What not to touch in a breaker box?
Breaker Box Safety Basics | Texas Co-op Power
We use electricity in our homes throughout the day, but we rarely think about how it gets to the wall outlets or switches.
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Distribution lines bring electricity to homes and most commonly connect to a house through a service drop. The electricity goes through the meter box to the service panel, which is typically found on an outer wall or in the garage. The service panel, often called a breaker box, is where breakers and fuses protect the wires inside your house from electrical overload.
With so much electricity funneling out of the breaker box through the rest of the home to your outlets and switches, its important not only to know how to use a breaker box but also how to do so safely.
Heres what you need to know about the breaker box safety features that youll find in the panel:
Main circuit breaker. This switch goes on and off to regulate the current flow. If an overload occurs because of a short circuit or because too many appliances are running at the same time, the circuit breaker will automatically trip to turn off the current flow. Breakers are subdivided into two categories.
Electrical Subpanel Safety Tips: What You Can and Can't ...
EDITORS NOTE:
The subpanel that Brian is working on has been newly added to power a garage shop.
It has NOT been connected to the main panel yet and therefore there is absolutely NO threat of electrocution. This is why Brian is not concerned with touching the contacts inside the subpanel with his fingers. We should have asked him to point with an insulated screwdriver.
When working on any type of electrical panel that is connected to a power supply, always err on the side of caution. Use a volt meter to check that the wires and bus bars are not energized.
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Working Safe in an Electrical Subpanel
With Brian Walo
Before you add or repair any electrical cicuits in a home, you should be familiar with the layout of the main panel or subpanel that feeds power to the house. In this video, electrician Brian Walo gives a quick overview of where the power enters a subpanel, and what you need to turn off to safely connect or disconnect a circuit breaker.
This is a free companion video to our How To install a Subpanel member video series, which shows all the steps youll need to get power to your new kitchen, garage workshop, finished basement, or any other remodel or addition.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Save your life instead of saving time
You really shouldnt be working in a live panel no matter what. It takes two seconds to turn off the main breaker. However, that doesnt give you complete freedom to do whatever you want in here; there are still some dangerous parts. In a main panel, where youve got a main circuit breaker and some large wires coming in, even if you shut off the breaker, the two main poles are still going to be carrying electricity. If the main breaker were on, all of the exposed stabs for the bus bar are all going to be carrying electricity. So youre not going to want to touch any of that. The neutral is also a potential shock point if the power is on. Try to avoid touching any of the incoming service lines.
Breakers should cut the power, but always double-check
Now, once the main circuit breaker is off, all of thes bus bars have been de-energized, but always test to be sure. If you happen to strike one of the bars after the main cicuit is off, youll actually be OK. Same goes for the terminals on the breakers themselves; theyre like light switches. When one is on, the connection is hot. When you turn it off, its dead.
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