10 Must-Follow Safety Tips when Doing Electrical Work at Home

From early childhood, we are taught not to play with electricity, for obvious reasons. Being a homeowner grants freedom, and freedom understands responsibility. Every homeowner knows that maintaining a home isn’t easy, and can sometimes be dangerous, especially if you have to meddle with electricity. In this article, you will find safety tips that will help you minimize the risks and dangers of electrical work on your home.

 

1. Mind the Age

Go through the paperwork and see just how old your home is. Most homes have outdated electric installations. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean they are broken or useless, but they weren’t built to maintain all devices we use today (most of our appliances today require electricity). We suggest you do a house inspection once a year, just to make sure that your electric installations are in order.

 

2. Know Your Limits

Electricity is not a joke. Most people think they can handle things on their own, and it is great if they can, but if you can fix minor electrical problems in your home, that doesn’t mean you are an expert on this subject. Try to be objective, understand your limits and ask for professional help if you can’t handle the problem: it might hurt your pride, but it may save your life.

 

3. Understand Your Electric Panel

Distorted electric panels aren’t a rarity. Even the newer homes succumb to this problem. Also, check the brand. Brands like Federal Pacific or ITE Pushmatic stopped with the manufacturing of electric panels, and are no longer updated, regulated, etc. Also, check if your panel is overheating, which is a clear sign of some malfunction. Find the name of the brand and do the research, making sure that you have a quality electric panel.

 

4. The Importance of Breakers

Breakers trip if there is voltage overload in your home. However, if they switch as soon as you reset them, then there is permanent damage done to your electrical system. Sometimes the breaker itself is the problem. Nevertheless, if the breaker switches as soon as you reset it, do not reset it again, for this may cause a fire in your home.

 

5. Mind the Cords

Use the cords correctly and do not modify them if you don’t know how. When it comes to extension cords, use them only for a short amount of time and light work. Visually inspect the cords you plan on using, and inspect the existing cables. If there is any damage done to the wire, dispose of it or fix if it’s a minor issue.

 

6. Outlets

Unplug unused outlets and do not overload the outlets you are currently using. Furthermore, make sure that devices you plan on plugging in the outlet match the outlet’s specifications. Also, make sure they are situated in a safe and dry spot, and that they are distant to any flammable object.

 

7. Tending and Changing Light Bulbs

First and foremost, use the light bulbs of appropriate voltage. Try and use CFL bulbs, for they emit the same amount of light, less heat and require less energy. If you are changing the light bulbs, turn off the fixture, just in case, and make sure that you screw the bulb firmly.

 

8. Obtain a fire extinguisher

Having a fire extinguisher in your home may save your home and your life. A lot of the fires are caused by electrical outages and breaks, and these breaks can occur if the installations aren’t proper. Remember that you can never use water to extinguish the flame, and that the water and electricity are a deadly combination.

 

9. Appliances

When it comes to appliances, always turn them off if you plan on inspecting or fixing it. Also, make sure that the heat-emitting devices have enough space to give off that heat, thus preventing outages and fires. Naturally, use appliances with dry hands, keep them away from the water and wear rubber gloves when inspecting them.

 

10. Check the Switches

If the switches are loose or broken, firstly cut the power. If they are loose, use the screwdriver to fix the problem. If they are broken, replace them because the spark switches emit can cause a fire. Replacing them is straightforward, but if you aren’t confident, call the technician to replace them.

 

Conclusions

You can never be too careful when it comes to electricity, and following these steps will surely minimize the risk. Inspect when you can and fix where you can, but do not put your life in danger if the problem supersedes your knowledge and abilities.

 

The Dangers of Distracted Walking

Distracted driving is very much frowned upon but distracted walking receives far less attention. This infographic from Hussey Fraser looks at the rise in distracted walking since the advent of mobile phones and particularly smartphones. It is so common to see people walking down the street not looking where they’re going and it is responsible for 10% of pedestrian injuries.

In places of work such as building sites it is also becoming a big problem. Often people use their phone to check the internet on site and end up falling or tripping as a result. A building site is a notoriously dangerous place to begin with so it’s important to be extra careful when working there. Using phones on places like roofs can also be deadly so anyone working in the construction industry will need to be particularly vigilant.

In an ideal world you should wait to check your phone until you’re on your lunch break and if you absolutely insist on checking hold the phone up higher and look up every couple of seconds to get your bearings. See the full infographic now and stay safe.

 

 

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5 Essential Steps for Creating a Comprehensive Workplace Safety Strategy

Safety in the workplace has never been more important. It doesn’t matter what size business you are, how many employees you’ve got or what industry and nature of work you’re involved in, the safety of everyone involved at every level is paramount, and failure to acknowledge this can lead you to some very serious trouble.

As horrible as it sounds, as a manager or team leader, having an avoidable death in your workplace due to negligence is not something that will sit with you lightly.

However, to avoid this happening, it means coming up with a workplace strategy plan or strategy. To get you started, here are the five steps you need to take.

#1 – State Your Commitments

The first step you need to take is to make it common knowledge that your business is committing itself to having an optimal level of workplace safety. Start by making this a company-wide value and make even adapt your business’s mission statement to reflect that safety is always a key concern.

You need to make sure that every employee you have is clear that verbal encouragement will be implemented in how to be safe, as will investigations and tests to ensure everything meets the required standard.

#2 – Accessing Your Foundations

If you haven’t already implemented some kind of workplace safety assessment, apart from the ones you have to do by law, now is the time to do so. “Start by evaluating your business to see where it currently stands and the risks that your business and employees are currently at risk to” – explains Kimberly Poisson, a Safety Manager at Resumention and Huffingtonpost contributor.

Depending on the nature of your business, there may be some things you need to look into, and others you don’t. Some areas to think about include;

• Environmental concerns (chemical, air, health risks)
• Activity-based hazards (machine operation, vehicles, computers, electronics)
• Standard workplace hazards (design flaws, the layout of the building, vehicle routes)

#3 – Create a Written Manual

Okay, you’re not going to have to write an actual book, unless you have that much to say, but you need to make sure that you’ve written a hardcopy of all the rules and safety regulations that you want your business to implement into place.

This helps your business to create accountability in the event that a safety incident does take place since you’ll be able to easily refer to the manual to see what the code of conduct was for that specific situation and identify where the problem happened.

This also helps to massively minimise the risk of miscommunication and misunderstanding, since every employee can read through the document, so everybody is on the same page.  Don’t forget to check your grammar to ensure your manual makes sense using tools like Grammarix.

You’ll also probably want to think about updating this safety manual about once a year, or if new tools, machinery or workplace factors are introduced to your workplace. When writing your safety documents, you can use online tools like State of Writing and PhD Writers to make sure your content is accurate and professional.

#4 – Education is Key

Once you’ve spent the time making sure that your written content is exactly how you want it, it’s now time to start educating everyone in your business to ensure they are all knowledgeable about everything to do with safety.

Initially, you’ll want to break everyone down into groups, so you can talk about things that are changing and the procedures that are in place. You’ll then want to revisit these groups, perhaps every six months or so, depending on your business, to make sure everybody remembers what the strategy is.

You’ll also want to make sure that every new employee that comes to your business is immediately brought up to scratch with the safety requirements of your workplace.

#5 – Implement and Analysis

Even though you’ve spent so much time bringing your strategy together, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to get things right the first time. “As situations unfold or employees come back to you with feedback, you’ll need to consider the impact of your strategy and whether things need to be improved or further evaluated” – says Jay Delima, a Recruiting consultant at Ukwritings.

This is a continuous process, especially when new people and processes are being implemented all the time.

Conclusion

As you can see, creating a workplace safety strategy from scratch doesn’t have to be a daunting or overwhelming task. Make sure you guide yourself through the process slowly and methodically to ensure that you don’t miss anything out and remember to listen to your employees since they spend most of their time in the danger zones.

Most importantly, remember that lives could be on the line, so take every step you can to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Gloria Kopp is a recruiting manager at Paper Fellows. She is writing Studydemic educational blog for students and elearners. Gloria is a blog contributor at The Tab and Australian Help.