cover homes that rely on fuse boxes.

Dimming Or Flickering Lights

Another key indicator that it might be time to call in a professional and have them help you replace your old electrical panel is something you will be able to notice just by looking to your lights. If you notice that your lights dim or flicker whenever one of your other appliances switch on, it might be an indicator that your current electrical panel is struggling to provide the right amount of power to the various areas of your home. If your electrical panel is distributing electricity properly throughout your home, there should be no noticeable difference in the level of your home's lighting when you turn on another device or an appliance.

Constantly Tripping Breakers

If you have circuit breakers in your home, and they seem to constantly trip whenever your try to run one or more appliances, it might be a good indication that your home's electrical panel is in need of an upgrade. While breakers are designed to trip and shut off when they get overloaded, your system shouldn't be getting overloaded in the simple process of running the electronics around your home. If your breakers are constantly tripping, it is a likely indicator that your electrical panel just isn't set up to deal with your current electrical demands, and you are likely going to be better off replacing it with something that is.