If you want to avoid being injured by your home's electrics, here are some steps that you might want to take:
Have an electrician fit a residual current device in your fuse box
One effective and inexpensive way to avoid sustaining electrical injuries is to have an electrician fit a residual current device, sometimes informally known as a 'safety switch', in the fuse box in your home.
This device is designed to immediately cut off a building's electrical supply if it detects a problem with the flow of the electric current in the property. This means that if you make a mistake that could result in you being injured by your house's electrics -- for example, if you accidentally touch a plug socket with a wet hand, or if you drill into a wall and damage a cable with the drill bit -- the residual current device will shut off the electricity instantly and, in doing so, should help you to avoid being electrocuted.
If you decide to get this device installed in your fuse box, you should ensure that the installation work is performed by an electrician. The reason for this is as follows: if this item is not fitted by a qualified electrician, it may not provide the high level of protection that it is supposed to. If you then take a slightly careless approach to touching some electrical wiring or appliances in your home, because you believe that you will be protected by this device, you could sustain a very serious electrical injury.
Don't postpone electrical repairs
If you notice that an electrical appliance in your home has been damaged and you want to reduce your chances of being injured by it, you should address the damage immediately by contacting an electrician and arranging for them to fix it.
This is because the longer you wait to call your electrician and have electrical repairs performed on damaged appliances, the more likely it is that those appliances will put you at risk of an electrical injury.
For example, if whilst moving your dishwasher to another area of your kitchen, you drop the appliance and damage some of its electrical wires, and you do not get an electrician to repair these wires straightaway because the dishwasher appears to still be working, you could get an electric shock when you touch this item during a wash cycle; this is particularly true if the earth wire, which grounds the appliance, has been damaged.
