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Hi, this is George with Argo electrical services. And I am the surge protector guy. So this is podcast number three. And what I wanted to talk about today is, is the value of re devising older homes. You know, is it worth the money to change out the switches and receptacles in your 3040 50 year old home? I would say yes, it’s definitely worth looking into. When I first came up with this idea, back in 2009, my mentor as far as marketing and getting myself, you know, visible on land, suggested to me to go to networking meetings, well, several of the members of the networking group that I attended, for five, at least, were real estate people. And some of the first you know, leads or, or whatever you want to call it, that were given to me was to go to these older homes and fix problems. And they might have a light switch and one bedroom and there might be a reset going to Dan, and the lights not working in the kitchen, whatever. And anyway of the way that residential properties are wired, it’s kind of in series. And they they bring one set of wires in one set of wires leaves the box into another box and out of a box into another box and out of a box. Generally, residential electricians use 15 amp devices even on 20 amp circuits. And these 15 devices, allow the electrician to just skim the insulation back from the copper wire and stab it in the back of the device. And they actually are using the device as you know, a connection point, you know what I would call you know they made a joint by using the device. But then, you know, as time goes on, what it is the back of that device has a little metal spring in it, you push the wire in there and there’s even a little spot to where you can poke it in and release it. Over time. That device gets hot when it’s being used, it cools down when it’s not being used. Hot and cold, hot and cold. It expands it contracts over and over again, over years. And eventually that spring will loosen. Well, one of the hot wires and one of the neutral wires will come out of there. And everything downstream of that device will no longer work. And so I might go you might say well, here’s the receptacle right here where my TV’s and it’s not working. But the problem may be two or three receptacles over or in another room or whatever. And and we found it much more valuable to our customers time wise. And value wise is is you know the value is. By the time that we start hunting around, trying to figure out where the real culprit is, we can remove and replace all the devices in one room in an hour, hour, 20 minutes most times. When we go in and we change these out. We do them like commercial settings, and commercial settings. You know, we wire nut all the hearts together and all the neutrals together of each circuit and all the grounds together and each box and then we do a pigtail which goes out to the device. That way if the device fails, your grandson gets a hammer and goes over there and beats the poop out of the receptacle. As long as it does not cause the circuit to arc even though that receptacle may not be functional anymore. Everything else still works. And you know, by the time we spend two or three hours at our normal hourly rate for service call, you know, we could be almost halfway done with re devising your home. So anyway, to me, there’s huge advantages in that. Like I said, you know, when I sell these deals to my customers, you know, I always tell them, you know, you have a lifetime warranty on this. You know, as long as you own the property, nobody messes with it, and I’m still alive. But seriously, you know, five years down the road or whatever I’m out of town I can’t get to the service call. This receptacle quits working. Your nephew, your dad, your your brother, your husband, your wife, I’ve I’ve actually know quite a few for emails that are quite technically savvy. But um, you know, the only thing that’s going to be wrong is that one device. And if they do go bad over time, they will not last forever. You know, I can remember in my early 20s, when I got into the, into the electrical trade after dropping out of college, you know, my, my father had me replace quite a few receptacles, and switches, and in my mom and dad’s home in South Georgia. So anyway, the next thing I want to discuss is, is what does it take, what does it cost, and how much time you know, will it consume to do this, so if you’ve got somebody that’s, you know, Savin in the electrical field, you know, got the craft down fairly well, you know, they should be able to give you a price, I generally give prices, you know, based on the square feet of the house, I mean, generally, you know, 1800 square foot home, is going to have somewhere around 40 to 45 receptacles, probably 15 to 20 switches, you know, you need to understand that, if if your home is over 15 years old, there might not be arc fault ground fault breakers there. So, you know, they will have to replace GF eyes and spots. And, you know, maybe you will dimmers, maybe when they go back with the one receptacle in your bedroom, you want a USB port, so all of those things are stuff to consider, you know, generally with us, I mean, for a smaller home, something like that generally takes a full seven and a half, eight and a half hours to do, just because you gotta move furniture around, you got to take your time and people’s property and not scuff up the painted walls and all that stuff. And, you know, and so, you know, you could be looking at anywhere from, you know, three grand or five grand, just depending on how big your house is, and what kind of stuff you want in there. But at the end of the day, and that addresses, my next point is what will be your return on investment? Well, you know, you’ll no longer have to squeeze the ends of the plug in and to get them to work. Because you know, the little square cube that you’re charging your phone with, is falling out of the wall. No more arcing circuits, no more poor connection, you know, in the kitchen, where you’re running your, your blender or your coffee pot, or your microwave or whatever. You know, generally, when we do these things, we go in and we replace all the switches all the receptacles and that also includes the plates. So the aesthetics is, is, is really good for this. And if you’re a do it yourself, or maybe you know, maybe you’re robust in what you do around the home, and you’re up to doing it yourself, you know, I highly suggest you give it a try. Obviously, I need to sell electrical installations to make a living. But everything I do isn’t brain surgery. However, you know, if you do get to a point where, you know, you can’t complete it, and you’re in North Georgia, you can always call me You know, I believe if you were looking at selling your home or whatever, you know, this is a must I must do tank because nobody wants, nobody wants to buy a car that they have to do a bunch of repairs on, they want to be able to get the keys, get the title, go get insurance on it, put some gas in it, crank it up and drive it down the road period. And, you know, always made sure that you know, whatever, you know, whatever choice you decide to make, is, you know, have a little knowledge about what you’re doing do a little bit of research. And if you hire someone to do it, there’s nothing wrong with someone that does handyman services and all that but you know, I probably 50 times in the last 15 years since I’ve been in business where people have torn apart three way and four way switches and I couldn’t get them back together and they couldn’t make it work. And you know and we’ll help you out with you know as much or as little as you want. But um the point I’m getting at is hire qualified contractor. If if you have someone that doesn’t have insurance doesn’t have license, and there ends up being a fire hazard and an event on your property. You know, the insurance company would never pay I and um, you know, other than our families, you know what greater investment really do we have than our than our homes? Least that’s, you know, that’s my thing but but anyway, so this is this has been my third podcast on you know what’s the value in replacing switches and receptacles in your home? We call it re devising I don’t know that everybody calls it that but anyway, my name is George Argo I’m with Argo electrical services. I’m the owner. I am the surge protector guy you can contact me seven seven o 5961437. Or you can find me on the web at Argo electrical.com Or you can just Google at Argo electrical. Have a great day.
