October is a busy month for homeowners, what with raking leaves, cleaning gutters, caulking around windows, and all those things that other publications (and your father-in-law) tell you about. I'm going to add a few to the list that most people don't know about. These are mostly small items, but they can be important.
The first is your thermostat. If it's digital, (about half the homes I inspect have digital thermostats now.) it probably has a battery. A thermostat uses very little juice, and most of the time it's quite happy stealing a few milliamps from the furnace control circuit. That power source, however, isn't completely reliable. During a blackout, or when someone shuts off the furnace's service switch, that source goes dead. The thermostat needs a backup to keep from losing the program that you have so laboriously entered. It usually isn't hard to figure out how the front half of the box snaps off the back half, exposing a few AA's or a 9-volt. Change them now, and then put a reminder in the Palm Pilot for a year from now.
This is also a good time to change batteries in your smoke alarms, and test them for function. Remember, pushing the button on a smoke alarm tests the power source and the horn, but you still don't know if the detector works. Actual smoke is a good test, but I'm not about to encourage you to light a fire in your home, or even a cigarette. Incense comes to mind. Actually, there is stuff in a spray can that is made for just this purpose. If your local hardware store doesn't have any, I can send you a can of it for about $5. One can will last for decades. If you are a landlord, this fake smoke should be one of your basic tools. E-mail me if you need some (matthewb@rust.net).
The Consumer Product Safety Commission recently published an article on smoke alarm failure rates. Interesting stuff for some of us tech-heads, but the bottom line is this: If a smoke alarm is 10 years old, it has a 1 in 3 chance of not working when it's supposed to. When you consider that the battery powered alarms can be replaced for less than $10, does it make sense to keep old alarms in service?
In a week or two, we will all be fussing with our clocks again. (Does anybody remember why?) Just before you do that, go to your circuit breaker panel, and turn off all the breakers and turn them back on. (Shut down your computer first) "Exercizing" the breakers like this is a good idea; it ensures that they are not stuck. Of course, doing it is going to foul up every digital timer in the house, but you were just about to reset those anyway! If you have fuses instead of breakers, you don't have to concern yourself with this. As long as fuses are the right ampere rating for the wire size, they are more reliable than breakers.
Last month, I talked about plumbing emergencies, and hinted that I would talk about electrical emergencies this month. Actually, it's a much shorter subject for most homeowners. The whole trick is to figure out how much of that fusebox or breaker panel has to be dealt with in order to shut down everything in the house. In an emergency, (sparks, noise, heat, smoke coming from an outlet, switch or device) complete shut-down is often the only response that makes any sense.
Before you can figure out which device is the main, you have to get to the panel. This may not be easy. Some homes I go into have appliances, piles of stuff, artwork, paneling, or other obstructions blocking access to the electrical panel. Not only is this dumb, it's actually illegal. Clear that stuff out, and leave 3 feet of clear working space in front of the panel.
Now, it's time to open the panel. Do this carefully. I have opened over 5,000 service panels, and haven't been zapped by one yet, but that doesn't mean yours is perfectly safe. Gently brush the cover with your right hand. If you feel a poke or a tingle, if anything arcs or sparks, or if you see water dripping from the panel, stop right there and call an electrician!
(Parenthetical disclaimer and caution: I can only describe the most common arrangements here. There are dozens of manufacturers, hundreds of models, and thousands of installers of this equipment. If what you are reading here doesn't make sense, have an electrician or good (ASHI) home inspector look your system over and show you how it works.)
Ok, looks safe? Open the cover and decide if you have fuses or breakers. Fuses look like little glass plugs, and breakers look like switches. Normally, newer houses have breakers, and older have fuses, but there are lots of exceptions, both ways. And no, fuses are not "against code".
The other thing to check for right after opening the cover is the inner cover. Some panels have these as separate items, and they get lost. If you can see individual wires when you open the cover, it means your inner cover is missing and the panel is very dangerous. Call an electrician!
If the panel is fairly new, it will have one main breaker or fuse, located at the top separate from all the others. This is the main, and if you shut it off, (breaker) or pull it out ( fuse), everything in the house should shut down. If the panel is older, it has no single main located handily above everything. These older panels are called "split bus" panels, and have the main partway down. Large loads, like the electric dryer, electric range and central air are connected alongside the main. What you see is 2 or 4 large fuses or breakers, above the smaller ones used for ordinary wall circuits. To shut down the whole system, all of these large items must be turned off. On fuse panels, the large items are pull-out fuse blocks, with little steel handles. Yes, you just grab it and pull. On a breaker panel, these big items are usually twice as wide as the ordinary circuits. Is this getting confusing? Believe me, it's a whole lot easier to explain when you and I are both standing in front of the panel! Let's put it this way. If a certain large fuse or breaker is labeled "main", it and anything beside or above it must be pulled or switched in order to shut everything off. The "main" only controls the items below itself.
Of course, once you pull the main, the house is going to get really dark. Have a trustworthy flashlight handy before starting this little project. Shutting off everything in your home just for practice sounds a bit silly, but it really is a good idea. In an emergency, you will be a lot more confident if you know what does what, and where it is. If possible, several members of the household should know how to do this.
Is that enough for this month? HTML versions of back issues of this newsletter are available at www.inspectmichigan.com. Your questions by e-mail are always welcome.
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copyright 1999 Matthew J. Bezanson