Dear Mr. Electrician: How to be safe when working around your home? My wife and I recently purchased our first house. It needs some work and we want to do as much of it as possible ourselves, but we want to do things safely.
Answer: Knowing how to be safe when working around your home requires planning. NOTE: Text links below go to applicable products on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
All of your home remodeling projects should be carefully planned before hand so that the tools and materials needed are there when you start the job. Safety should be included in the planning process.
If you have no experience with working on a house and no one to guide you, I would say tread lightly. It takes a certain amount of mechanical aptitude along with the proper knowledge and experience to safely work on a house successfully.
Below are some of my tips on how to be safe when working around your home. They are generalized and some work situations will require additional safety precautions. For specialized safety requirements you should read OSHA 1926 safety regulations.
If you are reading this around the holidays, then you should also read my post about holiday safety tips.
When doing any job around the home, safety should be the first consideration. Professional trades people have knowledge and perhaps training in how to be safe. Some of that knowledge is derived from actual experiences with getting hurt.
I have an OSHA 30 hour safety card, meaning that I went through OSHA’s approved construction safety training. However I do not consider myself an expert on safety.
I am constantly aware of unsafe practices and conditions on a job, but that doesn’t mean accidents won’t happen. You must get into a mind set of thinking about, and including safety when planning to do work around the house. Avoid unsafe short cuts. Read my list below.
SAFE PRACTICES WHEN WORKING
Use a stepladder when working on the ceiling. Do not stand on a pail, a chair, a countertop, a stack of milk crates, or the tub and toilet to perform work. One bad fall can change your life forever.
I know that many households have step stools for daily use. I do not recommend that a step stool be used when working around your home. A five foot ladder or taller should be used. Taller ladders for higher ceilings. Check the weight rating of a ladder before you purchase it.
A metal ladder should not be used when working around live electrical wires.
Shut off the power at the circuit breaker when working on electrical circuits and appliances. In a normal situation, shutting off the wall switch may suffice, but you won’t know if the light fixture or appliance was wired correctly and safely until you actually work on it. Even with the circuit breaker off there is a possibility of current flowing on the neutral conductor due to it being shared on a multi-wire circuit or the wiring is not correct.
The safest thing to do is to shut the power off to the entire house using the main circuit breaker in your electrical panel. However even with the main breaker being off there is still a rare possibility that neutral current could still be flowing through your main electrical panel and grounding electrode connection.
It is inconvenient to shut power off to the entire house, but it is better than getting electrocuted. Please note that I do not recommend that a novice work on electrical wiring. The potential for creating a shock hazard or starting a fire is too great. Some electrical problems created by amateurs don’t show up for months or years later.
To find out what happens when your body comes in direct contact with electricity, click here.
Keep the workspace clear of debris. It can be a tripping hazard having to step over things while trying to get work done. Take a few minutes to clean the work area. It will be safer and more productive.
When I was younger I stepped on a nail in a board that was laying on the construction site. Fortunately I only needed to get a hypodermic shot. My father told me when he was younger and stepped on a nail, the doctor had to go in the hole in his foot to clean it out which hurt worse than the original nail penetration.
I wear the top of line Red Wing work boots now with not only steel toe protection, but also protection from nail penetration.
Wear a dust mask or respirator to avoid breathing anything nasty. It is not a bad idea to also protect your head and hair from dust particles. Upon completion of the work remove your clothes and take a shower.
When working with nasty smelling household cleaning liquids, paints, or other chemicals, wearing the proper respirator is important, especially in confined spaces such as bathrooms and closets. Open the windows. Run some fans to move the air out. Take lots of breaks outside in the fresh air.
Wearing eye protection is another way to be safe when working around your home. It is very easy for something to get thrown into your eyes and cause permanent damage. Goggles are good for eye protection when doing some things. Face shields protect your whole face.
Use hearing protection when working around loud noises or using loud tools and equipment. Many of us cut our own lawns. You should use hearing protection when doing that with a gasoline powered mower. Leaf blowers also make a lot of noise.
You should not wear earphones or headphones and listen to music while doing construction work. You will not have the ability to hear a danger if music is playing in your ears. Much to the annoyance of co-workers and employees I prefer no radios on my jobs.
Wear work shoes. I realize that most of you do not own a pair of high back steel toe work shoes like I do, but your feet can get injured when working. Going up and down a ladder is painful after a while for someone who does not work like this regularly. Protect your feet when working around the house. Do not work barefoot!
Wear gloves to protect your hands from scratches and callouses. When working around live electricity you should use electrically insulated gloves with glove protectors. A face shield is also important to protect your eyes from an electrical explosion.
A hard hat is important if you are working where something can fall on your head. Bump caps are available for working with a possibility of bumping your head such as attics or crawl spaces.
When using an electric powered tool, always plug it into a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI). This is especially important when working outdoors, in the basement, around water and water pipes, or in the garage.
The concrete floor in a basement or garage is a good electrical ground path. If you were to come in contact with a live wire and another part of your body was in contact with concrete, you will get a shock or be electrocuted. Another reason why wearing safety work shoes is a good way to be safe when working around your home.
See my portable GFCI outlet box for use in construction in the photo below.
If you must go on the roof, use fall protection and have at least one other person standing by for emergency assistance. Study the use and operation of fall protection such as harnesses and safety ropes before you go up on the roof. If left hanging in a harness for more than a few minutes, permanent injury or death can occur. You must have an escape plan in place before working on the roof.
From the OSHA web site (OSHA.gov): “For construction operations, fall protection generally must be used at heights of six feet or greater. Falls are the leading cause of death in the construction industry.
Fall protection can be accomplished through the use of guardrail systems, safety net systems, or personal fall arrest systems. Certain work site activities and/or locations may allow other methods (including, but not limited to positioning device systems, warning line systems, and controlled access zones) to be used.”
Jewelry must not be worn when working around the home. A ring can get caught on a power tool or a machine and rip your finger off. Necklaces can also get caught on something and choke you. Remove watches, rings, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, neck ties, and anything else that can caught on a tool or a machine.
Electricians who wear jewelry are especially prone to accidents. Jewelry is a good conductor of electricity and can cause serious burns and sparks when in contact with live wiring.
You should also be careful with clothes that have dangling cords or pull strings such as those on hoodies. Tug the loose ends in so they are not apt to get caught on something.
If you have long hair, tie it up out of the way. After I graduated from high school I worked as an electrician’s helper for my father’s electrical contracting company that summer. I had long hair and was drilling holes with an angle drill above my head.
Suddenly my hair got caught on the drill chuck and ripped a patch the size of my hand from my scalp. Fortunately I was able to react immediately and stopped using the drill which was now pulled into my head. After that I got all of my hair cut shorter and wore a headband to hide the bald spot until my hair grew back.
Call 811 if you plan to dig a trench or drive a ground rod. They will arrange for a utility markdown of your property. You don’t want to cut into a water pipe, electric power lines, telephone line, cable TV service, or a gas pipe when digging.
Although the underground utilities are identified after the markdown, there are still items that will not be identified that can cause you problems such as oil tanks, septic systems, lawn and garden irrigation system, sump pump drain, and landscape lighting wiring.
Look around the property for signs of other things that may be buried. Check the basement or crawl space to see if any pipes or wires are exiting the house in the direction of your trench. Look around the perimeter of the foundation to see if any pipes or cables are going into the ground.
Wash your hands. I always bring hand wipes on the job. After going in dusty old attics or moldy basements I don’t want to catch some rare illness. Sometimes cutting holes in ceilings and walls reveals evidence of rodents. Wear a face mask also.
Have some ice packs available for when you are finished working. Apply one to the back of your neck as that will be a sore spot as a result of looking up for a long time. This is part of my nightly routine. Your hands and knees will probably hurt too.
Visit my blog post depicting various naughty electrical code and safety violations.
