Long ago, it was common practice to use the "touch test" to determine if a panel was energized. A person would take their fingers and touch the conductor/bus. If they felt the "mild buzzing sensation" as one electrician's handbook from the 1940's called it, the panel was energized.

Here is today's Question of the Week:

Have you or anyone you know ever (intentionally) used the touch method for determining if a panel is energized?

• No
• Yes - I have
• Yes - I know someone that has

Yes, but I haven't since I found out what a voltmeter is for!

Sounds more like a question for the Darwin Awards.

I have a client whose procedures called for a "back of the hand" method to determine if a cabinet was alive. This was corrected, when I pointed out that OSHA frowned on using one's body as a voltmeter. It still amazed me that some techs use unbooted test clips on the DVMs. The excuse was the clips didn't come with boots and that the boots were backordered. I told them to use the insulated test probes until the boots for the alligator clips arrived.

My father used to. However, his skin was so thick, and his pain threshold so high, that sometimes he wouldn't feel 120 volts!

I've also known electricians (in Egypt) to determine if a 400 V fuse was blown by feeling the barrel with their bare hands to see if it was hot.

I knew a graduate EE at Square D in the Plant Engineering Department who would quickly rake his two fingers across the conductors of an unknown source (but due the location and size was pretty sure that they were 277V or less). He was the son of an old industrial electrian supervisor who I'm certain that he had seen do that in the rayon plant where he himself had interned while in college.

One of the first men I worked with did this often. I did it a few times but that was almost 40 years ago and then one day I figured it was not the best idea and that I would probably live longer than the guy that made fun of me because I wouldn't.

Well they did do the test with their hands, but there are some guys with black toung out there.

There was an electrician in the "oil patch" during the 60's who would check for single-phasing on 480vAC pump motors using the one finger touch method. I did notice he had a thick callus, insulated sole work boots and stood on the wooden supports when he did this. I never followed his lead even with the hazing. I want to be an "old electrican", not a "bold electrician".