Do you live in an older home or did you recently move into a pre-owned home? Do you plan to do any renovations and want to save electrician time, testing if there’s capacity for more plugs/lights? Is there a light switch in your home that doesn’t seem to do anything? Have you been looking at your electrical panel, unsure of what’s what? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may want to consider mapping your home’s electrical system! PLUS, it’s a great gift this holiday season or an easy 2022 home improvement project you can cross off your list!

What is an electrical map?

An electrical map is a detailed diagram of a home’s electrical system. The majority of a home’s electrical system is concealed behind the home’s walls, under its floors and in its ceilings, making it hard to understand how the system is laid out and where electrical overloads may occur. An electrical map is created by a professional, allowing you to clearly see how your home’s electrical system is designed to prevent any potentially dangerous electrical issues!

The COVID-19 pandemic has required many homeowners to adjust their living spaces to accommodate home offices for, often, multiple family members. With that, the power we use at home has increased with more devices than ever plugged into your home’s electrical system.

We spoke with Ryan McCartney from a local company called CircuitIQ on what this means for your home and how to make sure you’re safely operating to not cause electrical overloads.

A: Ryan, welcome to ActivaLearn! We know all too well that many homeowners have had to re-configure their homes to match their new working environments within the last two years. How does CircuitIQ play into all of this?

C: Thanks for having me. At CircuitIQ, we want to stress the importance of a properly wired home, specifically a properly labelled electrical panel. There are approximately 24,000 residential building fires every year that cause deaths, injuries and millions of dollars in property loss. Additionally, the number of devices we have connected into our home has substantially increased resulting in overloaded circuits.  Overloaded circuits are the #1 cause of electrical fires across North America as the insulation on cables wears thin over time if overloaded. If you’re in an older home, it’s important to make sure you’ve addressed this, especially if you’re working on any renovations or repairs!

 

A: Those are some large numbers – and scary stats! We’ve all been in homes where the breakers labelled on the electrical panel don’t match up with what’s actually wired in your home. What does CircuitIQ do to address this?

C: The technology has never really existed to make it easy for technicians to be able to read a whole home and produce a new panel card and labels on the go before. It was a very manual process. CircuitIQ’s patented technology gives technicians the tools to spend an hour in your home, map the whole house electrical system, print you a detailed panel card and leave you with app access to a digital copy that can be as detailed as you want it!

 

A: That sounds like something every older home could use, especially as we enter a New Year! Anything else you’d like to add, Ryan?

C: I would like to quickly share an example from a real homeowner we were able to help – Bill, a homeowner from the Region unsure about his antique electrical panel, hired CircuitIQ for mapping. We identified that there were some circuit imbalances in his century home that needed to be fixed as he had overloading.

Unfortunately, he chose not to act and came back to us showing that the circuits that we had noted as trouble caught fire – he had caught it just in the nick of time, but it could have been disastrous! With our circuit mapping, he was able to balance out his power sources. This is a great example of how important it is to get in front of these issues!

 

Thanks, Ryan! CircuitIQ has been gracious enough to offer a discount on their services (home mapping, labelling, inspection and a physical and digital report) for all ActivaLearn readers, regularly priced at $299, but being offered at a limited time for $199. If this is something you’re interested in taking advantage of, visit CircuitIQ’s website at the link below and fill out their form.

Have an electrician who you think would benefit from offering this service or using the product? The discount also applies to their Power Mapping Starter Kit, retailing at $999, that can be used by any professional.

https://www.circuitiq.com/pages/book-a-circuit-mapping