"Eigenvector" wrote in message
. ..
A couple three basic questions that I'm not willing to test myself.

When pigtailing wires together, you won't get shocked so long as 1) the
breaker to that circuit is off 2) you aren't touching both the neutral
AND the hot wire. Meaning, if I grab two hot wires and pig-tail them
(like when adding in a dimmer) I won't get shocked so long as I'm not
touching the neutral wire AND the breaker to that circuit is off. I'm not
trying to be ultra safe here so much as I'm trying to make sure that in
situation where switching off the breaker isn't a guarentee that power is
off for that fixture.

If the breaker is off to a circuit, it's dead: Except if it's an Edison
circuit, one that shares a neutral between two legs of different potential.
In this case you would need to turn off both breakers sharing the neutral,
or else, opening the pigtail of the neutral and getting between the
conductors will hurt you


Second question, if I take the probe leads from my volt meter and jam them
into an outlet, it's not gonna short the circuit but do exactly what I
would expect it to do - read the potential difference between the two
sockets in AC volts (assuming your voltmeter is reading AC volts).

Correct

And finally, when splicing phone line, do the wires normally carry voltage
sufficient to shock or could you essentially splice them with your teeth
if you had to?
There is enough voltage to hurt you especially if your hands are sweaty