Posted by:
tselstad
at Tue Feb 14 22:13:38 2012 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by tselstad ]
As the owner of Vision Products, this fire and the other 3 or 4 fires that I have heard about in the last year are incredibly disturbing and have kept me up at night wondering what could have caused them.
I have talked with many of the players involved in some of these fires and a disturbing pattern seems to be forming and it involves cheap Chinese power strips used to plug all of the heating elements and thermostats into.
Back in the old days, power strips used to cost quite a bit and were made in the USA and had a metal case around where the numerous plugs were situated. Today, we all go to Home Depot or Walmart and grab 2 plastic power strips (made in china) for $4.99 and never give it a second thought.
We think nothing about paying $1000 for a rack, thousands of dollars for breeder Ball pythons and hundreds of dollars for high quality thermostats and then we splice the whole thing together using a plastic, made in China, $2.49 power strip.
On top of that, how many of us actually read the label on the power strip to see how many watts it will safely accept and then factor in exactly how many watts we are actually plugging into these things? I know that I have been guilty of overloading cheap power strips and I have even had two of them short out, melt the plastic case a bit and turn smokey black. Luckily, they were both on concrete floors with nothing close to set a fire.
I recently went out and bought some higher quality power strips and I got the smoke alarms connected into the alarm system and I feel a bit better about all the electrical gadgets that I have running at my facility.
[ Hide Replies ]
- House and collection burned!!!! - lavenderalbino, Mon Feb 13 19:03:32 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - mikebell, Mon Feb 13 19:41:39 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - lairofdragons, Mon Feb 13 21:19:14 2012
- Grant... - jkobylka, Tue Feb 14 07:00:47 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - snakedr, Tue Feb 14 07:52:32 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - jwoolard, Tue Feb 14 08:02:28 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - Bolitochrome, Tue Feb 14 08:34:52 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - rjs73, Tue Feb 14 09:53:10 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - lavenderalbino, Tue Feb 14 10:30:52 2012

- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - CaseyHulse, Tue Feb 14 10:51:30 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - albinosunlimited, Tue Feb 14 10:59:17 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - sloanreptiles, Tue Feb 14 12:09:05 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - bboa, Tue Feb 14 14:24:08 2012
- SO sorry and maybe some info for others- - Matt J, Tue Feb 14 17:52:03 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - ohernz, Tue Feb 14 18:30:35 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - Chad_ProExotics, Tue Feb 14 20:21:02 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - dwherp, Tue Feb 14 22:58:21 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - MIZUNO, Wed Feb 15 01:04:41 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - WALL2WALLREPTILE, Wed Feb 15 09:20:00 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - coldthumb, Wed Feb 15 19:25:58 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - MSConstrictors, Wed Feb 15 23:58:40 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - Lizards of Oz, Thu Feb 16 07:59:50 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - scratchypen, Tue Feb 21 18:33:36 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - MAballs, Sat Feb 25 09:11:44 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - Tracy Barker, Tue Feb 14 11:49:02 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - MagickalMorphs, Tue Feb 14 14:44:17 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - PHFaust, Tue Feb 14 16:35:33 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - c5wolves, Tue Feb 14 17:50:00 2012
Possible things to check to prevent .... - tselstad, Tue Feb 14 22:13:38 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - FGS, Wed Feb 15 00:15:53 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - hkwagner5, Wed Feb 15 04:04:29 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - BrandonBoeke, Wed Feb 15 04:24:48 2012
- People like you AMAZE me.... - EvilMorphgod, Wed Feb 15 06:36:53 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - TenorGoddess, Wed Feb 15 13:21:43 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - mrachelr, Wed Feb 15 13:50:09 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - TSKinc, Wed Feb 15 19:07:08 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - creativereptile, Wed Feb 15 21:16:56 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - robyn@ProExotics, Wed Feb 15 22:41:51 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - coreywoods, Thu Feb 16 08:20:52 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - John_Yezbak, Thu Feb 16 11:39:27 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - KBuckler, Thu Feb 16 13:53:44 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - terrysxtreme, Sat Feb 18 11:39:11 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - ricolowkey, Sun Feb 19 16:50:10 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - royerreptiles, Tue Feb 21 05:53:12 2012
- RE: House and collection burned!!!! - FireStorm, Thu Feb 23 08:37:48 2012
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