All the Stuff in Your Home You Should Be Testing for Voltage

If you’ve ever experienced even a mild electrical shock, you know how powerful—and frightening—it can be. There are more than 50,000 electrical fires in the U.S. every year, and close to 400 people are electrocuted annually. Even if getting a dose of voltage doesn’t kill you, it’s not a pleasant experience, and being shocked can cause injuries or even death in other ways—by knocking you off a ladder, for example.

Most experienced homeowners know better than to mess with any sort of electricity without turning off the appropriate circuit breaker (or main), or to simply call a licensed electrician instead of trying to DIY a project that can burn your house down, kill you, or both. But electricity is a funny thing—if it finds a circuit it can flow through, it will. This means you can occasionally discover a painful (or even lethal) amount of voltage in unexpected places. Here’s the stuff in your home you should occasionally test using a volt meter or multimeter to ensure they’re not filled with deadly electrical current.

Outlets, switches, appliances

Let’s start with the obvious stuff. The outlets in your walls are designed to deliver electricity, so it shouldn’t be surprising if they’re hot. But they should also be supplying the expected voltage (110 to 120 volts), and they should be properly grounded to prevent accidents and injury. Light switches should also be tested once a year or so to ensure that frayed wiring isn’t delivering voltage to the plate.

Your lamps and appliances can also deliver a shock if grounding wires become detached or frayed insulation brings wiring into contact with the metal shell. If you use your appliances regularly, you can probably assume they’re not sizzling death traps. But if you have appliances you don’t come into contact with on a regular basis—that old fridge in the garage, or a sump pump in the crawl space—an occasional test to make sure they’re not conducting is a good idea.

Gutters

It is surprisingly not uncommon for the metal gutters on your house to start delivering potentially deadly levels of voltage. This is most often the result of a fastener screw or nail piercing a wire behind the facade of the house or under the roof, but can also be caused by incidental contact with power lines somewhere out of sight. Checking your gutters for electrical current before you clean them out or do any other work around them is a very good idea.

Ladders

If you have a metal ladder, you should do a quick test with a volt meter or multimeter after you deploy it outside the home. Ladders can come into contact with power lines, and if other parts of the house—those gutters, for instance—are hot, a metal ladder that touches them can bring the party to you. Better to take five seconds to test it in order to avoid being that kid from Jurassic Park.

Electrical panel

Whenever there’s a problem with the electricity in your house, whether it’s a power loss or a repair that requires the juice to be cut off, you head for the electrical panel to turn off the main or the appropriate breaker. The metal housing that surrounds your panel is there to protect you, but if the panel is not in great shape it can become electrified and deliver a potentially dangerous shock. If you’re having an electrical issue, take a second to test the panel enclosure before you touch it.

Water pipes

If you have older metal water pipes, contact with a hot wire somewhere in the basement or crawl space (or in the walls) can turn them into an exciting trip to the emergency room. Testing the pipes in your home once a year to ensure this hasn’t happened can save you a lot of trouble—and a lot of pain.

Chances are you won’t have any problems with your house becoming an electrified death trap—but considering that multimeters and other electrical testing devices aren’t too expensive, doing a quick test of your home once a year or before any DIY project is well worth it.

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