Common Home Electrical Dangers

Troubleshooting and Solving Electrical Problems

Published on October 16, 2012 by: Mike Daniels

Home Improvement Electrical Safety – Hire an Electrician

You might pride yourself on being handy around the house. Maybe you can fix a broken toilet and leaky sink, and repair broken wooden shelves and steps. However, when you experience an electrical problem, it is not wise to do it yourself if you have not had any formal training in electrical repair. Electricity is a delicate, dangerous entity that can literally kill you if you make the slightest off-hand mistake. Find out why you should hire a licensed electrician to fix your problem to safeguard your home from potential future ruin, and your life from potential serious harm.

Flickering Lights and Tripped Breakers

Although you might be more than marginally adept at electrical troubleshooting, one teeny-tiny mistake on your part could leave your lights flickering and your breakers continuously tripping. While flickering lights are usually just an annoyance that you can learn to live with, tripping breakers are often more serious. If your electrical circuit is being overloaded because of your electrical mistake, the error could cause an electrical fire that could burn down your entire house – and everything in it.

Additional Safety Risks

Every single time that you come into contact with a live wire you could be electrocuted. Although you might believe with all of your heart that shutting off the power supply to the part of the house you are working on will eliminate that risk, it might not. Your house could be wired in such a way that leaves electricity running to seemingly “dead” locations. While a licensed electrician would be wary of that situation, you might not be. Your mistake could cost you your life. Furthermore, if you do safely rewire parts of your home, your quick fix might backfire on you in the long run. Many electrical fires begin with an owner's best do-it-yourself efforts coming back to bite them weeks or months down the road.

Lingering Dangers of Improper Electrical Work

Even if you've done your absolute best electrical troubleshooting and repair work, you might be in for bigger problems than you ever anticipated doing electrical work yourself. Improper electrical work can nullify your home owner's insurance policy, and make all benefits normally due to you invalid. You could potentially lose thousands of dollars in claim money because you did not hire a licensed electrician. To make matters worse, you could create personal liability that allows future residents of your property to sue you for the botched electrical repair. Therefore, you might actually have to pay money months or years down the road for seemingly easy electrical work that you did yourself for free. If you had hired a licensed and bonded electrician, any of the work he or she did for you under contract would relieve you of any legal liabilities that might arise over the completed work.

Hiring Your Licensed Electrician

To learn more about the electrician you are thinking about hiring you can quickly qualify the electrical contractor with a 10-15 minute internet search for customer reviews on Kudzu, BBB, Merchant Circle and similar consumer websites. After you find a company with a solid reputation you can easily call them to discuss your electrical problem and get a free quote for your specific electrical project.