Circuit Safety Tip

Best Way To Label Home Electrical Circuits

I recently learned a new electrical circuit safety tip that works really well. Turning off the circuit breaker for the circuit you’re working on is the first electrical safety rule to follow. So being able to identify the circuit you’re working on quickly and accurately is very important.

I don’t know about you but even with the circuit breaker panel labeled it’s not always easy finding the circuit you want to de-energize. So that’s where this circuit safety tip comes in handy.

Go around the house and label the back of the cover plates with a sharpie marker. The label should match the circuit number that is labeled on your circuit breaker panel. The best way to do this is turn off the #1 breaker and test each circuit (you can use one of these Fluke 1AC-A1-II Volt Alert testers that I use), if the circuit is dead thenthe cover plate.

By labeling all of the cover plates in the house it will make your job much easier when you need to kill one of the circuits to work on it. Obviously, once you’ve shut down the circuit you should ALWAYS test it again to make sure the electricity is shut off to the circuit.