New Service Doesn’t Let You Off the Hook

I’m a big believer in new electrical services, but that doesn’t mean you can ignore them completely, especially if they’re tied into older, existing wiring. Breakers should trip if a circuit is overloaded, and GFCIs should shut down in the event of a ground fault, but there’s always the chance you have a piece of defective equipment. Unlikely? Sure, but it’s certainly possible.
Test your GFCIs monthly and pay attention to outlet and switch cover plates that seem too warm to the touch. If you ever smell anything burning around a receptacle, and it isn’t an individual appliance or load, shut down the circuit immediately and call an electrician. It’s worth the price of a service call for your peace of mind. For more information about electrical safety, contact one of the following agencies for printed material:

National Electrical Safety Foundation
1300 North 17th St., Suite 1847
Rosslyn, VA 22209
Phone: 703-841-3211
Fax: 703-841-3311

Electro Kindling

It’s bad enough that a faulty electrical connection overheats inside a small appliance or device. What might even be worse is the fact that the wiring is surrounded by flammable materials, often plastic casings that have replaced the metal casings from years ago. Dr. Jesse Aronstein (of aluminum wire repute) came up with the term “electro kindling” to describe the material that ignites and burns after the failure of an electrical connection. A plastic toaster will be only too happy to burn if there’s a wiring problem, while a metal one will just hang tight until you unplug it or until the wiring fries to a crisp. There have even been reports of multiple-outlet strips, icemakers, and plastic thermostats failing and subsequently igniting. Such is the price of a society that embraces plastic in all its forms. The possibility of electro kindling should reinforce the practice of unplugging your small appliances when they’re not in use.

Some Statistics on Electrical Safety

Mark Twain once said that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. Trying to track down accurate figures about residential electrical fires produced quite a range of numbers. Everyone from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to various fire marshals across the country has a different figure to get the same point across: Misuse of electricity is a bad idea with sometimes incendiary results. Based on my reading, the following figures are well inside the ballpark when it comes to fires caused by electrical problems:

• Approximately 45,000 to 50,000 fires each year occur in homes because of faulty wiring, appliances, and extension cords.
• The National Center for Health estimates that approximately 760 electrocutions take place from all causes each year including 310 occurrences involving consumer products.
• More than 3,000 children under the age of 10 are treated in emergency rooms each year after inserting objects into electrical receptacles. Another 3,000 are treated for injuries associated with extension cords.
• According to the CPSC, plugs and cords are involved in close to 20 percent of all residential electrical fires each year.
• Electrical fires kill hundreds of people in their homes every year, injure thousands more, and destroy hundreds of millions of dollars in property.
• December is the most dangerous month, electrically speaking, because of holiday lighting and portable-heater use.
• Older homes are more likely to have a fire than homes built in the last 20 years.

Speaking of Kids

Children also use electricity and need to use it safely. You, as a parent (or an adult friend), need to instruct them about the hazards of yanking electrical cords out of receptacles instead of holding the plug and pulling, using a hair dryer near water or with wet hands even if you have a GFCI in the bathroom, and sticking pens into receptacles to watch them melt. In addition to your always welcome lecturing, a number of audiovisual helpers are available that could be shown at your children’s school.
Some of these films include …

• I’m No Fool with Electricity, by Disney Educational Productions. This film, according to its catalog description, somewhat implausibly shows Pinocchio and Geppetto exploring electrical safety both indoors and outdoors. Because he was made from wood, Pinocchio has the built-in advantage of being an insulator instead of an electrical conductor, at least as long as he remains dry.
• Electrical Safety from A to Zap, from Perennial Education, Inc. In this film, a mouse shows a cat how to use electricity safely, their lack of opposable thumbs notwithstanding.
• Play It Safe from HECO. This video features two children who learn safe practices around electricity. The film’s big plus so far in our list of audiovisuals is the fact that it features human beings who actually do use electricity.
• The Electric Dreams of Thomas Edison: A Guide to Indoor Electrical Safety/A Guide to Outdoor Electrical Safety, produced by the Southern California Edison utility company. In this film, students defy all the rules of logic and physics by somehow communicating with the long-dead Thomas Edison, who informs them about grounding, insulators, and conductors. They also look for outdoor electrical hazards.
• Zap Rap, from Pacific Learning Systems, Inc. Sure to appeal to the contemporary youngster, this film uses rap-style language to convey the wonders and dangers of electricity. As with most attempts to maintain students’ interest through the use of entertainment as a teaching tool, you might give your kids a quiz to see if they learned anything at all about electricity other than a few tunes.
  
• Fire in the Kitchen, from Film Communicators. This video is aimed at grades 7 through 12. There are no wooden puppets or rappin’ electrons here. This video teaches kitchen safety, including proper use of a microwave oven.
• Our Invisible Friend—Electricity. This 17-minute feature from Marcom Marketing Group also was made for grades 7 through 12. One has to wonder, of course, if any video made for seventh graders could be even remotely interesting to high school seniors.
• Safety at Home: Electricity, from AIMS Media. Geared for grades 9 through 12, a utility inspector shows careless use of electricity and the inevitable results. The inevitable results in grades 9 through 12 will be hooting and applause as actors are shocked and fried while doing things with appliances, receptacles, and plugs that a three-year-old wouldn’t consider doing.

If my experience with audiovisual presentations when I was in school is still typical of students today (some things really don’t change), I’d suggest that you take your children’s electrical education into your own hands. Take them around the house, show them how the circuit breakers and GFCIs work, even show them how to properly insert and remove a plug from a receptacle. If they’re old enough, turn the power off to a circuit, remove a switch or receptacle, and show them how it’s wired. By the time they start getting bored, you’ll have gotten the basics across.

A Lesson from Your Kids

As adults, we’re supposed to exude maturity and responsibility and set an example for our children. We try to make sure they’re fed, warm, and in bed on time. We don’t always apply this same concern to ourselves, however, and this can be dangerous when we’re working on our homes. If you’re cold, hungry, or tired, you could start making mistakes, so pay attention to your comfort level. Shaking hands, a growling stomach, and fluttering eyelids are signposts on the road telling you to pull over, put your tools down, have some lunch, and maybe catch a quick nap. We’re viewed as a sleep-deprived nation, and there are plenty of accident statistics to affirm this view. You’re not going to save any time or keep to a schedule if you have to redo some of your work later because it’s faulty.

Tool Health

Modern tools either are double-insulated or come with a ground pin in a three-pronged plug. Power tools greatly speed up just about any job, but you can’t take them for granted. Tools with frayed cords, cracked casings, or incidents of sparking should be repaired or replaced. This is especially important with heavier-duty tools if they have metal casings. The casings can become energized if there’s a short in the wiring.
Vigilance, as always, pays. Inspect your tools before starting a job. It’s far easier—and safer—to catch and tape a small tear in a drill’s power cord than to chance an injury.

Watch That Ladder

Metal ladders and overhead power lines are a bad combination. Every year, painters and tree trimmers learn this the hard way, resulting in injuries and electrocutions. Using power tools while working off a metal ladder also can be hazardous, especially during wet weather.

Electricians use wood or fiberglass stepladders and fiberglass extension ladders when they work. Fiberglass is nonconductive; wood also is an excellent insulator as long as it’s dry. Most extension ladders aimed at the homeowner market are inexpensive metal ladders. If you’re doing any serious overhead electrical work, however, a wood or fiberglass ladder is the better choice.

On Dry Ground

When it comes to electricity, dry is good and wet is bad (unless you’re the U.S. Army trying to electrocute some prehistoric swamp creature in a cheesy, 1950s monster movie). Never stand in a puddle or on damp ground when working on your electrical
system. Always find a dry piece of wood or another insulating material to stand on
while working. If you must work during wet weather, wear thick-soled rubber boots.
Better yet, wait for a dry day (always an iffy situation here in the Northwest, unfortunately).

Test, Test, Test

Even if you’ve turned off the power to a particular circuit, check every device and fixture along the way before you do any work on them. You should take this precaution in case a light switch or receptacle is wired into a different circuit than the one you’re working on. Industrial and construction electrical accidents happen regularly because workers find equipment or circuits to be energized when they believed the power was shut off.

One Hand Behind Your Back

An electrical current needs to travel from point to point to complete a circuit. If you grab the end of a hot wire with one hand and touch a water pipe with the other, you provide the current with a path as it travels through you. The same is true if you’re standing on wet ground; the current will travel toward your feet. For this reason, whenever you change a fuse or flip a circuit breaker, you should use only one hand. The other hand should be behind your back or in your pocket. In other words, your other hand should be away from the service panel or fuse box. You don’t want it to accidentally come into contact with any metal surfaces in the box because that completes a pathway for the current.

Turn It Off!

Shut the power off by either removing the fuse or flipping the circuit breaker. After the power is off, hang a sign on the service panel stating that you are working and that the power should remain off! You don’t want someone flipping the breaker on thinking that it tripped.

Safe Work Practices

The mundane world of GFCIs and using the proper-size light bulb in your light fixtures just scratches the surface of electrical safety. Its importance is heightened when you do any repairs or alterations to your system. It’s like the difference between swimming in the shallow end of the pool and jumping into the deep end with the big kids. Unlike the big kids, who literally sink or swim based on their skill level, you can stack the deck in your favor with a few preemptive moves.
The number-one, top-of-the-list safety rule in electrical work is this: Make sure the current is off, and if it isn’t, shut it off! After the power is off, any fumbling with the wires will be a forgiving experience instead of a highly charged one. An inexpensive voltage tester can tell you in seconds whether a current is hot.
Plugging a tool or a light into a receptacle is not an adequate way to test whether a circuit is on. The receptacle might be defective. Always test the conducting wires themselves with your voltage tester.

Quiz on Electrical safety

When you see a worn electrical cord on a lamp or an appliance, do you …
A. Tell yourself it adds to the ambiance of your home?
B. Wrap it with lots and lots of electrical tape?
C. Replace it with a new, same-size cord?

When you turn on an electrical appliance, do you …
A. Make sure your hands are dripping wet?
B. Grab on to a water faucet for balance?
C. Dry your hands and stand away from the sink?

Before cleaning the bread crumbs from your toaster, do you …
A. Grab the cord and give it a yank?
B. Not even bother to unplug it?
C. Grasp the plug and pull?

Before working on an electrical circuit, do you …
A. Stick a screwdriver in a receptacle to check the current?
B. Make sure you’re standing on a very wet surface?
C. Turn the power off at the breaker or fuse and stand on a dry board if the floor is damp?

To power the garage door opener in your detached garage, should you …
A. String a series of extension cords together and run them between your house and the garage, leaving them out in all kinds of weather?
B. Try to run a wire off your washing machine’s receptacle?
C. Run a separate circuit with properly buried cable?

Okay, it’s a trick quiz. If you answered anything other than “C” for any question, go back and start reading this blog again. It isn’t just major electrical work that requires vigilance; everyday stuff is dangerous, too. Problems can be prevented with even the simplest practices such as …

• Installing childproof safety caps on all receptacles.
• Avoiding overloading circuits with too many loads.
• Keeping ladders and tree branches away from power lines.
• Unplugging all small appliances when not in use.
• Turning off the power to any receptacle or switch that feels excessively warm to the touch. Follow up by having the circuit checked. (Note that dimmers are an exception: Often the heat created by the dimming function is dissipated through the screws holding the cover plate on.)
• Not tucking in an electric blanket or covering it with another blanket to avoid excess heat buildup.
• Keeping extension cord use to a minimum and never running cords under carpets or rugs.
• Replacing broken cover plates on switches and receptacles so wiring isn’t exposed.
• Never leaving a lamp socket without a light bulb in it by replacing burned-out lamps immediately. Only replace them with lamps of the same wattage or lower, never exceeding the manufacturer’s recommendation

The Source of the Problem

Most electrical injuries are preventable. They typically result from …

• Work that isn’t done to code and is not inspected.
• Defective fixtures, devices, or appliances.
• Human error.

The major purpose of the NEC and your local codes is to prevent injury and property damage from the use of electricity. Even when all the electrical ducks are lined up in a nice, neat row, human error or ignorance comes into play because we regularly ignore good safety practices.

Know Your First Aid in Electrocution Cases

Chances are, you’ll never have to rescue anyone on the receiving end of a severe electric shock unless you work in certain construction specialties. Any of us can be caught in a lightning storm, but the chances of being struck by lightning are remote. Nevertheless, it’s worth being prepared in the event of an unforeseen accident.
There are a few cardinal rules to remember when helping electrocution victims:

• Assume that the victim is still in contact with the current.
  
• Never touch the victim until you’re certain the current has been shut off or the victim has been removed from the current. (Otherwise, you can be electrocuted, too.)
• If you can safely do so, shut off the power source at the fuse box or service panel. If it’s more practical, pull the plug from the receptacle.
• Push or pull the person from the power source using something nonconductive such as a wooden broom, a rubber mat, or a plastic chair. Don’t use anything made of metal.
• Never directly touch the source of the current.
• If the victim has stopped breathing, call 911 and begin CPR. (If the situation warrants, call 911 before attempting any rescue.) In the event of a high-voltage electrocution such as an industrial situation or contact with power lines, do not attempt any direct rescue. Currents this strong can jump beyond the victim and hit the rescuer as well. Call the fire department and keep others at a safe distance.

Summer lightning storms bring their share of electrocutions as well. A bolt of lightning can carry
millions of volts of electricity, far more than a misbehaving kitchen receptacle. When you assist a lightning victim, the current already has passed through, so you don’t have to worry about being electrocuted as well (unless lightning decides to strike twice, of course).

Timing Is Everything

The longer a victim is exposed to an electric current, the greater the chance of critical injury. In addition to burns, there is also the loss of muscular control, breathing difficulties as the chest contracts involuntarily, and ventricular fibrillation of the heart. This last effect comes up repeatedly in any discussion of severe electric shock. It refers to rapid, irregular heartbeats and equally irregular fluttering of the heart muscle. It’s one thing to have your heart skip a beat or two because you’re head-over-heels in love, but it’s quite another to have its pumping activity disrupted because of a faulty circuit. The former usually is a lot of fun, but the latter can do you in if it goes on for too long.

How Much Electricity Can You Take?

Once again, we run into Ohm’s Law of electrical resistance. In the case of a shock or
an electrocution, the amount of current zapping its way through the body is determined
by the following formula:

I = E/R
I = Electrical current
E = Voltage
R = Resistance of the body

Every body offers a different degree of resistance, but that doesn’t mean you want to challenge the averages. The National Electric Code (NEC) figures five milliamps to be the safe upper limit of exposure for children and adults. Even at this level, you still can be injured by your reaction to the shock such as jumping back and tripping over the rim of a bathtub.

When You Can’t Let Go

When an electrical current starts passing through your body, it doesn’t take much for you to become energized and very attached to that current. The “can’t let go” level (or freezing current) for adults is small, around 10 milliamps. Young children can get stuck at half that level. The path of the current is of critical importance as well. A hand-to-foot pathway will involve vital organs, especially the heart, and this can have serious consequences.
The following are some effects of an electrical shock:

• Knocking someone down or away from the source of the shock
• Respiration disruption
• Unconsciousness
• Muscle spasms
• Seizures
• Interrupting the heartbeat
• Severe burns
• Cardiac arrest

The longer the contact and the greater the current, the greater the injuries. A young adult in good health will be less affected by an electrical shock than a very young child or an elderly person, but you still don’t want to take any chances. If the current is great enough, third-degree body burns can result at the points of entry and exit. Burns damage and destroy the skin, further breaking down its resistance to the current.

Shocks Fest

Every time we use electricity or are near it, there’s a chance we could get shocked. Sometimes the chance is remote, such as when turning on a living room ceiling light. Other times, the chance is very good, such as when plugging in a string of worn, patched, and taped-together Christmas tree lights left over from the days of the Harry Truman administration. We talk about shock and its big brother, electrocution, but what exactly are they? Why are they so hazardous to our health?

Electricity basically is lazy and is not always interested in staying on the straight and narrow path of an alternating current. Given the choice of making the return trip along the neutral wire or taking a shortcut, it will opt for the shortcut every time, even if it means traveling through your extremities. Electricity seeks the easiest path to the ground, and any available conductor—metal, water, you—will do the job. Because our bodies are 70 percent water, we make it easy for errant electricity to hitch a ride, and it does so without any hesitation. When our skin is dry, it blocks electricity pretty well but not when there’s water around or the current is sizable. The size of the current and the duration of our exposure to it are the real health issues.

Caution Signs and Safety Concerns

At different times in our childhood, well-meaning parents, teachers, and other uninvited authority figures decided we needed a lesson on what they viewed as one of life’s serious dangers. These lessons usually consisted of terse descriptions of the horrors and grave consequences that would befall us if we ignored the lessons, which most of us did. I can confidently say that I didn’t go blind from sitting too close to the television, nor did I ever catch pneumonia from going outside with my coat unbuttoned in the dead of Ohio’s winters.

Electricity is a different matter, however, and here I must become parental for your own good. (I’m sure that phrase brings back a few memories.) One wrong electrical move can result in injury or even death for you or your loved ones, not to mention fire damage to your home. No one is immune to accidents, including experienced electricians. As a homeowner and do-it-yourselfer, you should keep yourself safe and be even more cautious than a professional.

A brand-new electrical system doesn’t give you license to abuse it or to test its limits just for the fun of it. Sticking your house key into a ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) receptacle while grabbing hold of your bathroom sink’s faucet isn’t recommended, even if the GFCI should shut down when it detects your act of lunacy. There’s always a chance it won’t shut down because it’s defective. Of course, if you’ve been following safe electrical practices, you would know this because you would test your GFCIs every month.
With a little common sense (another childhood admonition), you’ll be able to safely inhabit and work on your electrical system and fill your home with lighting, receptacles, and multimedia features from top to bottom.