Home Wiring for the Dummy DIY Electrician

Yikes!

If you've ever performed a DIY project that involved potential danger – repairing you car's brakes yourself, perhaps, or installing a natural gas appliance – you know that moment of dread that comes as you make that critical test. Did I do everything right (Hint: leftover parts probably mean, "No!")? Is this thing going to kill me? If the latter is a possibility, you were smart if you consulted 1) the instructions and 2) an authoritative source while looking for help. By "authoritative source," we definitely do not mean the likes of eHow.com's Cleveland van Cecil, who we caught endangering the DIY public in the post "How to Test the Wiring in a House."¹

Why do we ask that? Well clearly van Cecil had no idea what the question meant, nor did he know how to answer it. Why would you want to test your house's wiring? to see if it's safe and if it meets code, that's why. Cleveland, however, thinks you're looking for a short circuit. Yeah, sure. If you've ever bought a house instead of just lived in an apartment, you know that there are actual test procedures for wiring: looking for reversed polarity in outlets, testing GFCI circuits, load testing for circuits and the like. No, instead, van Cecil instructs you to

"Test the electrical circuit you wish to work on before touching it by touching a voltmeter to the wire. Hold the voltmeter by the insulated grip and touch the bare end of the probe to the hot wire in the circuit, which is usually black or white and located near the end of the box. Ground the other probe by touching it to metal. If you get a reading, the circuit is still live and shouldn't be worked on until it has no power going to it." See the problem with that? we do: Cleve thinks you can close the circuit by "...[grounding] the other probe by touching it to metal." What metal? a pen in your pocket? a coin on the table? No, you idiot, you complete the circuit by touching the other probe to the neutral wire. It should work to touch the probe to ground, but if you're "testing the wiring" it's because you don't know if it's installed properly, which might include not being grounded. It sure as hell won't work to touch the probe to some random metal bit!  Here's more of van Cecil's sage advice:

"Flip all breaker switches off then on again to make sure they are working. For houses with fuses instead, test wiring throughout the house for shorts by turning off all the fuses at the fuse box. Slowly turn them on, one at a time. If one fuse causes the rest of the fuses to turn off or the electricity to turn off, a circuit connected to that fuse is faulty."

"Turn off a fuse"? How the heck do you do that? and how does flipping all the breakers ensure that they're "working"? Working for a breaker switch means that they trip when overloaded, Cleveland! We thought the instruction to "Slowly turn [the fuses] on, one at a time..." was especially hilarious, as is the thought that one fuse -- or one breaker -- would cause all the rest to turn off: if that happens, your main breaker has tripped, Cleve!
And finally, there's this cogent comment:

"Inspect all the wiring around the home for breaks. Replace them if necessary."

Replace "them"? What "them" is van Cecil referencing? More to the point, how do you inspect the wiring for "breaks"? What an idiot! With instructions and advice like that, it's a wonder that no one has sued eHow yet. It's for sure that many people are well aware that it's merely a gathering place for Dumbass of the Day awardees...

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_7177914_test-wiring-house.html

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