Don't Try this at Home

Maintain Electrical Safety
The insulation on electrical wires can become damaged by wear, flexing, or age. Some clues that you may have an electrical problem are:

• Flickering lights. If the lights dim every time you turn on an appliance that circuit is overloaded or has a loose connection.
• Sparks. If sparks appear when you insert or remove a plug, that could be a sign of loose connections.
• Frequent blown fuses or broken circuits. A fuse or circuit breaker that keeps tripping is an important warning sign of problems.
• Frequent bulb burnout. A light bulb that burns out frequently is a sign that the bulb is too high a wattage for the fixture.
• Avoid the use of extension cords.

Aging happens but fires don't have to...

ARC FAULT CIRCUIT INTERRUPTER

All 120-volt, single phase, 15 and 20-ampere branch circuits supplying outlets installed in dwelling unit family rooms, dinning rooms, living rooms, parlors, libraries, dens, bedrooms, sunrooms, recreation rooms, closets, hallways, or similar rooms or areas shall be protected by a listed arc-fault circuit interrupter combination type.

AFCI – a new type of circuit breaker that recognizes potential fire hazards and immediately shuts off the power.

Top Causes of Arc Faults

• Loose or improper connections, such as electrical wires to outlets or switches
• Frayed appliance or extension cords
• Pinched or pierced wire insulation, such as a wire inside a wall nipped by a nail or a chair leg sitting on an extension cord
• Cracked wire insulation stemming from age, heat, corrosion, or bending stress
• Overheated wires or cords
• Damaged electrical appliances
• Electrical wire insulation chewed by rodents

Electrical Outlets Safety

TAMPER-RESISTANT RECEPTACLES

All 15- and 20-ampere receptacles in a dwelling unit shall be listed tamper-resistant.

...Going against all the fire safety training I’d gone through growing up, I grabbed an industrial extension cord and power strip from the garage, and ran it through the dining room into the den. I finished setting up my laptop around 2 a.m. and went to bed.... ...After that, I got kind of lazy. I knew that I had to deal with the electrical problem, but I was dreading what it would cost to have an electrician come fix it. We lived with the extension cord running across the floor for about a week, hoping that no one would decide to drop by unannounced...

How many things can you plug into an electrical outlet before it catches fire?

What causes humming in audio systems?

Some articles claim that wiring and grounding problems account for up to 80 percent of all power quality related problems related with sensitive electronic equipments like audio/video systems.

How OK is it to replace ungrounded outlet with GFCI outlets?

Q2. Under what condition can a two-wire receptacle be replaced with a three-wire receptacle, when no ground is available in the box?

A. Where no equipment bonding means exists in the outlet box, nongrounding-type receptacles can be replaced with [406.3(D)(3)]:

• Another nongrounding-type receptacle.
• A GFCI grounding-type receptacle marked "No Equipment Ground."
• A grounding-type receptacle, if GFCI protected and marked "GFCI Protected" and "No Equipment Ground."

Note: GFCI protection functions properly on a 2-wire circuit without an equipment grounding (bonding) conductor, because the equipment grounding (bonding) conductor serves no role in the operation of the GFCI-protection device.

CAUTION: The permission to replace nongrounding-type receptacles with GFCI-protected grounding-type receptacles doesn't apply to new receptacle outlets that extend from an existing ungrounded outlet box. Once you add a receptacle outlet (branch-circuit extension), the receptacle must be of the grounding (bonding) type and it must have its grounding terminal grounded (bonded) to an effective ground-fault current path in accordance with 250.130(C).

The following vid shows a bad switch.