I should be safe doing this because the switch that controls the flow of electricity to the heating elements in the toaster shuts off the hot wire. I look in the toaster and see that the heating elements are off, so I assume it’s safe to stick a knife in the toaster to get my muffin. Shock hazard scenario #1: I’m toasting an English muffin and it gets stuck in my toaster. This means that one blade is larger than the other, and the larger blade will only fit into the neutral side of an outlet. To help make electrical devices safer, some plugs are polarized. Because the hot wire completes a circuit by coming in contact with the earth, if you touch a hot wire and you’re in contact with the earth (which is pretty much always), you’ll become part of the circuit. That’s what the smaller slot on your outlet is for. This wire can be any color besides white or green, but it’s usually black or red. The other wire doesn’t get connected to the earth, and it’s called the ungrounded conductor, or hot wire. That’s what the larger slot on your outlet is for. This wire is commonly referred to as the neutral wire, and it should always be white. One of these wires is connected to the earth, or grounded, so this wire is called the grounded conductor. If you have a three-prong outlet that is not grounded, however, your electrical tester won’t be able to tell you if the polarity is correct or not.Ī brief definition of Hot and Neutral wires: On a standard outlet, technically called a duplex receptacle, there are two wires that carry electricity. Any outlet tester will alert you to this condition, assuming you have a properly grounded three-prong outlet. Reversed polarity creates a potential shock hazard, but it’s usually an easy repair. This happens when the hot and neutral wires get flipped around at an outlet, or upstream from an outlet. When we inspect houses where an amateur has been doing electrical work, there’s a good chance we’ll find outlets with reversed polarity.
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