We are continuing our series of articles designed to provide new homeowners with some valuable electrical tips. If you are moving into a new construction home, a licensed electrician wired your home, and it passed an electrical safety inspection to qualify for a certificate of occupancy. If you are buying a home from another party, then our residential electrician suggests having an electrical safety inspection completed on the home soon after moving in to identify any existing issues before they become problems.
Whether you are purchasing a new construction home or buying a home that was previously lived in, there are several steps you should take. Our previous articles discussed the importance of knowing where all of your electrical outlets are located and making sure they work properly, getting to know your electrical control panel/breaker box, and identifying and testing GFCI outlets. Today, we will cover how to test GFCI circuit breakers.
While a GFCI outlet most often only protects itself, a GFCI circuit breaker provides protection for all of the devices wired to that particular circuit. You should first identify all of the GFCI circuit breakers in your electrical control panel. Next, test each one:
- Push the “test” button on the GFCI circuit breaker
- Check to see if the breaker trips
- Once tripped, all power to the circuit will be shut down
- Manually reset the breaker by switching it back on
- Repeat for all GFCI circuit breakers
If you identify a GFCI circuit breaker that is questionable or not working properly, contact your friends at Top Flight Electric and we will dispatch a residential electrician to your home.
Our next article will cover more tips from our residential electrician.
If you live in Polk County or surrounding areas (i.e., Eagle Lake, Lakeland, Haines City, Lake Alfred, Lakeland Heights, Davenport, Mountain Lake, etc.) and are in need of either a residential electrician or commercial electrician, we can help. In addition, if you are interested in learning more about a whole home generator, our licensed electrician can come out and provide you with some options, as Top Flight Electric is also one of the area’s preferred Generac dealers. Give us a call to learn more today!
