Ensure the safety of Electrical System in your home

[flynntr]

Hi,
Last monday I had witnessed an electrical circuit fire near my house. I was terribly shocked on seeing that. From that day I started surfing for tips to avoid electrical fire in my home and had made all of them practical. Now I thought of sharing those tips with you so that you can also avoid such a bad situation in your home.
Watch these Signs to Ensure the Electrical System is Safe in your Home
Lights that are really dim
Light bulbs that burn out more often than they should
Outlets or Switches don’t work or that are hot to touch
A burning smell and you are not sure where it is coming from
Aluminum or knob-and-tube wiring in your Home
Fuses that constantly blow or breakers that trip often For more tips you can visit this blog(Electrical Fires in Canada - The Shock Doctors)

[C-Bag]

If I may I would like to add to your list, check what make of service panel you have. And if it's Zinsco, chuck it, fast!

Since we moved here I'd been having probs with a breaker out in the shop, so that led me to research what kind of panel I had and where I could find breakers, as I'd been through this with our last house. That last one was not a Zinsco though. Well I was shocked when I saw page after page on the net of people having fires etc because of them. Id been trying to save up to have the panel replaced when my wonderful SO decided it was time to go solar and when they came out to do the preliminary inspection as soon as they saw it was a Zinsco panel.....outta here! Bonus, score, and they did it for no added charge!

Life is now wonderful, no more popped breakers and the piece of mind I don't have a time bomb in the wall!

[Toolmaker51]

SQUARE D, EATON, GE, CUTLER HAMMER...
There are others re: Mike Holt's Forum, I've accessed that site 1000's of times for guidance.
Also entertaining; a typical 'safety' sticker on 80's era Asian import machines "Electrical System and Components Approved by Los Angeles City Electrical Code"; except didn't specify which particular Los Angeles they refer to. Recall the Mandarin Oranges "Made in USA'? Turns out they named a city 'USA'.

A peek in the panel didn't reinforce the sticker. Look in panels of an old Kearney Trecker, Cincinnati, DeVlieg, Lodge & Shipley, American Tool Works, Cleereman...THOSE ARE COMPONENTS! THAT'S WIRING!
Now, in my estimation the most stringent codes are New York for fire and electrical, electrical, building and plumbing in Los Angeles. They each expand the NEC, UPC, NFPA etc, and models for so many municipalities it isn't funny.

[Frank S]

One place that is often overlooked in home or small shop wiring that causes as many headaches as faulty breakers or other wiring woes within the structure, is the feeder line to the meter.
Many older homes in particular may have had several upgrades to their electrical requirements.
A typical 3 or 4 bedroom house built in the 60s through the 80s would have possibly 2 to 4 duplexes installed per bedroom and not many more than that in the family room then usually only 2 above the counter top and another 2 possibly 3 elsewhere in the kitchen many times the bedrooms would share circuits with as many as 4 or 5 duplexes on a single circuit also servicing the overhead lighting as well. This was fine back in the day before everyone deciced that each and every room should have those 5 blade 54" 4 speed reversible ceiling fans with 5 60 watt bulbs burning ever so brightly. Then along comes Daddy I need a stereo and a TV in my room next came the computers and play station dozens of wallwarts to provide charging docks or power for every electronic gadget imaginable Wife' absolutely must have 40 odd kitchen appliances sitting on the counter top at all times and of course all of these now energy suckers because each and every appliance has to think for itself and try to be a smart wizzmo- gizzmo . You can not unplug any of them due to all of them relying on their on-board computer.
the family room is awash with the latest and greatest in family entertainment equipment. There is no need to go to the Cinema any more because your system has superior sound and picture quality even to that of an I MAX 360 degree planetarium projector.
All of this is going on while your service is still provided by a 6 or 4 AWG in air aluminum line.
You decide to help the wife out with some chores while the kids are being woed by the home theater, she has the dish washer the washing machine the dryer the, a cake in the oven making herself a capachino while the microwave is heating the baby's formula. You plug in your man's man 5 Hp industrial shop vac and everything goes black.
You rush out to check the main panel Nothing wrong there no breakers are tripped so you happen to think there are at least 3 more sub panels scattered throughout the old house , all of these check out no problems there either.
Finally you venture outside in the near ZERO weather to check the New government mandated smart meter that was recently installed. You notice all kinds of foreign (to You) fault codes flashing then just as suddenly as the power went out it comes back on.
You decide that it must have just been a simple interruption in the service.
You forget about it and days weeks or months go by until this happens again then it starts to happen more frequently each time there are fewer and fewer electrical vampires in use until one day No one is home the furnace and the hot water heater switch on at the same time as your air compressor in the garage cycles the dishwasher and the dryer were previously set to start about this time pooff the service line burns in two right at the duck head above your brand new shake roof. Lucky for you your home security system sends a coded signal to the FD you come home to find 3 engines a ladder truck the fire chief and 30 firemen fighting fire as is their lives depended on it.
The investigation after the fire shows that while everything in your older home had been properly upgraded and exceeded all CITY codes from the meter through out the house therefore the fault was in the aging service line that your service provider only leased the use of. After a years worth of litigation in just about every court in the country the final verdict is your fault for living there in the first place.
The best thing you could have done prior to the fire would have been to somehow find a means to rip the service line down at the street and make sure it was cut up or stolen before the electric company came out to repair it
You may have been fined but that would have been cheap in the long run