Who Needs An Electrical Contractor?

Buying your first home can be exciting and thrilling!  It can also be stressful and worrisome.  As if having every other problem in the world to deal with is not enough, you also now have 2500 square feet of home to maintain and 8000 square feet of yard to oversee.  Being a homeowner is tough; there are a slew of new responsibilities and problems to deal with, you have to carry more insurance – and every problem has the possibility of turning into a life-shattering emergency.

Enter your personal do-it-yourself super hero – the big box store with the familiar slogan, jingle, and colors.  A giant store with tall, well illuminated aisles and friendly smiling people who can tell you not just how to find everything you ever want or need to fix your house – but can also schedule you for a class to learn how to do those things.  The day is saved – you have just gone from being distressed to empowered; you have the solutions and they are happy to sell you the tools and materials to repair what just broke.

Don’t misunderstand me – I love [insert local home improvement store name here] as much as anyone else.  I love building birdhouses and fire pits for my backyard, making paver pathways and porch flowerboxes.  I am not particularly domestically inclined, nor a very crafty-arty person; however I can lay one heck of a tile floor now, apparently.  I also don’t want my husband to electrocute himself and die – or flood my home with dirty sewer water, asphyxiate me with CO2, or go trimming off structural supports.  I don’t think he should meddle with those kinds of things; but DIYers across the nation do it all the time, armed with made-in-Asia tools and minimum wage encouragement.

Also, we can all agree – contractors aren’t all they are cracked up to be.  HGTV has shows about them running amok everyday – Renovation Nightmare, Rescue my Renovation, and there’s this awful website called Contractorsfromhell.com.  Contractors are expensive, too.  A lot of services will require some money up front for materials – do you think they over charge you on stuff they are just going to buy from the big box store anyways?  Why can’t we just buy some needle nose pliers, save our money, and follow some online diagrams on how-to wire our own outlet, fixture, fan, or electrical panel?

The truth of the matter is that unless you’re properly trained and equipped, there really are some things it just is not worth risking lives over.  The average household circuit runs at 15 Amps or more; this means that at any point in time, there is 15,000 times the minimum amperage to disturb your bodies functions running through your wall.  There is 1500 times the amount of electricity needed to induce muscular paralysis so that you can not stop being electrocuted, even if you wanted to.  And there is 150 times the amperage necessary to stop your breathing and force your heart into ventricular fibrillation.

So the question I suppose one has to ask themselves is – when is it worth calling in a licensed electrical contractor?

When you don’t want to risk electrocuting your children.

When you don’t want to lose your eyesight.

When turning on the lights can knock you backwards.

When you don’t want to start your home on fire.

And last but not least?

When you would like to improve your home, raise your quality of life, and see a return on your investment.

Swartz Electric – Your Colorado Springs Electrician performs electrical work throughout Colorado Springs, Monument, Black Forest, Fountain, Falcon, Woodland Park, and everywhere in between. We are the electricians in Colorado Springs to solve your electrical problems and meet your electrical requirements.

Call, email, visit our website, or stop by our office today, and allow Swartz Electric to serve YOU.

This is an original article written by Mai Bjorklund for Swartz Electric. This article may not be copied whole or in part without the express permission of Swartz Electric, LLC.

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