During this pandemic, we’ve learned the importance of having a functional home office. Remote work seems here to stay, which is a great option for those with disabilities, parents with children, or those who simply prefer a calmer environment than an office. To make sure your home office is operating efficiently, you need to have a few key items and functions. Once you’ve got your desk, computer, and printer, you need to ensure that the electrical system in your home office is equipped to handle your demand.
Be Careful of Power Strips
A power strip seems like a simple solution when your problem is that there are too few outlets. After all, between power cords, chargers, and lamps, it’s likely that the outlets in the spare room comprising your office get used up quickly. A power strip increases the number of items you can plug into a single outlet, but this can be dangerous if it’s overloaded. An overloaded outlet can trip a breaker or overheat and possibly cause a fire. It’s best not to demand more power from a circuit than it can handle.
Increase the Outlets
The best solution to having more items to plug in than outlets is to have more circuits and outlets added. Contact a qualified electrician to rewire the room to better suit your needs–outlets can be added onto almost any stud post, so you can add more to a wall or install a completely new circuit to accommodate the need for a much higher power draw.
Computer Circuits Prevent Overdraw
It’s no secret that computers create a big drain on electrical outlets. If your home office is permanent with a full desktop computer and tower, it’s a good idea to have a full circuit dedicated to the computer. This way, your computer can operate without affecting the other outlets in the room.
Electronics produce heat as a by-product while they run and charge. Proper air circulation is critical to helping them run well since it carries away the hot hair and replaces it with cooler, fresher air. Most electronics come with built-in fans because of this. However, if the fan gets blocked or clogged, or if the room has poor air circulation in general, your electronics may not function at optimal capacity. If they begin to overheat, their internal systems can get damaged–your computer could even be permanently destroyed. Always make sure your devices have access to cool air, and their fans aren’t blocked.
Always Have a Plan
You never know when a power outage may occur. This can be extremely detrimental when working at a home office with an unsaved file. Hurricanes can bring unexpected outages, but you can protect your computer with a generator, or a device called an uninterruptible power supply. A generator can supply electricity for a while, but it usually needs to be started manually–meaning you lose power for a period before it is restored. This is fine for a refrigerator, but if your computer loses power while you’ve got an unsaved document, it’s not much use. An uninterruptible power supply gives you just a few minutes of extra power, but this is enough to save documents before the power shuts off completely so that you don’t lose any information. Both are smart options to have on hand for your home office.
Promise Electric offers professional residential electrical services to the greater Sarasota area.
