What to Do When There are Power Outages?

You can’t do much to control power outages, but you can control what happens when the power comes back on. Unplug your computers and television sets, even if you have surge suppressors. The suppressors should take care of any initial charge from your electrical system, but unplugging these appliances guarantees that you won’t have any problems. Make sure any kitchen appliances that might have been left on, other than your refrigerator, are shut off. Any heat-producing appliance, such as an electric blanket, a heating pad, or a portable heater, also should be shut off, lest you forget about it and it stays on while you’re not home.

General Precautions in Working with Electrical Installation

Einstein considered common sense to be all the prejudices you acquire before the age of 18. (This was the belief of someone who apparently had to be reminded by his housekeeper to dress warmly before venturing out into Princeton winters.) Semantics aside, a certain amount of common sense should be applied to your electrical dealings.
Precautions for electrical appliances, devices, and wiring include the following:

• Buy only items that are UL-listed or approved by another accepted testing agency.
• Keep children from playing near portable heaters and kitchen appliances.
• Use kitchen and bathroom appliances on or near dry surfaces only.
• Keep combustible materials such as clothes and curtains away from heaters of any kind.
• Never cut off the grounding pin from a three-pronged plug.
• Never file down the larger prong on a polarized plug.
• Use child-resistant caps in unused receptacles.
• Install smoke detectors.
• Make sure the contact between a plug and a receptacle is solid and tight.
• Allow plenty of free space around computers, televisions, and stereo sound systems to prevent them from overheating.
• Keep metal ladders away from all power lines.
• Stay away from any downed power lines.
• Have your electrical system inspected if it’s more than 40 years old and you have no record of a recent inspection.
• Make sure all switches and receptacles have cover plates.
• At the very least, install plug-in GFCI receptacles into existing bathroom and kitchen receptacles that do not have grounding.
• Make sure light bulbs are the correct rating for their lamp or fixture. (Excessive heat can be a fire hazard.)
• Unplug portable appliances when they’re not in use, especially those near sinks. (You can be electrocuted if they fall into water—even if they’re turned off.)
• Leave electric blankets untucked.

Beware of Fire Hazards

Fuses and circuit breakers are designed to protect you from inadvertently overloading a circuit. When your loads demand more current than the circuit is designed to handle, the circuit breaker will trip or the fuse will blow. This prevents the conductors or wire from overheating and causing a fire. A conductor can only offer a certain amount of resistance to a current; if there’s too much current, the conductor can heat up enough to melt its insulation.
A homeowner can create a dangerous situation by replacing a fuse or a circuit breaker with one of larger amperage, thus allowing more current to flow through the wires than they can safely resist. A fire can start without tripping the breaker or blowing the fuse because the larger-amperage fuse cannot sense the problem. Some signs of a potentially overloaded system include …
➤ Thirty-amp fuses used for lighting circuits.
➤ The use of extension cords as permanent wiring.
➤ Dimming lights when appliance loads go on.
➤ Excessive use of adapters that allow more than two loads to be plugged into one receptacle.
➤ Multiple service panels and sloppy wiring practices.