Your Business

 

 

Articles in this section are intended to help electrical contractors grow and improve their businesses, from financial and legal advice to creating a service and maintenance department. You’ll find articles on estimating projects and more below. 

Variables affecting electric power quality haven’t changed significantly over the years, but the technological advances of electrical and electronic equipment make the equipment much more vulnerable to power quality events than in the past.

Copper remains a primary carrier for integrated building systems, but fiber optic cabling is assuming an increasingly important role in data, telephone, access controls, security cameras, fire and security alarms, sensors, and other signaling-dependent systems.


As recent storms have proven, extreme weather conditions threaten lives, disrupt the economy, and devastate electric generation, transmission and distribution systems, often resulting in very long power outages.

More than 174,000 workers in the electrical contracting industry—including the most-skilled electricians, linemen and technicians in the world—are covered by pension plans that are financed through contributions from them and their multiple employers, without costing taxpayers one cent.

More on Your Business

 
E-Commerce Savings Realized After High Initial Investment
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Companies will spend an estimated $5.4 million to $22.9 million each to integrate into online markets over the next five years, according to a new report by Forrester Research.

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Hybrid System Harnesses Wind, Solar Energy
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Parker Ranch, a 225,000-acre cattle ranch in Hawaii, and PowerLight Corp., a leading designer, manufacturer, and installer of grid-connected commercial solar electric systems, have joined in the world's largest hybrid solar-wind energy power project.

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Keeping Up with the Times to Avoid Costly Problems
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During the electrical industry’s history, changes have occurred at warp speed. Many of these ideas can create havoc for an estimator or estimating system that has not changed with the times.

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Like a Snowball Rolling Downhill: So Are the Cumulative Effects of Change Orders
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This article addresses the situation when a project is flooded with extra work orders, emergency field orders, and major and minor systems changes.

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Distributed Generation—Power Plants in Every Home?
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The 1978 Public Utility Regulatory Act encouraged on-site generation to use the energy normally wasted in large remote power plants for hot water and steam. Now the idea is emerging again with a new name: distributed generation. It could be the solution to power shortages and rolling blackouts.

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What Exactly Does Blue Tooth Mean to You?
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The realm of electrical contractors has been an ever-evolving one. Long gone are the days when installing electrical systems encompassed most of one’s time. The surge in popularity of data and voice communications created opportunities for electrical contractors.

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Estimators Drive Their Own Continuing Education
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Unlike an electrical apprentice, who follows a finite curriculum and training termination, estimators have no such benchmarks. Instead, an estimator’s value is calculated from many points of interest, which places a burden on the estimator to continue training.

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