You think I’m kidding, right?  How can a tripped breaker be a danger to anyone?

So it’s nighttime, the kids are playing in another room, the DVD you’ve waited all week to watch is ready to play, and you just sit down with that bowl of popcorn.  Perfect, right?  Not quite. That’s when your wife starts the vacuum cleaner in the next room and suddenly the lights go out, and you are sitting in the dark.  Aack!  These older homes never have enough circuits and now you have to go re-set the breaker.

photo credit: NicestAlan

Anything mechanical can fail.

You make your way through the dark maze of furniture and toys on your way to the panel, mentally noting that Legos are now banned from your house.  Luckily, you found a flashlight on your way which you now shine on the panel in order to find the offending circuit breaker.  You are just about to flip the breaker…but WAIT!  This is the perfect time to stop and think about safety. It just so happens that breakers are mechanical and anything mechanical can fail.

You don’t want to be close to a circuit breaker if it fails.

We’ve all done it.  We tend to stand directly in front of the electrical panel as we re-set a breaker. But it’s just not a good idea.  If a breaker malfunctions, it can blow sparks out from the panel. If you stand right in front of the breaker, you are in the line of fire, so to speak.

Did you know that you have the highest potential of hazard in your electrical panel?  We’re talking 240 volts!  You definitely don’t want to be close to a circuit breaker if it fails.  I’m not trying to scare anyone but since this is a possibility, why not just re-set the breaker safely by stepping to the side and looking away from the panel.

Being safe around electricity just takes a few simple steps.

It’s a simple precaution to step to the side of the panel as you flip the switch, but most us us have never heard that we needed to do that and in this case what you don’t know can hurt you.  So pass it on.  Tell your kids, tell a friend, drop it into casual conversations around the water cooler at work.  Perhaps your friends will hear something new, and who knows, maybe one day their eyebrows will thank you!