Basic electrical work is an important homeowner skill. Knowing if a circuit is on or off, and where it goes are essential! Two great inexpensive tools let you know right away!
Buy your DFJ T-Shirt, Cap, or Coffee Mug at https.//www.dirtfarmerjay.com/shop
There are many basic electrical tasks that are perfectly suitable for a homeowner to tackle. Whatever your skill level, it’s NEVER advisable to work with a live circuit. With these simple and inexpensive testers, you can work safely with the circuit safely turned off.
The first is a simple non-contact tester. With this device, you only have to get in close proximity to a live circuit for it to tell you that power is present. That means you don’t need to actually take off any switch, outlet, or light bases before seeing if power is there.
Like anything you buy, there are various qualities you can buy, with corresponding price points. These testers are available at home improvement retailers, electrical supply houses, and of course, online. When looking for one, the product name is a voltage detector.
The second is a receptacle tester. This handy tester has prongs on one side that fit into a standard grounded receptacle. Depending on what you buy, you can get one that will test a GFCI circuit as well, by “tripping” the circuit to test that the protective features of the outlet (and others attached to it) are operating correctly. With or without that feature, these types of testers display a series of LED lights that, depending on the color of the lights and which ones are illuminated, tell you if the polarity of the plug is correct and all terminals are connected properly or (not).
As a bonus, we’ve also mentioned another tester that you may want to consider adding to your electrical work toolbox. This is a circuit breaker locator. This allows you to determine what outlets are connected to which breaker in the breaker panel. It works by having a transmitter plugged into an outlet. Then, the receiver unit is passed across the face of the breakers in the panel. When the signal from the outlet/transmitter is sensed, the receiver will sound. What a time and step saver - and a boon for those working solo. To buy one, ask for a Circuit Breaker Locator.
For basic electrical work that is doable for many homeowners, making sure the circuit is off before beginning work is a fundamental and required first step. These great tools make it efficient to test for voltage and allow you to safely JUST DO IT YOURSELF.
Buy your DFJ T-Shirt, Cap, or Coffee Mug at https.//www.dirtfarmerjay.com/shop
Follow us on Social Media to know when we’re building projects or releasing new episodes!
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com.
If you do even some basic electrical work around your home,
there's a couple of testers you gotta have.
They're inexpensive and the value and the safety
they deliver is well worth it.
Stay tuned and I'll tell you all about it.
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com.
Recently, Dirt Farmer Maggie and I did an episode
where we showed you how to replace
a hard wire smoke detector.
And when we were showing that,
we were showing a kind of tester
that is commonly used by electricians
that when you touch bare wires,
it'll tell you whether there's voltage or not.
And it works very well, but they're kind of pricey.
And one of our viewer family members wrote in,
Bill, handyman Bill.
And he wrote in, he said,
yes, using the electrical meter to test wires is good,
but the first test would to be used a quote,
non-contact voltage sniffer, end of quote,
approximately $10 to put it up next to each wire
to detect any voltage present
without having to take the wire connectors off
and possibly getting shocked
if the voltage isn't turned off to the circuit.
Bill, handyman Bill, you're exactly right.
And that is a great tester to get.
And we have one right here.
Now, this is what's called a non-contact voltage tester.
So you can see right here, it's an AC voltage detector.
And what this does, why we say non-contact,
you do not have to touch it to the wires.
All you have to do is get close,
whether it's an outlet, a switch,
a wire extension cord, or so forth.
And it's going to indicate to you
that there is voltage there.
And you can see right here,
there's kind of like a little meter area
that the more those are lit up,
the higher the voltage or the stronger the current
that is there.
So we're going to go ahead and show this to you.
Tester number one, and I've done this
just using a power strip right here.
The power strip, instead of having you come around
and look at different outlets and stuff,
we're just going to show him right here.
When you turn this tester on,
you're going to go ahead and indicate something's on.
And as soon as I get near, by the way,
on a standard plug configuration in the United States,
the narrow side is where the voltage is flowing, okay?
So look at here, I'm not touching,
it's just letting me know.
Now let's shut this off.
Notice down here, I don't have anything,
but as I get closer to where the switch is,
and certainly as I go up and down the cord,
I've got power.
Again, down here, kind of run out,
it's seeing a little bit of something, bleed off.
There it is.
Let's turn it back on.
And we definitely have voltage.
Now there's a little spade at the end right here
that allows you to push it in
if you really want to see there's juice.
And then look at here, it's letting you know
both by light and sound that there's juice there.
So these are really great.
And this one cost me around $15.
Home Depot carries some from Klein.
There's different manufacturers, but these voltage,
what Bill Handyman, Bill called sniffers,
are great little tools that every homeowner should have
for basic electrical testing.
Why?
You just don't want to be working with live circuits.
It's foolish.
And I've heard of different people, different electricians.
We affectionately call them sparkies that say,
oh, you can work with a voltage.
That's not a good way to approach things,
especially for us mere mortals, just do-it-yourselfers.
Okay, so that's tester number one.
Tester number two is this polarity tester.
And these come in two different versions.
One is the simple one like this,
has three different lights on the end,
two yellows and a red.
If the red lights up in any way or shape or form,
you have the hot in the wrong place, okay?
The power supply in the wrong place
in the plug configuration, the receptacle.
So you have these, and I'll demonstrate it in a moment.
The other type is with a ground fault or GFCI,
a ground fault circuit interrupter tester,
where there's an additional button.
You plug it in, you push the button,
and it trips the GFCI to test that indeed
that circuit is operational and it's running protected.
So this one is the one without the GFCI protector.
But what this does is it tells you in an outlet,
if there's current running,
and secondly, if it is configured the correct way.
And if you look close here,
there's a little legend right on the front there
that tells you the different combinations
of what is happening there.
And the bottom one right down here
is the correct configuration.
The red should be off,
the two yellows should be illuminated,
indicating the polarity is correct,
and the wiring is configured correctly,
and you've got continuity going the right way
through everything.
So here we go.
We're going to plug this in and see what we get.
Well, there you go.
We've got juice.
We have these two correct.
So that means that not only is this device correct,
but the outlet that it's plugged into.
Now, I want to throw in a bonus for you.
No extra charge for this.
There's actually a third detector.
If you're going to do a serious amount of work,
you're remodeling,
you find yourself working with electrical circuits ongoing,
one of the most pesky things is trying to locate
where the breaker is in your panel box
for the circuit you're working with,
the receptacles you're working with.
And unless you've got a good helper,
or you like the exercise of getting up
and running back and forth,
or getting somebody else on a cell phone and saying,
is it on, is it on?
Well, there's a much better way.
The next tool right here, which is not that expensive,
depending on the model you get, $40 or under,
is a circuit breaker finder.
And what you do is you plug in the transmitter
into an outlet in the area that you want to know
where the corresponding breaker is
in your breaker box or panel.
And then you take this tester, or excuse me, this receiver,
and after turning it on, as you can see,
you're going to take this and wave it around.
So we're going to go ahead and plug this in.
And I'm going to go down and find it in the circuit panel.
Here you can see that I am weaving the receiver
back and forth across the face of the breakers
until I come across the breaker.
And now the receiver sounds and lights up
indicating where this is.
Having these detectors are a great addition
to your electrician's toolbox.
You should have them.
Do you know that you also should change
your smoke detectors no less than every 10 years?
And if you have hardwired detectors,
you need to check out this video
where we show you step-by-step how to replace them,
put in the backup battery, and make it all safe again.
While you're at it, check out our website
at DirtFarmerJ.com for merchandise, great hats, shirts,
coffee mugs, and extended content, blogs,
and all sorts of extended articles.
Until the next time, this is Dirt Farmer Jay
from DirtFarmerJ.com.
