We hope we caught your attention with the headline, because if you live in a Chicagoland home built within that range, you may have a serious fire hazard in your home and not be aware of it.
The trouble is with panels installed between 1950 and 1990 by a now-defunct manufacturer called Federal Pacific Electric Company (FPE). These panels may contain Stab-Lok circuit breakers, which are defective and a serious fire hazard. Millions of these circuit breaker boxes were installed in homes throughout North America between 1950 and1990. Although these malfunctioning panels are responsible for thousands of fires every year, they were never issued a former recall after tests uncovered the defects. Professional electricians urge homeowners who live in houses built before 1990 to check if they have a FBE electrical panel with Stab-Lok breakers and call for an immediate replacement if they do.
The change of seasons is coming up, and I’m sure everyone here in Chicagoland is looking forward to warmer weather. We still have a few more weeks of temperatures in the 40s and possible cold snaps, but this is the time of year to prepare a home for the seasonal shift.
You need electricity to run your heating system. That’s true even if you have a gas-powered system like a gas furnace or boiler. Modern gas heaters use electronic ignition systems to fire up their burners and they also need electrical power for other components, such as the blower fan that sends heated air from a furnace and into the ventilation system.
When the medieval cathedral evolved in Europe, the architects weren’t thinking about how to light them using electrical bulbs! In fact, they might have re-thought using such towering open spaces if they did. On the other hand, the acoustics of those cathedrals are too wonderful to dismiss.
Although February is still winter and a reprieve from the cold is a good stretch away (sometimes farther away than we’d like to acknowledge), it’s still a good time to make improvements to your home’s heating system—especially if you’ve noticed the heater hasn’t been doing its job as well as usual during the past few months.
The changes in electrical usage in homes over the last twenty years, even the last ten years, are nothing short of incredible. The average household now consumes more electricity than ever before because of the increase in charging electrical devices and powerful computers and home entertainment systems. Electrical circuitry and panels have to stay current with the rise in consumption, but the outlets have to change as well.
A faulty or broken furnace is an emergency during a Chicago winter. No matter how well-insulated the home, no matter how many layers of clothes people pile on, there’s no way to deal with the bitter cold invading the house—except to have the furnace fixed as soon as possible.
A home heater that breaks down in winter for the last time is bad news. You want to have an old heating system replaced ahead of time to conform to your schedule, not the heater’s! So if your furnace, boiler, heat pump, or other system is already looking like it won’t make it through to spring, we recommend you start considering what type of heater should be installed to replace it.
The natural gas furnace is the backbone of winter heating in the U.S. Here in Chicago, it’s one of the best ways to heat a home through another tough winter: not only does 
Electricity is such a basic part of our lives that we rarely stop to think about all that it does for us. It’s simply always there when we flick on a switch, turn on an appliance, or plug in a phone or laptop to charge. But what if that electricity suddenly vanished? Stopped working and didn’t turn back on a few minutes later? What if it stayed off for hours or even days? Think about the impact an extended power outage like that would have on your life and on your family.
