Contact Fredericksburg Virginia Electrician

Ever had any electrical questions that you just couldn't answer? Here is a listing of our most common electrical questions ANSWERED!

Why is there a fish smell coming from my outlet/switch?

Hopefully you have already checked the obvious and there are no fish nearby! All joking aside this could be a serious problem. If you are noticing this smell then most likely your receptacle is damaged. You should shut the power off to this area and call an electrician immediately.

The electricity in different parts of the house are not working.

First things first you should check the circuit breaker to ensure that nothing has tripped and no fuses are blown. If this is not your problem then the likely candidate is a loose connection. You may want to call your power company to see if they can help you but in most cases they will refer you to an electrician.

On some new light fixtures I bought there's a warning tag saying only for use on 75 or 90 degree wire, what does this mean?

Older homes built in the 70,s our earlier were wired with 65 degree wire or less. Your light fixtures produce heat like an easy bake oven directly above the fixture and if the homes wiring is not rated to operate at that temperature they will burn and crack or worse. If your not sure consult an electrician it's better to be safe than sorry.

We just bought a new electric stove and dryer. The sales person said we could use a 4-wire plug or a 3-wire plug what's the difference?

The new standard method is 4-wire it's safer and is code compliant. It's easy to tell the difference 3-wire has 3-blades on the cord end and 4-wire has 4-blades. The old 3-wire system shared 1 wire for the neutral [current carrying] and grounding. The new system has separate wires for current and grounding. Hooking the ground and neutral together is a common mistake made during installation of the 4-wire cord on the appliance.

I've heard that aluminum wiring is not as good as copper and shouldn't be used in my home is this true ?

Copper wire does conduct electricity better than aluminum. This can be remedied by installing larger size aluminum conductors. A few years back aluminum wiring was used inside walls and ceilings to feed plugs and switches but the small diameter proved to fragile for this application and has since become illegal for use in this manner. But it is still widely used in larger sizes for many different applications and copper is being used more for smaller wiring applications like plugs, switches, phone, etc...