Pages

Monday 12 October 2015

The House Didn't Burn Down (again)

I have been using an elderly convector heater.  I think it is older than bear.  We had it in the study, then father used it in his room, now I have been using it in the study again.  I love convector heaters.  They are quiet, relatively inexpensive to run and make the room lovely and warm quite quickly.  I put it on last night for half an hour.

As I was getting ready to go to bed I heard the heater click as if heating up.  I looked down and the lights that showed whether it was on or off were off but when I went to switch it on to see what happened the switches were hot.  When I unplugged it the plug burned my fingers and there was a significant flash, and that part of the strip extension was also hot, though the other plugs that were working were cool.  I've no blisters but my fingers are still sore this morning.

Until last night the convector heater showed no signs of this.  In fact its replacement is already here as the heater wasn't getting very hot and I expected that one day it would just not heat up at all.  I didn't expect it to start overheating at the plug.  I honestly think that if I hadn't heard the click, checked and then unplugged it then there would have been a high risk of fire.

Jobs for today - go round and unplug everything that isn't actually being used at this moment.

1 comment:

  1. So glad you heard the click and checked it! Good that you had the replacement heater, already.

    ReplyDelete