Kids can get into all kinds of trouble. Take the things they do to cause problems with your electricity in your home. Here is a peek at stuff your kids might do to mess up your electricity and related items. There are also ways to prevent these electrical damages too.
Smashed Chandeliers and Ceiling Fans Hanging by Their Wires
Kids love to pretend play, often using brooms to play as witches or bats to pretend they are famous baseball players. The problem is that when they play with these items (and others) too close to a ceiling fan or a chandelier, the fan or chandelier is broken.
That is when you have to call in the electrician for an emergency service because the ceiling fixture in question is hanging by a few wires from the ceiling, there is glass everywhere, and/or smashed bulbs are still hanging in open sockets and sparking! First, flip the breaker switch to these rooms to the "off" position for safety. Then make sure that the real items for pretend play never enter that room again (e.g., lock the items up, place them outside never to come back inside, etc.).
Outlet Faceplates Destroyed
Every time hard furniture bangs into an outlet faceplate, it cracks the plate and has the potential for breaking the face plate off the wall entirely. While the fault is typically kids shoving heavy furniture across the room and then back into place, other, more bizarre objects can damage the face plates just as easily.
The faceplates are meant to take a beating, but when they are completely missing, they put your home at risk of an electrical fire. It also puts your family at risk for electrical burns, should the outlets spark and no faceplate is there to prevent being burned. Have your electrician replace these right away, or DIY them as soon as you can. Also, it helps not to put heavy furniture or other heavy objects anywhere near the outlets.
Stick Metal Objects in the Outlets
Yup, it happens. In fact, kids sticking metal objects in open outlets is the number one reason why there are plug protectors sold in every retail outlet, home improvement, and baby merchandise store. When kids do that, they can get seriously injured, receive terrible electric burns, and actually explode the wall socket with a burst of electrical fire. Your electrician has to replace the entire outlet, and rewire it while you run the child to the hospital. It just makes better sense to stick a dollar's worth of plug-in outlet protectors in the outlet the minute you have kids.
For more information, contact a company like Thompson Electric Inc.