Many times, electrical failures in homes don’t occur unannounced. For example, the burning smell emanating from an outlet, the flickering light activated by a dishwasher, or the breaker’s monthly trip on the same circuit aren’t random incidents. They are the system telling owners that something is wrong. If warning signs are heeded, most costly and dangerous electrical disaster can be averted.
Start With What You Can Test Yourself
The best place to start is your GFCI outlets, those are the ones with the “Test” and “Reset” buttons, often located in bathrooms, kitchens, garages, and near exterior walls. Push the Test button once a month. The outlet should lose power right away. If it doesn’t, and the button won’t reset the outlet, then the internal mechanism has given out, and the outlet is no longer protecting you. Replace it.
AFCI breakers operate on the same principle. These are the breakers in your panel with a small test button on the face. They are designed to detect arcing faults – the kind of electrical discharge that occurs inside a wall when insulation breaks down around a wire. If a breaker doesn’t trip when you deliberately trip it, it’s failed even if the lights are still on.
Both of these tests will only take you about ten minutes. They’re about as close as you get to a check-up for your home electrical without getting out a multimeter.
Fix the Habits That Create Problems
Extension cords are not insulated as well as permanent cables around your house. They are created for short-term use. If an extension cord is under a rug, behind something, or powering an appliance all the time, heat accumulates and cannot be dissipated, resulting in a potential fire.
If you find yourself in a situation where each outlet is being used and power strips are being added, then you are likely overloading the circuit. In this case, the right solution would be to have an electrician install extra outlets, cables, or circuits as required, not just another power strip.
A Sure shot electrician can also let you know if your electric board has the right amperage rating for your home. If you have an older board that cannot handle modern appliance loads, you may find your breakers and wires wearing out faster.
Read the Warning Signs Your House Gives You
Lights that flicker indicate a problem with the connection rather than the bulb itself. Loose wire connections create resistance and heat at the connection point, which can degrade wire insulation over time and potentially cause an electrical fire.
If you smell burning near an outlet, the plastic insulation around the wiring may already be melting. Do not spray water on it, ignore it, or assume it will stop. Turn off the power to the circuit from the panel and contact a professional immediately.
These warning signs are more critical for homes older than 25 years. For instance, they might have aluminum wiring that withers differently over time due to irregular load expansion and contraction, or the original panel/grounding system may not be up to current standards.
Know Your Panel Before You Need it
Most people never open their circuit breaker panel unless a breaker has tripped, then they spend five minutes puzzling out which switch it is. This isn’t a problem in everyday situations. It is in an emergency.
Set aside an afternoon to map out your panel. Shut off each breaker, one at a time, walk through your home, and see exactly what has lost power. Write it on an index card, and tape it to the inside of the panel door. It seems like mundane housekeeping, but when it’s 11 p.m. and there’s a burning smell, isolating the power to your kitchen right away, that index card is going to be your best friend.
While the panel’s open, have a good look at the breakers themselves. Corrosion, scorch marks, or breakers that are warm to the touch, are what we in the business call “trouble.” A professional panel inspection every three to five years is a perfectly rational maintenance item for any home – after all, electrical distribution equipment figures in some 34,000 home structure fires annually, with an attendant property loss of more than $1.3 billion (National Fire Protection Association).
Surge Protection is Maintenance, Not Luxury
Installing whole-home surge protection at the panel can help protect your appliances from voltage spikes associated with storms, grid switching, or equipment cycling on and off. Point-of-use surge protectors at individual outlets can provide a second layer of protection for your sensitive electronics. In the grand scheme of things, the cost of either of these safeguards is minimal.
While the checklist above is a good start, it won’t uncover everything. Some issues reveal themselves only during a professional inspection with thermal imaging equipment, which can signal hot spots behind the walls, areas in which a wire has been consistently running warm for months without any visible indication. Regularly scheduled inspections should not be confused with paranoia. They are merely the means by which you uncover issues that wouldn’t otherwise be noticed.
