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Electrical Hazards.—Since this work is not intended for mere beginners, we shall not enter into elementary considerations, but shall take up the matter of fire and life hazard, both of which are important items to which attention cannot be too often called.

The electrical current may cause fire by overheating the wires. This overheating may be due to the willful overloading of circuits; and to prevent this, no wire should ever be used to carry more current than is allowed by the table of carrying capacities given on page 238.

The overheating may also be due to an unknown load which is caused by a “ground” or a partial short circuit. “Ground” is the technical term used to designate the connection of a wire to any substance over which electricity may be carried to the wire of opposite polarity. A ground may be caused by a bare wire coming in contact with the iron framework of a building, wet wood, or moist substances of any kind. One such ground on a circuit can do no harm; but, if one ground exists, in the course of time another one may come on and, when the second one appears, if it is on the side of the circuit opposite to the first, there will be trouble at once.

If the two grounds are both “good”—that is, if they are of low resistance—we shall have a short circuit and probably blow a fuse; but if they are not “good,” we may have but a small current which may continue unnoticed for months. Such a current may eat away the copper of the positive pole and in time cause the wire to break, creating an electric arc and perhaps causing a fire. It may also cause wet wood through which it flows to become charred and finally ignited.

The ground is the bane of the electrical worker. If a system can be kept free of grounds, the chances of trouble are vastly reduced. The cause of most grounds is moisture. Nearly all substances except metals are fairly good insulators if dry; and nearly all of them are fairly good conductors if sufficiently wet.

Another very prolific source of fires is the electrical spark, large and small. The spark, due to the breaking of an incandescent lamp, often causes fires when it comes in contact with inflammable material or gases. The ordinary lamp cord also causes many fires because it is easily damaged and liable to short circuits which often result in arcing. Short circuiting two wires or breaking a wire carrying current may easily ignite inflammable material in the vicinity.

The best way to reduce the fire hazard to a minimum, is to install all electrical work carefully according to the rules laid down in the “National Electrical Code”.

The life hazard is one which concerns the operator personally and is especially great to those traveling with shows. Traveling men are often obliged to get along with all sorts of make shifts, especially in the smaller towns where one-night stands are the rule. Here it is often necessary to connect to trolley circuits or power lines of different voltages, frequencies, etc.

A person may suffer injury directly from a current of electricity by making himself part of the circuit. If the system on which he is working is alive and grounded, he may easily cause injury to himself by touching a live wire with his hands while standing upon anything that is grounded. By so doing he completes a path for the current through his body.

He may also become part of a circuit by holding a wire with both hands while someone is cutting it between his two hands. As long as a wire so held is intact, no shock can be received except to ground, but when the wire is cut or breaks, a very high voltage may be produced for an instant which will cause a current through the body of the man holding the wire. The extra high voltage is produced only if the wire is carrying current at the time it is being cut. Under these circumstances there will often be a strong flash, due to the momentary increase in voltage, produced by the breaking of the circuit, which may be excessive, especially if there is considerable inductance in the circuit.

The most frequent cause of injury is due to making contact with the two opposite polarities of a system. As a rule circuits, with which operators ordinarily have to work, are low voltage, i.e., not over 220 volts. But many deaths have been caused by this voltage, sometimes directly and at other times indirectly as, for instance, by causing a fall. People whose hearts are in any way defective should be careful about exposing themselves to shocks even at 110 volts.

It is true that many wiremen are in the habit of testing 220-volt circuits by allowing the current to pass through their bodies, but it will be noticed that they are very careful not to make a good contact. The current which passes through the body, when one touches two wires of opposite polarity very lightly with the finger tips, is but a fraction of what one would receive if he were unwittingly to grab two wires of opposite polarities with the hands, especially if the hands were moist.

Numerous cases are on record of persons having been killed by 110 volts under favorable circumstances; as, for instance, while in the bath receiving a shock from a so-called vibrator. The body partly immersed in water and perhaps a foot resting against a water pipe forms a conductor of very low resistance, and a comparatively strong current may pass through the body.

The most important precautions against injury while working on live circuits are:

(1) Insulate yourself from the ground.

(2) Handle only one side of a line at a time.

(3) If possible, work with only one hand at a time in contact with the wires.

(4) Use rubber gloves, or rubber boots where necessary, but bear in mind that they are of little value unless kept dry. Moisture will allow some current to pass over the surface of any substance no matter how good an insulator it may otherwise be.

(5) Always place yourself so that a slight shock which might cause you to lose your balance will not give you a bad fall.

(6) Remember that if once you make good contact with an alternating-current circuit, you cannot let go.

(7) Fix firmly in your mind the directions for resuscitation from electric shock, on pages 15-18.

When energy is obtained through transformers, there is another danger to be added to the above, viz., the possibility of the breaking down of the insulation between primary and secondary wires of the transformer. If this happens, we have suddenly and without warning, instead of the 110 or 220 volts supposed to exist between the wires forming the circuit, 2,000 or 3,000 volts. Such accidents are especially likely during thunder storms when lightning often breaks down transformers.

In order to reduce this danger to a minimum, the secondaries of transformers are grounded. It will be well for the electrician to assure himself that the secondaries of the transformers from which he is getting his supply are grounded. This can be tested by an incandescent lamp. Connect the lamp to ground with one wire and, with the other, try the two sides of the circuit. If the transformer secondaries are properly grounded, the lamp will burn at full candle power from one of the wires; this will show that the other wire is grounded.

A person working on such a circuit is of course more likely to receive a low voltage shock than if the secondaries were not grounded, but he is fairly well protected against the primary voltage or lightning.