Post by Bri on Feb 5, 2009 11:04:30 GMT -5
I wanted to share the experience my wife and I had this morning at about 3:15 am. Imagine being snug as a bug in a rug in bed sleeping peacefully only to be awakened by the sound of a loud piercing chirping noise. As I was laying there in a stupor trying to figure out what the heck the nosie was, I began hearing more loud, annoying squeals, chirps and buzzers. Suddenly it hit me that the smoke detectors were going off, one by one in the house. I began smelling an electrical smell burning and rolled out of bed onto the floor to crawl out in the hallway to see what was wrong. I saw small wisps of smoke coming from the doorway to my model and computer room. I crawled into the room to see sparks and arcing from an outlet that had my surge protector plugged into it under my model bench. Small wisps of flame were also coming from the outlet as well. I went back down the hall and cut the power to that room at the breaker box and proceeded to calm my wife down as she was trying to figure out what the heck was going on.
After I somewhat regained my senses, I proceeded to investigate what exactly went wrong at the outlet. I had a power strip plugged into the bottom outlet with nothing plugged into the top outlet. Apparently there was a short in the power strip that went back to the outlet. I had two drop lights, my Dremel tool and a lead cord plugged into the 6 outlet strip. None of the lights were on and the Dremel was also shut off. I pulled the plug this morning and saw just how bad the oultet had melted inside the wall. We were extremely fortunate not to have had a serious situation on our hands. Also, if we didn't have smoke detectors, who knows what could have happened. We have a smoke detector in each room of the house and two in the hallway. I change the batteries in all of them every 6 months like clockwork as well.
The electrician just left and we discovered that the power strip itself was defective which caused an overload in the outlet which, in turn resulted in the arcing and fire in the outlet. Had I used an actual surge protector instead of just a power strip, in all likelihood, this could have been avoided as the circuit breaker in the surge protector would have blown.
So, we learned alot this morning at 3:15. I now have an actual surge protector to use, the outlet has been replaced, and we're thankful for smoke detectors. If anyone here is using just a regular power strip, think about replacing it with an actual surge protector. Had we not been home when this happened, we would have lost everything, no doubt. We got lucky this time.
I just wanted to pass along what I learned from my near catastrophe this morning. Don't take shortcuts in your model rooms, or in any room for that matter and above all, use smoke detectors. There is no doubt they, in all likelihood, saved our lives this morning.
This is what was left of our outlet when I pulled it from the wall.
After I somewhat regained my senses, I proceeded to investigate what exactly went wrong at the outlet. I had a power strip plugged into the bottom outlet with nothing plugged into the top outlet. Apparently there was a short in the power strip that went back to the outlet. I had two drop lights, my Dremel tool and a lead cord plugged into the 6 outlet strip. None of the lights were on and the Dremel was also shut off. I pulled the plug this morning and saw just how bad the oultet had melted inside the wall. We were extremely fortunate not to have had a serious situation on our hands. Also, if we didn't have smoke detectors, who knows what could have happened. We have a smoke detector in each room of the house and two in the hallway. I change the batteries in all of them every 6 months like clockwork as well.
The electrician just left and we discovered that the power strip itself was defective which caused an overload in the outlet which, in turn resulted in the arcing and fire in the outlet. Had I used an actual surge protector instead of just a power strip, in all likelihood, this could have been avoided as the circuit breaker in the surge protector would have blown.
So, we learned alot this morning at 3:15. I now have an actual surge protector to use, the outlet has been replaced, and we're thankful for smoke detectors. If anyone here is using just a regular power strip, think about replacing it with an actual surge protector. Had we not been home when this happened, we would have lost everything, no doubt. We got lucky this time.
I just wanted to pass along what I learned from my near catastrophe this morning. Don't take shortcuts in your model rooms, or in any room for that matter and above all, use smoke detectors. There is no doubt they, in all likelihood, saved our lives this morning.
This is what was left of our outlet when I pulled it from the wall.
