The electric charge that flows through your house is called your electric circuits. This carries useful energy through your house that you can use for a variety of tasks. The US standard household circuit has a effective voltage that takes 120 volts. Volts represent the energy per unit charge. When you turn on an electric appliance you allow 120 volts to force electric currents through your appliances to force water up your pipes. The energy that is carried by the charge is used by transforming it to give you heat, lighting, motors and so on. In this process as it goes through the appliances, the volts drop to zero and it dumped to the earth through the ground wire. The charge is carried back to the electrical panel through the neutral wires and to earth by ground wire attached to the electrical panel.