What UPS systems involves

Backup power is a system. The engine is the part people shop for and the least of the problem. The work starts with finding out what is actually there. With UPS systems, that means looking at the existing wiring, the panel capacity and whatever the last person left behind.

It starts with a look at the panel and the circuits involved. From there we tell you what has to be done, what can wait and what was never a problem at all.

Where this comes up

Standby generators, automatic transfer switches and emergency power systems. Most of these calls come from Des Plaines and the surrounding suburbs, but we take them anywhere in our service area.

Older Illinois buildings rarely match the drawings, if there are drawings at all. Circuits wander between floors, junction boxes hide above ceilings, and a single breaker might feed a bedroom and half the kitchen. Tracing it properly is the first hour of a lot of jobs.

How we do it

The electrician who quotes the job comes from the same crew that does it. We work to the current code, test every circuit before we leave and label the panel so the next person can read it.

What changes with an older building

Buildings in this part of Illinois cover about a century of wiring practice. Knob-and-tube in the oldest, cloth-insulated branch circuits after that, aluminum wiring in a stretch of the sixties and seventies, and modern copper since. Each one fails differently and each one has its own repair path.

We look at what is actually in the walls before quoting, because guessing from the year the house was built is how people end up with a surprise halfway through.

Who actually shows up

A licensed electrician from our own crew. Residential, commercial or municipal, the same people do the work and hold it to the same standard. Nobody gets handed off to a subcontractor because the job is small.

When you book, we tell you who is coming. On the day, if we are going to miss the window, you get a call before it closes, so nobody wastes an afternoon waiting.

Code, permits and inspection

Most permitted jobs have two inspections. The rough-in is checked with the walls open, before insulation and drywall. The final happens once devices are in and the power is on. Missing the rough-in means opening finished walls later, so we schedule around it from the start.

We deal with whichever jurisdiction the job sits in. We pull the permit, we schedule the inspection, and we are there when the inspector walks it. You get the paperwork at the end, which matters when you sell the building or when an insurer asks.

Copper, aluminum and what is in your walls

Aluminum branch wiring went into a lot of houses in the late sixties and early seventies. It is not automatically dangerous, but it expands and contracts more than copper, which loosens terminations over time, and it needs devices and connectors rated for it.

The repair is usually not a full rewire. Proper connectors at every termination, done thoroughly, solves most of it. Anybody quoting you a whole-house rewire on sight has not looked.

When to stop and call

If something electrical is giving off heat or a smell, stop using the circuit and call. A fault you can sense from across the room is already past the early stage.

Lights that brighten in one room while they dim in another point to a loose neutral, often at the service or the panel. That one can push high voltage into anything plugged in. Turn off sensitive equipment and call the same day.

The transfer switch is the system

People buy a generator and think of the engine as the product. The part that decides whether backup power actually works is the transfer switch, because it is what keeps generator power from backfeeding onto the utility line where it can kill a lineman.

Automatic switches sense the outage and start the unit without anybody being home. Manual switches cost less and need somebody present. Which one is right depends on what you are protecting.