Electricity is a good friend to many, and it could also be a grave enemy when it is not accorded the level of regard and respect it requires. There has been series of electricity hazards and victims recorded and these hazards range from electric shock, various degrees of burns and electrocution. This is why there are safety measures that everyone needs to take to avoid becoming a victim of these electricity hazards. This post presents some of the major practices you can take to avoid electricity hazards.

Obey Caution Signs

It is the normal practise to attach caution signs in every electricity installation, so that unauthorized persons do not get access to such places or do not open up such equipment. You must always obey these signs to ensure your safety. Cautions signs could be in different forms but they are always fixed where it is properly visible to everyone approaching.

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Do Not Guess When Handling Electrical Connections

There is a funny saying that many engineers never live to tell their mistakes. This is particularly true for electrical installations. You should work on electricity to the extent to which you understand and leave anything that seems obscure to you for a more qualified person to handle. There are standards to follow in electricity installations like cable colour coding, connection of phases, size of cable or circuit breaker to be installed, and so on. If any of these is compromised, it could result into a hazard. It is therefore imperative that you leave it when unsure.

Use the right instrument

When you handle electrical an installation or equipment maintenance, always use the right instrument. For example, when a star screw driver should be used, do not improvise with a flat screwdriver. Never use a set of pliers in place of spanner. Many people are guilty of this one; when they do not have the right size of spanners needed for a particular nut, they improvise with pliers. This has two major damaging effects – one, it makes the edges of the nut go dull, and secondly, a set of pliers will not tighten a set of bolt and nut as strong as spanners will do it. This then causes electrical arcs / sparks resulting in corrosion of that part, and is also capable of harm in the long run. For this same reason, you should also not use open ended spanners where you are supposed to use ring spanners.

Report sagging overhead cables to the appropriate authorities

Finally for the purpose of this post, report faulty electrical installations to the appropriate quarters. An example of this is a sagging overhead cable. These overhead cables have different voltage levels, but none is friendly to the human body - NONE. This therefore requires that cables be installed at the specified height from ground and kept that way. Any changes in this should not be affected. This same applies to other parts of electrical installations.

Best practices to avoid electricity hazards cannot be covered in a single post. I will therefore bring to you more practises in subsequent posts. Stay tuned.
Thank you…

This post is my entry to the Day 7 of the Challenge 30 days organized by @dragosroua. To join this challenge, please click on the link to see the guidelines. I hope this helps you to keep up engagement on the blockchain. See you again tomorrow.

Previous articles in this challenge

• Challenge30days Day 4: Best Practices In Limiting The Effects of Disappointment
• Challenge30days Day 3: Best Practices for Shopping Rightly
• Challenge30days Day 2: Best Practices To Accomplish Your 2019 Resolutions