Power strips can be handy when a wall outlet is not close enough for your equipment but they can also be dangerous. Especially the cheap ones. I have seen one of these cheap power strips short out before. This was not good because it caught the carpet on fire when it shorted out. This type of situation may never happen to you, or at least I hope it doesn’t, but once you have seen this happen like I did you will never feel comfortable with a power strip again.

I don’t mean to scare you but I do want to alert you of the possible dangers that can occur with these cheap power strips. The more you pay for one of these the better quality power strip you will have.. So please, don’t skimp on the price, or the quality of the power strips that you may purchase. If possible, plug your equipment straight into a wall outlet. Never use extension cords as permanent wiring. This just makes good sense to limit the use of extension cords or power strips in your home or office.

Your house ground is the single most important part of your home electrical system to insure maximum safety and protection from accidental electrocution. I can’t stress this enough about having a properly bonded ground for your entire home electrical system.

Here are a few pointers on what and where to check to insure that your house is properly grounded.

1. Go to your outside electrical service where your meter base is attached to your house. You will either have an overhead or an underground service. You will have a meter base with either a pipe or cable going up or a pipe coming from underground going into the meter base. You may or may not have another electrical box attached underneath or out to the side of the meter base. If so, this is a main disconnect or an outside panel where you can kill the power to the house from that point.

What you want to look for is a bare copper wire that comes from either the meter base or the disconnect and runs down the wall to the ground below. You want to follow this wire until you see where and what it attaches to. There should be a driven ground rod in the ground with a clamp for this wire to attach to the rod. Make sure the wire is hooked here and the clamp is tight. Also notice what type of rod is driven in the ground. It should be a solid rod about the size of a nickle or a dime.

If the rod appears to be hollow in the middle like a piece of water pipe then I would advise purchasing a 5/8″ X 8ft. copper or galvanized ground rod and driving it right beside this rod and move the ground wire over to it.  Before driving a ground rod you should have any gas, power and water lines located and marked so you don’t drive the rod into one of them. Now, if you do not see this ground wire at your electrical service then see step #2 below.

2. In some instances the house ground may be coming from your indoor electrical panel or load center. You can verify this by carefully removing the panel cover then looking for a buss bar in the panel with lots of white and/or bare wires attached to it. Somewhere there should be a bigger copper or aluminum bare wire attached to this bar.

This bare wire will be leaving the panel and either go under the floor or in the attic over to it’s grounding point, which should be a driven ground rod. It is possible that it attaches to a metal water pipe which is ok IF it also leaves there and attaches to a driven ground rod. If it does not do this and this is the only place that it hooks to then I would advise calling a qualified electrician in your area to fix this to meet local code requirements.

The reason that this can be a dangerous situation is, if at any time this metal plumbing pipe in your home is changed over to plastic PVC pipe then your house ground will be lost from that point. This is also the case if the water supply line from your water meter to your house is ever changed from metal to plastic pipe and your house is using this pipe as the main ground for the electrical system.

This shouldn’t be a problem in newer homes but older houses can certainly fall in this category due to the lack of proper inspections in those days. If you do not feel comfortable with verifying this yourself then it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have someone qualified in this area to check this for you. Again if your house is fairly new then you most likely are good but if you live in an older home it would be wise to have this checked to insure you and your families safety.

Your home is a huge investment and keeping it safe also keeps you and your family safe. Many people take electricity for granted and many don’t stop to think just how dangerous it can be or how to avoid such dangerous situations in the home. There are a few things you can do to help keep your home safe from these dangers. Following a few simple guidelines can reduce your chances of experiencing any such hazards.

Avoid using extension cords
There never seems to be enough power outlets in the home for all of the appliances and gadgets that needs power to operate. This is where many people grab the extension cords to cure this problem. A better way to attack this problem would be to purchase a good plug strip with a 2 to 3 foot cord that you can plug in to the wall outlet and gain several more power openings a little further down from the wall outlet. You get what you pay for with these items so please don’t buy the cheapest one that you can find because that is exactly what you will get. Adding a wall outlet is the best solution but that is not always the cheapest or the easiest fix.

Install the proper wattage bulbs in your fixtures
Most ceiling mounted light fixtures are rated for 60 watt bulbs or less due to the heat that they produce. Fixtures that hang down away from the ceiling are usually rated to carry higher wattage bulbs due to the bulbs not being right against the ceiling. Many times when people blow a 60 watt bulb they will replace it with a 100 watt bulb. This is not a safe thing to do because the fixture can not dissipate the extra heat that the higher wattage bulbs produce and it can heat bake the sheetrock above the fixture along with the house wires inside the electrical box. There should be a sticker on the fixture stating the maximum wattage rating for that fixture.

GFCI protected receptacles
Ground fault circuit interrupters are outlets that are designed for use around water or outdoors power requirements. Kitchens, bathrooms and any outside receptacles should have GFCI protected outlets installed. The GFCI measures the amount of incoming and outgoing current and will trip out if it is not exactly the same. This is measured from what comes in on the hot side against what leaves on the neutral. If it is not the same then there is a ground fault and the receptacle will trip and shut down the power for safety purposes. If you do not have GFCI protected receptacles installed in your home then you really should have this work done for the safety of everyone in the home.

Properly sized fuses or circuit breakers
Most homes are wired with #12 AWG wire which is rated for 20 amps and some have #14 AWG wire which is rated for 15 amps on the lighting and branch circuits. Older homes have fuses instead of breakers. Fuses can be easily replaced when one blows but many times they are not replaced with the proper sized fuse for the size of wire that it feeds. This can create a dangerous situation when they blow a 20 amp fuse then replace it with a 30 amp to keep it from blowing again. This puts a strain on the wiring because the larger fuse allows a higher amount of amps to be pulled on the wire that is not rated for that much. It is a good idea to have this checked by a certified electrician to insure that the proper sized fuses or breakers are installed according to its wire size. This is also a good time to have the connections in the electrical panel tightened to avoid any future problems from loose connections.

Check your drop cords for safety that are hanging in the shop
Are your drop cords safe to use? Many times the ground prong on the extension cords gets broken off and this can be an accident that is waiting to happen. The round third prong on your cord is the single most important one to keep you safe while using power tools and any type of equipment or appliances. You can purchase a replacement cord cap for the end of the cords and you really should do this if the ground prong is missing. Without the equipment ground intact the metal casing on a faulty power tool can become energized with 120 volts on the metal frame risking electrocution to the user. Check those cords for any other type of damage like frayed wires and replace them if needed.

A few bonus tips of the day for you
Be sure and clean the lint screen on your clothes dryer after each use. Lint can build up and cause problems or even a fire if not properly cleaned and maintained.

Do you have fire extinguishers strategically mounted in several places in your home? The kitchen and garage or shop area is a perfect place to have one or more mounted for quick access.. Just remember that an accidental fire can happen quickly and can spread quickly so having a readily accessible fire extinguisher can help avoid a disaster.

Electrically powered 120 volt smoke detectors with battery back up are a must for a reliable early warning system for the safety of the entire family. If you do not have these installed in your home it is a small price to pay for the added security that they can provide.