Protect equipment, house with home office safety precautions

If you are already thinking about adding a home office or converting a spare bedroom to stand in for one, you’ll be introducing a lot of electric gadgets, like personal computers, fax machines and copiers. Keep safety in mind, as a mishap can damage not only your expensive equipment, but your home. Here are some safety tips to keep in mind.

• Install plenty of wall outlets in the office; it’s better to have too many than too few.
• Avoid using extension cords. If you do use one, choose a model that’s rated for use with electronic equipment like computers. Use it only temporarily; extension cords are not built for daily wear.
• Unplug extension cords when you’re not using them. An extension cord continues to conduct electricity until it is unplugged from the outlet – even if your equipment is turned off.
• If the outlets in your home office are designed for two-prong appliances, call an electrician to have them upgraded. Correctly wired three-prong outlets are grounded and help prevent electric shocks and damage to your equipment.
• Don’t overload your home’s electrical circuits. Especially in an older home, the circuits may not have the capacity to handle a lot of new electronic equipment. A rule of thumb; Add up the wattage use of all the appliances plugged into outlets that share a circuit. (You can check your breaker or fuse box to see which outlets are on the same circuit.) Combined, the appliances should draw no more than 1,500 watts from the same circuit.
• Buy a high-quality voltage surge suppressor to protect your expensive equipment from damage during electrical surges caused by bad weather. Check the warranty before you buy one – some companies guarantee that they will pay to replace your equipment if the surge suppressor fails to protect it under certain circumstances. Call your local SVEC office for information about our whole house surge protection program.
• Unplug computers and other sensitive equipment – surge suppressors and all – during a lightning storm. Don’t just turn them off – remove all plugs from their outlets. A surge suppressor may not protect your equipment from a lightning strike.
• Likewise, unplug your computer if the lights go out. That will save it from voltage spike damage when the power comes back on.

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