10 Safety Rules When Working With Electricity
1. When you’ve turned off a circuit breaker to work on a piece of equipment, always put a piece of tape across it so someone else doesn’t accidentally turn it on.
2. After the circuit breaker is turned off, always test the equipment with a voltmeter to make sure you turned off the correct breaker and there aren’t other circuit breakers that need to be turned off.
3. Always check the voltmeter to make sure it works by testing it in a live outlet that you know works.
4. When doing a “jump” test: Turn off the power, place the jumpers across the switch to be jumped, turn the power back on to observe the results, turn the power off, and remove the jumper.
5. Never leave a switch jumped longer than the few seconds it takes to see the results of the test.
6. Never work on electrical equipment if the floor is wet.
7. If you must leave a piece of malfunctioning equipment, take precautions to ensure no one else will try to use it. Leave a big note taped to the front explaining the situation (e.g., “Out of Order, Will be back with parts this afternoon”).
8. When a piece of equipment is “temporarily” fixed, never let anyone use it until you are certain it is safe.
9. Never call a job “done” until you have thoroughly tested it and are 100 per cent sure it is safe and fully operational.
10. Always know where you can turn off the power quickly in case of a problem, whether it’s at the plug or circuit breaker.
