Helpful tips to ensure your home is safe and ready for service connection

Some of our customers have asked us about possible health effects of electric and magnetic fields (EMF), which are found wherever electricity is present.When you request new electric service (or service re-connection) from Undercurrents Energy (UCE), it is important to first be sure it is safe for us to perform service connection to your home.

Below are some helpful tips that you can use to ensure your home is safe and ready for service connection

If you have additional safety-related questions and would like to speak to a Customer Service Representative, please call 800-655-4555 or click here: UCE Safety Information.

Why Should You Care About Electrical Safety?

Every year in the U.S., tens of thousands of people are killed or injured from contact with electricity. Some of these people are kids just like you. The more you know about how electricity works, the better you can keep yourself, your friends, and your family safe!

Electricity Takes the Easiest Path to the Ground

Electricity is always trying to get to the ground. Like all good travelers, electricity takes shortcuts whenever it can. If something that conducts electricity gives electricity an easy path to the ground, electricity will take it!

Electricity Can Travel Through You

Water and metal are some of the best conductors for electricity. Because your body is mostly water, you are a great conductor, too! So if you touch an electric circuit and the ground at the same time, you will become electricity’s easiest path. Electricity will flow through you, and you could be seriously hurt or killed.

You don’t have to be touching the ground directly to conduct electricity. You could also be touching something that is in contact with the ground, like a tree or a ladder.

Electricity, Lighting, and Appliances

Appliances have protective insulated cords and coverings to keep you from contacting the electricity inside. It’s important to use appliances and cords the way they were designed to be used so you don’t damage the insulation or contact live electrical parts. If a live wire inside an appliance, toy, or power tool touches the inside of the device and you touch the device, it would be like touching a bare live wire. You cannot tell from the outside if there is a problem inside, so you should always act as if there were danger of shock.

The Truth About Electric Shock

You can never tell when contact with electricity will be fatal, but you can be sure it will always hurt. Electric shock can cause muscle spasms, weakness, shallow breathing, rapid pulse, severe burns, unconsciousness, or death. In a shock incident, the path that electric current takes through the body gets very hot. Burns occur all along that path, including the places on the skin where the current enters and leaves the body. It’s not only giant power lines that can kill or injure you if you contact them. You can also be killed by a shock from an appliance or power cord in your home

Why Can Birds and Utility Workers Touch Power Lines But You Can’t?

Have you ever wondered why the birds that sit on power lines don’t get electric shocks? It’s because the electricity is always looking for a way to get to the ground, but the birds are not touching the ground or anything in contact with the ground.

If you touched a power line while you were in contact with the ground (or standing on a ladder or roof) electricity would travel through you. And if your kite or balloon got tangled in a power line and you touched the string, electricity could travel down the string and into you on its way to the ground. Both situations would mean a serious shock!

Have you ever wondered why people who work up on power lines don’t get shocked? Utility workers are trained to work with electricity. They wear special insulated boots, hardhats, and gloves, and use special insulated tools that help prevent shock. It would be a bad idea to climb a power pole and imitate them — and possibly fatal!