Notes

How to Check a Circuit is Dead 

By on

If you want to check a circuit is dead (not live), you should always use the three point method.  First check a known live circuit, then check the dead circuit and finally recheck the live circuit.  Carrying out the procedure ensures that the meter is working before and after testing for the dead circuit.

A few additional measurement tips to make things safe:

  • always connected ground or negative clips first (remove last)
  • hang or rest the test meter (try not to hold in your hand)
  • use PPE - see our PPE Post

 If anyone has other tips to share, please add in the comments below.

, ,

More interesting Notes:
Steven McFadyen's avatar Steven McFadyen

Steven has over twenty five years experience working on some of the largest construction projects. He has a deep technical understanding of electrical engineering and is keen to share this knowledge. About the author

myElectrical Engineering

comments powered by Disqus

Why use catalogues

I'm a fan of using manufacturers catalogues. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, if your involved in the purchase of equipment, you will likely...

New Mail Chimp

We've been sending out Newsletters on a regular basis for a few weeks now. To do this we have been using Google's Feedburner service. While Feedburner...

Large Hadron Collider

The 27 km, Euro 6 billion  Collider lies on the border between France and Switzerland, took nearly 30 years to complete.  Some of the lofty goals for the...

Understanding Circuit Breaker Markings

IEC 60947 is the circuit breaker standard and covers the marking of breakers in detail. Any manufacturer following this standard should comply with the...

Copyright Infringement

myElectrical does not support or promote the use of copyrighted material without the copyright owner's consent. If you believe that material for which...

Write your best report

Years ago I was told that you should always try to write the best report you can.  Many years later I still think on this as one of the better pieces of...

Questions - Reputation and Privilege

Our question and answer system while letting you do exactly what it says, is much more.  It is a dynamic user driven system, where our users not only ask...

Understanding Motor Duty Rating

One of the comments on my Motor Starting Series was asking for something on duty cycles. Here it is. As a purchaser of a motor, you have responsibility...

Introduction to Traction Substations

Following on from my post on railway electrification voltages, I thought an introduction to traction substations would be a good idea. Traction substations...

RLC Circuit, Resistor Power Loss - some Modelica experiments

Modelica is an open source (free) software language for modelling complex systems. Having never used it before, I thought I would download a development...

Have some knowledge to share

If you have some expert knowledge or experience, why not consider sharing this with our community.  

By writing an electrical note, you will be educating our users and at the same time promoting your expertise within the engineering community.

To get started and understand our policy, you can read our How to Write an Electrical Note. 

Footer
(click here to extend)
Copyright (c) 2026 myElectrical