Outlet Checkers - A must have!

web_socket_tester2Until recently I thought the outlet tester was a handy testing tool to have, should you be unsure of your electrical wiring, use while travelling to test the power points or just to satisfy your own mind that the outlet is in fact grounded to the Earth.  (All homes in Australia have to be grounded by law.)  Well we now have a completely different attitude and appreciate that they are an absolute must to have with your Earthing products.
Firstly all our electrical power boards and cords are tested by an independent inspector before we commence at the Festival.  During our demonstrations on the second day, using the multimeter to show how Earthing reduces artificial electrical build up on the body, we suddenly noticed that our body voltage was not reducing.  This immediately led us to investigate as it had been working fine so we put the outlet checker into the power board we were using and only 2 orange lights came on – surprised!   We got out another outlet checker to make sure the first one wasn’t faulty in anyway and again still only 2 orange lights came on.  We then proceeded to check the other power boards that we were using and NOTHING was grounded – we were baffled!   We called in the festival’s electrician and he came down with his testing equipment and told us we had a faulty power board, we took his word and replaced the power board with a brand new tested one.
Set everything up and again and put in the outlet tester…..what still only 2 orange lights….what’s going on here???  Called the electrician back again!  He tested again with his equipment and it was displaying that the board was grounded and then he tested with our outlet checker and it was displaying that it was NOT grounded…now he was absolutely stumped at that point.  He then proceeded to test his testing equipment which turned out to be inaccurate and asked if he could have one of our outlet testers.  After more testing it turned out that one of the event extension leads or connection point somehow became faulty and was producing a very poor quality earth connection.  The electrician replaced the extension cord and we were back in business.  Our outlet checker now displayed 3 orange lights and our multimeter test responded as expected.
This alerted us to a very important point – if you are using extension cords and or power boards with your Earthing products it may be a good idea to check that they are still in good working order from time to time and to make sure you are getting a good ground and getting all the benefits of Earthing.
So please don’t dismiss this valuable inexpensive testing tool ($15.95) and make sure you have it handy to test from time to time.  The Outlet Testers are available from our on-line shop and come standard with our Premium Starter Packs.

Leave a comment

Comments have to be approved before showing up