TAP Electric

T.A.P. Electric- We are here to provide electrical services to customers in South East Iowa and surr We also offer financing as low as 0% upon Pre-Qualification!

We provide a range of electrical services that are personalized to cater to a customer’s needs. Talk to our skilled team of electrical contractors for electrical wiring, outlets and fixtures installation, panels, main panel upgrade and remodeling services. For all your electrical installations, replacements and repairs, we have the tools and skills to offer quality work. Our company is committed t

o providing superior services at competitive prices. You can count on T.A.P. Electric for all your electrical needs in Burlington, IA. Call us to get a professional electrician that knows the ins and outs of electrical work. Get a free quote today. We also offer Virtual estimates via Facetime and Zoom.

09/04/2026

Customer has a meter base fail on this underground service. Due to clearance concerns with Alliant Energy and the City we had to relocate the meter. Electricity is back up and customer is happy.

09/01/2026

If an outlet on your wall feels warm, pay attention to it—that’s your house trying to tell you something.

Nine times out of ten, it’s just how the thing was wired years ago. Back in the day, a lot of folks took the shortcut and just shoved the wires into those quick-stab holes in the back instead of taking the time to wrap them nice and tight around the terminal screws. Over the years, those little spring clips weaken, the wire works loose, and loose electrical connections make heat. Leave it alone long enough, and it’ll melt the plastic face right off the wall or knock out every other plug down the line.

If you’ve got an outlet that feels warm, looks a little scorched, or has a buzz to it, go ahead and unplug whatever’s in there. Seriously, don’t play the wait-and-see game with that stuff.

Same deal with those old two-prong outlets you see in houses around here. A lot of them are sitting in old metal boxes without a real ground wire anywhere in sight. If you just try to swap in a new three-prong yourself without knowing what’s in the box, that’s usually how folks get a nasty bite.

Troy has had to pull plenty of these out over the years. Getting it sorted out doesn't take long, but the thing folks regret is waiting until it sparks to call somebody in. Better safe than sorry, kiddo.

08/27/2026

FYI

This panel is full. Every space taken, and a couple of the slots got doubled up to buy room.

It happens slowly. A window unit, then a freezer in the garage, then somebody finishes the basement. Eventually the lights dip when the AC compressor kicks on, and there is one breaker you have quietly gotten used to resetting.

A panel upgrade and a service upgrade get mixed up constantly, and they are not the same job. A panel upgrade means replacing the panelboard and the breakers inside it. A service upgrade means raising the amprage of the whole electrical service, usually 100 amps to 200, and that pulls in the meter socket, the service mast, the service entrance conductors and the grounding electrode system.

08/21/2026

Troy put up a picture of those plastic plug caps last week and asked who still uses them. A few of you answered, and it was a good conversation.
Shine your phone light into an outlet tonight and look at the slots. If there are little plastic doors blocking them, you have a tamper-resistant receptacle. Those shutters only open when a plug presses on both slots at the same instant. A plug does that. A paperclip does not.
An older receptacle just looks like an open hole into the box. Plenty of houses around Burlington and Keokuk still have them, and there is nothing shameful about that. Most of the tamper-resistant ones also have TR stamped on the face, but the stamp is small and not every one is marked the same way, so the shutters are the better tell.
If you ever decide to change some of them, the rooms where kids spend time are the ones to do first.

08/18/2026

Next time you are down in the basement, stand still and look up for a second.

An old basement never got drywalled, so the whole wiring history of the house is hanging right out in the open. I would be looking for conductors with cloth insulation instead of modern thermoplastic, insulation that is cracking or flaking where the wire bends, and splices made out in open air instead of inside a junction box. Every connection is supposed to live in a box with a cover on it. That is not a formality. The box is what contains it if a connection ever arcs.

This one's from a home in Keokuk, and it looks like most of the houses around here.

Post a picture of yours if you want and I will tell you what you are looking at.

08/11/2026

After a conversation tonight I feel this should be a discussion to have. Who knows what these are and who still uses them? Feel free to talk about how safe you believe they are .

08/06/2026

A few days ago we talked about how fast fire moves through a modern home. Here's the part that people may not know: your smoke alarm might not catch it in time.

Homes today are built and furnished with synthetics. Foam couches, plastics, synthetic carpet and curtains. That stuff burns hotter and faster than the wood and cotton our grandparents' homes were full of. A fire that once gave a family around 17 minutes to get out can now give them as little as 3.

Here's the catch. Fires fed by synthetics give off smaller, different smoke particles, and for years smoke alarms weren't actually required to detect them well. The national alarm standard only got updated recently (2024) to make alarms prove they can catch smoke from modern synthetic materials, both smoldering and flaming. If your alarms are older, they may be slow on exactly the kind of fire you're most likely to have.

A few things worth checking tonight:

Check the age. Anything over 10 years old should be replaced.
Look for newer alarms tested against synthetic smoke (the latest UL 217 standard), or dual-sensor.
Interconnect them so when one sounds, they all sound. That's the difference between hearing it in the basement and not hearing it at all.

Test them monthly.

We can hardwire and interconnect smoke alarms across whole homes. If yours are aging out, or you're not sure what you've got up there, give us a call and we'll take a look.

08/04/2026

Thirty years ago, you had about 17 minutes to escape a house fire. Today it's down to 3 or 4.

Newer homes and furniture are built with synthetic materials that burn faster, and open floor plans let smoke move quicker. The fire didn't get worse. The house did.

One thing you can control: your electrical system. Old panels, aluminum wiring, and overloaded circuits are among the most common ways a home fire starts. If your place has some age on it, have the wiring checked before it ever gets a chance to be a problem.

Call Troy at T.A.P. Electric and we'll come take a look.

07/22/2026

Did you know a three-prong outlet isn't always a grounded one?

Plenty of homes around Burlington, Keokuk, and Fort Madison were wired back when two-prong outlets were the norm and a ground wire wasn't part of the deal. Over the years somebody gets tired of a charger or a surge protector not fitting, so they swap the old two-prong for a three-prong. Looks modern. Looks grounded. That third slot is right there.

Here's the catch. If there's no ground wire behind the outlet, that third slot connects to nothing. The outlet looks protected but isn't. Your Appliances, your computer, your power strip all lean on that ground to carry a fault safely away. A false ground gives you the appearance of safety with none of it behind the wall.

Want to check your own house? Grab a plug-in outlet tester. They run about five or ten bucks at any hardware store, and the little lights tell you in a few seconds whether an outlet is wired right and actually grounded. Good rainy-afternoon project.

So go take a look around. How many three-prong outlets do you have, and would you have guessed some might not be grounded? Drop a comment below and we'll help you make sense of what you're seeing.

If it turns out your place is running on that older wiring and you want to know what you're really working with, that's the kind of thing we sort out every week.

T.A.P. Electric

07/18/2026

A light that dims when the AC kicks on. An outlet plate that feels warm to the touch. A breaker you've quietly gotten used to resetting. A faint smell of hot plastic near a receptacle. None of these mean the sky is falling. All of them mean something is working harder than it should.

Electrical problems are patient. They'll give you the same small warning for months before the day they don't. Fixing that warm outlet now is cheap. Ignoring it until it burns the wiring behind the wall is not.

If your home has been dropping hints, it's worth having someone who does this every day take a look. Twenty minutes now beats finding out the hard way.

Give us a call today and ask about an electrical inspection.
309-333-3912

Address

400 West Burlington Avenue, Suite 2
West Burlington, IA
52655

Telephone

+13093333912

Website

https://tap-electric.com/

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