The first thing is about staying alive while working on 110 AC and 220 Single Phase. Why these two?
Because they are the most common voltages and 220 Single Phase that you are most likely to encounter in all homes in the U.S. who are on a grid somewhere.
I know it's true that if you are off the grid you might set up things differently but this applies mostly to people still on the grid of 110 and 220 single phase
The first thing you need to know is that wearing ANY metal rings or earrings or necklaces could easily kill you or at the very least burn off one or more of your fingers (the rings).
The necklaces that are metal like Gold and Silver (you are just dead) call the morgue and ambulance won't help. Why?
Because Gold And silver are as close to the best conductors of electricity on earth. I think platinum is the best but that is too expensive for electrical wiring usually.
But, Gold necklaces will kill you very quickly if the short travels into the necklace and into your neck or head. Boom! you are gone that's all she wrote.
Same with Gold and Silver rings except you don't die your finger just burns completely off in the short (electrical short).
Also, don't use aluminum ladders while doing electrical work because they conduct electricity too and could kill you during a short.
What is a short?
When the electriciy hurts your hand and you jump away from like a plug socket or switch that is a short. But, regarding gold and silver especially this can kill you or maim you in various ways.
So, before you learn anything else about doing electrical work around your home take off all rings and necklaces if you want all your fingers still attached and to still be alive when you are done.
I have to go fix some food so I hope I can write more later.
Now that you figure out mostly how to not die doing electrical work on your home or apartment then you can move towards doing things more safely.
One of the things you can do to avoid fires is to never leave bare wires in the all. My wife's step father was a CPA Accountant. However, he believed he could do electrical work too. We understood this. However, then we knew he shouldn't be doing this at all in his home. An electrician recently opened up and was replacing a switch plate and showed us one of the reasons why.
He had joined two wires together without taping the bare wire.
What is bare wire? It is wire with it's insulation off which often starts fires in someone's house.
There are two ways usually that fires start in houses. Well, actually three if we consider bad electrical appliances that short out for some reason internally. Most famously toasters which can often be the most dangerous if pieces of toast get stuck and then they cannot turn themselves off and the toast catches on fire from not shutting off and then this fire spreads around the kitchen. So, kitchens are where most electrical fires start to begin with.
But, the two other ways you get electrical fires are usually bare wires in walls that catch for one reason or another on metal boxes or other bare wires with their insulation off. That's the first way.
But, the 2nd way is actually rats or mice who build nests out of the insulation on wires which leaves the wires bare. Then if the rat or mouse gets to be a part of the shorting out of the wire it has chewed the insulation off after it is dead the fire might start from it's body catching fire in the short. So, now we have the three most likely ways you are going to have electrical fires in your house or apartment.
So, keeping your house or apartment rat or mouse free is important for you to stay alive there at all, especially at night when you are asleep.
It's usually the fur on the mouse or rat that causes the fire during the short.
I know some of these things are very esoteric but this is what occurred to me today to share with you and because I'm an intuitive often angels tell me things like this to keep some of you alive longer in your homes and apartments.
Also, if you live in a multi-unit apartment even if you have kept out all the mice and rats from your home it doesn't mean every other apartment has too. So, in this sense a neighboring apartment dweller could burn up everyone in your apartment complex some night when everyone is asleep.
Next, it is better to find the electrical panel (in some houses there are many sub-panels that you might not know about. So, there is usually one Main panel and one or more sub panels depending upon how your house was constructed electrically.
There are what is called Circuits in your panel or panels and these days at least there are not fuses anymore in most places which are now mostly ancient history.
Instead there are breaker switches which can be blown off in a short up to around 10 to 25 or more times before they burn out and have to be replaced.
So, you don't want to keep having shorts in any circuit or the breaker switches will also have to be replaced too from all the shorts. One short is enough and can shock you or cause damage so you want to avoid this damage if you can.
The worst short I experienced didn't go through my body at KCET around 1960 to 1963 when I was 12 to 15 years old. We were working hot on a 440 panel (my dad and I) and I made a big mistake. If the power had gone through me I would have died but it only burned up my screwdriver as I got the screwdriver in the wrong place and it melted my screwdriver and made me temporarily blind for a few hours. So, my father grabbed my arm and set me down on a set of stairs since I couldn't really see anything yet and fixed the problem and put KCET (A PBS station in Los Angeles) back on the air because I had blown the main breaker by accident for the whole place then. So, it was only down 2 or 3 minutes at most.
Basically, it turned my screwdriver into an arc welder and since I didn't have a welder's helmet on I was temporarily blinded by this event. But, the screwdriver was completely burned in half in this incident.
So, understanding what you are dealing with electrically is important to staying alive doing electrical work.
For example, if you are standing in the rain and doing electrical work outside with hot circuits you can very easily die in a short. So, remember water on the floor or anywhere around you that you touch with hands or feet or even leather shoes. Rubber shoes are insulating and might keep you alive or not depending upon the rain or water. So, anytime water is present on or near you don't do electrical work with hot circuits.
Why didn't I die when I shorted my screwdriver and burned it up on a 440 volt main panel for KCET in Los Angeles?
What saved me at somewhere between 12 and 15 was that I was holding the plastic handle of the screwdriver and not touching anything metal when the short happened. Otherwise I would have died right then if I was touching any metal on my screwdriver.
So, as you can see accidents can happen while you are working hot on circuits so I would recommend shutting off the circuits by switching off the breakers before you work on them to avoid you being injured or dying in a short.
However, a professional electrician often is in a situation where that business or home circuit cannot be shut off for a variety of reasons because the people there need it on all the time. This is when electricians often get shocked.
However, usually you shut down stuff in all 220 or 440 or 480 panels so you don't die doing something like this. Because you might survive a 110 jolt but it is less likely you will survive a jolt from 220, or 440 or 480. I think 480 is mostly for large electric motors of 50 horsepower or more if I remember correctly working with my father in my teens from about 1960 on when I was 12.
He was an Electrical Contractor who worked mostly in Los Angeles County even though he also worked later in life in San Diego County too when he moved there when I was 21 with my mother and her mother.
Later: Oh my wife wanted you to know I wasn't just temporarily blinded when my screwdriver arc welded and burned in half from 440 volts in the main panel for KCET.
What also happened is all the metal pieces in my screwdriver that were molten now (droplets) went 360 degrees when this happened and peppered my face with little molten metal droplets. Luckily my natural reflexes were faster than this so it didn't get into either of my eyes when the flash happened.
Instead my face was burned about 25 to 50 places with mini-droplets of molten metal screwdriver that had melted and sort of exploded at the time. So, on top of being temporarily blinded I was also burned in micro ways by all these tiny droplets of metal hitting my face and embedding themselves in my flesh.
So, I suppose it might be possible that I could still have some stainless steel from my screwdriver embedded in my face all these years later.
Once again my old adage "Truth is often stranger than Fiction"!
They also burned micro holes into my shirt I was wearing too. But, since it was a work shirt I likely just washed it and wore it again working with my Dad and maybe to school as well. Remember, this is 1960 to 1963 somewhere in there, a completely different era than now.
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