Tag: electrical system

Sizzling Summer: How Businesses Can Prepare for the Hot Season

by nancyrubin, posted in Business, facilities, property management, small business

If you manage a business, you’ll want to do everything possible to keep the inside of your building from getting too hot during the summer. Excessively warm temperatures can be detrimental to the health and comfort of your employees and negatively affect business productivity. Not only is it harmful to your employees, but extreme heat like many have experienced in previous summers can cause serious damage to the physical building itself. Here are some of the best ways to prepare your company for the hot season. 

Check Your Windows 

The windows in your business should be able to open properly circulate fresh outdoor air, which can help keep the inside of your building cool and comfortable. When air isn’t allowed to properly circulate, stuffy heat can make the air stale and lacking in oxygen. This will directly affect the mental capacity of your employees and the efficiency of the workplace. It’s also best to have bug screens covering your windows so that you can still enjoy the outdoor air without having to worry about attracting pests that could cause distractions and health concerns. The smells of office lunches and the shelter of indoor spaces can be very attractive to summer bugs looking for a good place to settle and breed. With this in mind, make sure your employees are getting fresh air without exposing your workplace to insect infestation.

Inspect Electrical Wiring 

It’s important to have your wiring inspected to determine if you need to replace any of your wires. Old or damaged wires are sometimes more prone to overheating or melting on hot days, especially where the coatings may be worn or frayed. In addition to malfunctioning from the high summer temperatures, faulty wires can still overheat if they aren’t able to handle the heat of the electricity that runs through them for your lights, office equipment and other electrical components. In the hottest period of the summer, this can put your building at greater risk for electrical fires. Before spring ends and summer comes, you should hire an experienced commercial electrician to inspect all of your wiring and make any needed updates. 

Evaluate Fire Safety Measures 

As mentioned, your business may be especially vulnerable to fires starting during the summer. Fires can also start when electrical components overheat because of high temperatures. Fires can also be easily started if your employees don’t practice safe cigarette disposal or if appliances become overheated when not monitored. According to the Waverley Council, your business should have a working automatic sprinkler system along with fire extinguishers, fire exits and a smoke detection and fire alarm system. Take a moment to test your current system to make sure that everything is in working order in the event of an emergency so that you aren’t caught unprepared.

Check Your HVAC System 

Even if your windows are able to open, this won’t do any good if the temperature outside is a broiling as inside. The air conditioning component of your HVAC system should be capable of cooling the inside of your building below the temperature of the air outside. This means that just running a fan won’t be enough, as circulating air won’t make a difference on the hottest days. This is especially important for employee health, as just like your building, your body can’t lower its internal temperature if the temperature outside of it is too high. This can lead to heat exhaustion, even if your employees are sitting at a desk. Along with checking how your unit functions, it’s a good idea to clean or replace the filters so that air containing dirt, germs and allergens doesn’t circulate throughout your building. If you need to buy a new air conditioner, energy-efficient models can reduce energy use and save your company money. 

You and your staff will be able to enjoy the summer season more while working if you take the measures to ensure that your business can handle the heat. The right modifications can help your company transition through the summer season with greater productivity and vastly reduced risk.

Meghan Belnap is a freelance writer who enjoys spending time with her family. She loves being in the outdoors and exploring new opportunities whenever they arise. Meghan finds happiness in researching new topics that help to expand her horizons. You can often find her buried in a good book or out looking for an adventure. You can connect with her on Facebook right here and Twitter right here.

Keeping Your Business Running When The Power Isn’t

by nancyrubin, posted in backup, Business, business finances, Internet, Internet of Things, property management, risk management, small business, telecommute

Power cuts happen all of the time. Our internet goes out when the weather is poor. The lights flicker in high winds, and we face the occasional complete power cut, where we are left without lights, heat, hot water and electricity. We can’t get online, and we’re literally in the dark.

When you’re at home, this can be a little scary. We’re so used to be online all of the time, switching our lights on when we move room to room, using the phone, watching TV and grabbing a snack from the fridge. Suddenly not being able to do these things can be more than a little unnerving. But, it’s also an opportunity. There’s nothing to stop you using a power cut as an excuse to get an early night, or to light some candles, fetch a takeout and read a good book wrapped in blankets. Sometimes, we need an excuse to relax and this could be a great one.

But, when you are at work, especially when it’s your own small business, a power cut can be much worse. Most small businesses are either completely online based, or they at least do most of their work online. If you’ve never looked into Generators for Sale and you suddenly find yourself completely without power, you might not know what to do. You might be tempted to just close your doors and go home for the day. But, this can lead to a loss of money and customers, and become an even bigger problem if the power outage lasts for longer. Here are some things that you can do to keep your business running when the power isn’t.

Work Remotely

Whether your whole business is online or not, you probably use the internet a lot. Social media, digital marketing, email campaigns and online sales are a big part of business today. Just because you can’t work from your office computer doesn’t mean that you can’t work. Can you use the data on your mobile phone to tackle some simple tasks? Is your power on at home? Or, could you send some of your staff out to work remotely from other unaffected areas? In the modern world, we are rarely tied to an office.

Get Stuck in

There are jobs that most of us put off. Things like stock taking, cleaning, staff appraisals and organizing our shelving. These might seem like small jobs, and you might not have time from them in a normal week. But, they need doing. If you have no power, try to find other things that you can do that you might not always have the time for.

Move Some Meetings

If you’ve got any meetings planned in the next week, see if you could bring any forward, and if you could meet somewhere with power. Chances are, if you are meeting people in the same area, and they are also experiencing a loss of power, they’ll be happy to find something to do.

Find a Pen

You might not be able to send emails, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t draft some out with a pen and paper. Don’t underestimate the power of old-school tools. If you’ve got a candle and a pen, there’s still plenty that you can do.

3 Office Security Tips to Decline the Risk of an Electrical Fire

by nancyrubin, posted in property management, Safety, workplace safety

As a manager you have many responsibilities to many different parties. However, there is one responsibility that should come before everything else. This is ensuring that your employees have a safe work environment. 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 5,147 fatal workplace accidents in 2017. Just because your employees work in an office doesn’t mean they’re necessarily safe either. Electrical fires, for example, can certainly be deadly. With that in mind, below are three tips to use to prevent office electrical fires from happening. 

Be Careful with Plugs and Outlets

One of the most common causes of electrical fires is the misuse of electrical plugs and outlets. This is the case both for residential and commercial fires. While in the office, make sure to routinely check plugs and cords before plugging them into an outlet. Old cords tend to get frayed and can present a fire hazard. Don’t overload an outlet with adapters either. One plug should go into one outlet as a default to prevent fire hazards. You should also consider installing ground fault circuit interrupters to increase your protection against electrical fires from overloaded circuits. 

Maintenance

People tend to falsely assume that once an electrical system has been installed into a building it can be forgotten about completely. This is simply not true. Like all the systems of a building, an electrical system also requires routine maintenance to keep it working properly. Routine maintenance can also allow an electrician to spot and correct problems before they actually manifest into serious issues like electrical fires in your office. 

Create a maintenance checklist and stick to it. A professional will probably have to perform a good deal of this maintenance. Your employees are probably not qualified to work with a custom hermetic cable harnesses for example. 

Surge Protectors

Something else that can help to protect your office is the use of surge protectors. These are devices that can be used to prevent power surges from overloading a circuit. They can prevent electrical fires. They can also help to protect appliances during a power surge. All significant pieces of equipment in an office like computers, printers and fax machines should be plugged into a surge protector instead of directly into an outlet. 

Providing a safe work environment is your number one priority as a manager. Workplace accidents are common, and they can be deadly. This is even the case in office workspaces. Removing the threat of electrical fires can certainly make your office much safer for your employees.

Guest author, Kara Masterson, is a freelance writer from West Jordan, Utah. She graduated from the University of Utah and enjoys writing and spending time with her dog, Max.