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Home electrical safety audit: a checklist, and what never to do yourself

A room-by-room checklist you can walk through in half an hour with your hands off, the things never to attempt yourself, and what a professional audit covers.

4 min read · Updated 19 August 2026

You can learn most of what is wrong with a home's electrics by walking through it with your eyes, nose and the back of your hand — and without opening a single box. This checklist takes about half an hour. Do it in September before the rain, and again after anything unusual: a flood, a shock, a burning smell, a new heavy appliance.

Then there is a short list of things that are never a DIY job in a home, however handy you are. That is at the end, and it matters more than the checklist.

The distribution board

  • Are there MCBs, or fuse wire? Fuse wire means the board is due for replacement.
  • Is there an RCCB — wider than the MCBs, with a T button? Press it. It should trip at once. Reset it.
  • Any brown or black marks, melted plastic, or a hot-plastic smell at the board?
  • Back of the hand near the board face: is it warm after an evening of use?
  • Do any MCB levers feel soft, or trip often without a clear cause?
  • Is there a label saying which MCB feeds what? If not, make one — it is the most useful ten minutes you will spend.

Sockets and switches, room by room

  • Any plate warm to the back of the hand, discoloured, cracked or loose on the wall?
  • Any socket that sparks, or only works when the plug is wiggled?
  • Two-pin sockets still in use for fridge, washing machine, geyser or computer?
  • Does a plug-in socket tester show earth present at the kitchen, bathroom and fridge sockets?
  • Extension boards running permanently under furniture, or cords under carpets and through doorways?
  • Multi-plugs stacked, or an AC or geyser fed from a multi-plug or extension?

Kitchen and bathroom

  • Mixie, microwave, induction and kettle on 16 A sockets, not 6 A?
  • Geyser on its own MCB, with its switch outside the wet area, and no tingle from the tap or the tank?
  • Exhaust fan clean and not dripping condensation onto a switch?
  • Any switch or socket within reach of the shower or the sink splash?

Outside and utility

  • Borewell pump starter: cover intact, earthed, on its own MCB, switched off when not in use?
  • Gate lights, compound lights, terrace points: weatherproof covers present and unbroken?
  • Earth pit: cover found, clamp attached, not rusted through, soil not bone dry?
  • Inverter and battery: ventilated, off the floor, terminals clean, no smell?

Appliances

  • Any tingle from the body of the fridge, washing machine, desktop, geyser, or the water from the RO tap? Stop using it and switch off at the MCB.
  • Any appliance that trips the MCB when it starts?
  • AC and fridge on a stabiliser, or on a supply known to be steady?

What the checklist tells you

One warm plate is a loose connection to fix. A board with fuse wire, two-pin sockets and no earth is a home that has never been upgraded and needs a plan, not a patch. A tingle anywhere is an earth and RCCB problem and goes to the top of the list. Write down what you find; it makes the technician's visit shorter and cheaper.

Never do these yourself

  • Work with the main on. Switching off the wall switch is not isolation. Anything beyond plugging in a tester is done with the MCB, and preferably the main, off — and by someone who knows how to prove it is dead.
  • Open the distribution board. The incoming side of the main is live even with every MCB off.
  • Replace an MCB with a higher rating, bridge a fuse with copper wire, or tape an RCCB lever up. All three remove the only thing stopping a fire or a shock.
  • Connect earth to neutral to make a socket tester light up.
  • Remove the earth pin from a plug, or use a two-pin adapter on a three-pin appliance.
  • Wire a geyser, AC, inverter or pump into the house circuit yourself. These are the dedicated, heavy, wet-area loads, and they are where the serious injuries happen.
  • Touch a fallen or low-hanging line, or a pump starter, with wet hands or bare feet. Call the supply company for a line; call an electrician for the starter.
  • Work on a ladder near a live fitting, including changing a ceiling-fan capacitor or "just looking" inside a fan canopy.
  • Open a sealed unit — inverter, stabiliser, microwave, geyser thermostat housing — to poke at it.

What a professional audit adds

The walk-through finds what is visible. An audit with instruments finds what is not: earth resistance, insulation resistance in concealed cables, RCCB trip time, MCB ratings against wire sizes, and the tightness of every terminal in the board. On our rate card a Safety Audit — full home wiring and earthing check — is ₹499. Fixes found on the day, like an MCB, socket or switch, are MCB / Switchboard work at ₹350 with parts at MRP and shown before fitting; anything larger is quoted before it starts.

When to call

A tingle, a smell, a warm plate, a board with fuse wire, no RCCB, no earth, a home over twenty years old that has never been checked, or a home you have just moved into and know nothing about.

Questions people ask

How often should a home have an electrical safety check?
Walk through the checklist yourself every year — September, before the monsoon, is the natural time. A professional audit with test instruments is worth doing when you move into a home, after any flooding or fire scare, when the house passes about twenty years without rewiring, and before adding heavy loads like a second AC.
Is a neon tester screwdriver enough to check if something is safe?
No. It can show that a wire is live; it cannot prove one is dead, and it tells you nothing about earth, leakage or loose joints. It is fine for a quick look at a socket. It is not a reason to put your hand in a board. Real testing uses an earth tester, an insulation tester and an RCCB tester.
What does a professional safety audit actually include?
The board — MCB ratings against wire sizes, RCCB presence and trip time, tightness of terminals, heat marks. Earth resistance at the pit and continuity to sockets. Insulation resistance on each circuit. Sockets for polarity and earth. Geyser, pump and AC points in particular. You get a list of what is wrong, what is urgent, and what it would take to fix.

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