Video: Understanding Your Electrical System

OAKLAND — Host, Sarah Rutan: Whether a fuse box or circuit breaker, it’s helpful to have a basic understanding of your home’s electrical system. Today we’re in Oakland with Diamond Certified Expert Contributor Dan Pitcock of Roberts Electric Company to learn more.

Diamond Certified Expert Contributor, Dan Pitcock: So, today we have the plug fuse and the tamper-proof plug fuse. These just unscrew, these are a little harder to find so you want to make sure you some in-stock at all times. These cartridge fuses are a little more dangerous because they have a lot of exposed parts. This big knife switch type fuse will be at your main service, always have two of them on hand in case they go out.

Then, we have two old style breakers: Federal Pacific here and Zinsco panel here. These we’re replacing, they are kind of antiquated and out-of-date. These have actually lost their UL listing. Then we go to regular circuit breaker types we have a regular breaker that you will see, we have an arc fall breaker, a GFI breaker and then you can also get GFI protection out of a receptor that you’ve probably seen around the home. These all have test buttons that should be changed or checked if your power goes out. You want to make sure that they don’t trip. If they trip, you that that’s not the breaker and you can reset it.

If you are going to reset circuit breakers, keep in mind that there is usually an off position and an on position. If you go to your panel and find one that’s in an intermediate position and a little bit wiggly, you’ll want to turn it all the way to the off position to reset the mechanism and then restore power by turning it on otherwise it won’t reset.

Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local top rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.