Reefers worse nightmare...Electrical Fire

Happens a LOT more then you think. I had two customers burn down part of their houses when I worked in retail. Both where due to the use of power strips.

FWIW< I don't use any power strips :)
 
Oh..Man
NOw I am worry....

I thought extension cords are dangerous but power strips are much better to prevent this kind of problem.

Gresham, if you don't use any power strips. what do you use? any other that would be more safer?
 
I made my own (electrical experience) :) I also use ones that are rated for continues use, and that are properly designed (ones for audio equipment - rack mount). Most power strips on the market (cheapos) may be rated for 15 amps, but they are wired in a series, so the first one in the circuit bares the brunt of all the others. That's where the fire starts! Another problem is, many of those cheapos are not truly designed for continues use, and the same goes with extension cords.
 
any reputable power strips with a high rating (in Joules, the higher the better the resistance to power surges from utility company) should be good. But in this case I believe water dripped down from cord to outlet, which cannot be protected / prevented by the strip. Installing GFCI circuits will be the best way to go. All newer homes will have such circuits in the kitchen and bathrooms to prevent moisture from getting into the plugs and causing fire, you can either switch out the plate on get an entire GFCI circuit breaker for the breaker box. Both plate and breakers will have the test/reset buttons. Also all appliances when hooked in should bot exceed 80% of the amperage rating - most homes have 15amps circuit inside the house, so the total should not be more than 12 amps total....I'm quite paranoid as well and would like to sleep in peace as my lights come on at nite, so those were the things I did...my 2 cents....
 
Thanks GreshamH and dreamreefer for the 411. I need to look into my electrical connection. Never really think about it until I read some article like this. Thanks guys.
 
I avoid powerstrips as well, except for cases with light loads. I also put wet use covers on all my outlets.
 
All mine are either mounted above the water by a great distance, or have covers as well. All cords have drip loops just in case, and every circuit is GFCI protected.
 
I'm planing on buying an AMERICAN DJ PC-100A rack mount power center to plug a 300 watt heater, 2x maxijet 1200, 18W refugium light and small rio pump. Do you think this will work out ok?

Also I'll use a DC8 plugged into a GFCI outlet to power my 2x250w IC halides, 300 watt heater, some IC fans, and my T5 lights. Has anyone heard of an outlet fire using a DC8?
 
It suck when this happen to anyone but I found it's interesting that his Occupation is an Electrician..
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9410435#post9410435 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by nasotang
I'm planing on buying an AMERICAN DJ PC-100A rack mount power center to plug a 300 watt heater, 2x maxijet 1200, 18W refugium light and small rio pump. Do you think this will work out ok?

Also I'll use a DC8 plugged into a GFCI outlet to power my 2x250w IC halides, 300 watt heater, some IC fans, and my T5 lights. Has anyone heard of an outlet fire using a DC8?
Click to expand...

First part sounds fine, but depending on what the wattage usage of the T5's are, and what your circuit is rated at, depends on if the second one will work.

If you have 500w of Mh + head room for start up
+ the 300w heater
+ several hundred watts of T5
all on a 15amp, you'll be walking a fine line.

MH's require more then the wattage to fire up. If that happens, you heater is on, and the T5's are on, you could blow a circuit, or overheat it.
 
in which case if it is plugged into GFCI, the breaker trips to prevent anything kind of fire hazard. So IMHO, GFCI's are a must regardless of how many plugs you have. I don't have my strips necessarily above water, but all are mounted on walls with drip loops and everything on GFCI. Wet covers might be something I will look into, though I check every nite for salt spray.

For the guys w/o power strips (greshem and rich), how do you handle that many plugs? you have to have an expansion of more power plugs right? i can be missing something really obvious but i'm just curious...

kttsf, I use the belkin workshop power strip (big metal case) with 10 outlets. Those should be designed for continuous use. I believe they have some for outdoors, against rain, etc...
 
personally I use the APC AP7900 remotly controllable RPC. Allows you to monitor aggregate power consuption via an LED on the unit and also remotely via SNMP. This unit will also allow you to power things on and off remotely (again via snmp or telnet menu driven screens). Very handy if you need to control lights via computer and designed for continuous use. Rack mounted but can easily be modified to mount against the tank stand.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9410437#post9410437 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Elite
It suck when this happen to anyone but I found it's interesting that his Occupation is an Electrician..
Click to expand...
Yes I am an electrician, but that doesn't mean I don't use power strips.

As for being overloaded at the time of the fire I had 2 MJ 1200 powerheads and a new hydor 3. all other pumps, heaters, chiller are on dedicated circuits out in the garage. so i was drawing aprox. 60-100 watts, there were no lights on at the time.

Thanks to everyone that has offered support, but i think everyone could take a lesson from this and just double check the redundancy of your systems and double check and make sure they are as safe as possible.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9410579#post9410579 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Paladin
Just wondering if that power strip was plugged into a GFCI, would that have prevented the fire?
Click to expand...

no it was not plugged into a gfci. The reason it wasnt, was for the common debate of "if it nucence trips i'll loose everything"(I now know that loosing everything in my tank is such a minor inconveinience.
in addition to fact that if your an electrician you think that you will never have a electrical malfunction(i now know better). And the kicker of it all is ,and we will never know for sure what happened, but i think it very well could have stopped the fire before it happened. Wether it was just a bad plug strip or water got on it, it would have triped at the first sign of a short.
 
Not from the Bay area but know exactly how this feels to a much lesser extent. Had a powerstrip go up in flames last week and luckily I just got home from work. It powered 2 lights on Heavy Duty timers and that was all that was on it. It carried the load of 2-24 watt PC lights on my sons AP24. I had drip loops installed and water was not the issue on this. It also had a breaker on it that did not trip when it burned up. Result was a burnt berber carpet which we just had installed 4 mths ago, 2 burned timers, scorched his beds dust ruffle and still smells of burnt electronics. If I had not seen/smelled the smoke or come home when I did it would have been far worse.
Be careful with those powerstrips and if used get real good ones. We had his room wired up to a new GFCI breaker in the main box after so hoping that will help with any possible future problems.

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78452Picture_314__Small_.jpg
 
What brand of powerstrip was it?

I'm not an electrician; but, can you explain how water would cause a fire?

If the GFCI, or fuse, trips or the power goes out, it's not the end of the world as most tanks could survive a power outage for a few hours. More than that, and your critters are going to croak.

Best of luck,

Roy

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9411709#post9411709 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jeffkluse
no it was not plugged into a gfci. The reason it wasnt, was for the common debate of "if it nucence trips i'll loose everything"(I now know that loosing everything in my tank is such a minor inconveinience.
in addition to fact that if your an electrician you think that you will never have a electrical malfunction(i now know better). And the kicker of it all is ,and we will never know for sure what happened, but i think it very well could have stopped the fire before it happened. Wether it was just a bad plug strip or water got on it, it would have triped at the first sign of a short.
Click to expand...
 
Roy basically, get nice salty water (lots of charges) across a connection to cause an arc, this arcing (flow of electrons) tends to be quite hot, as a result, you can get fire.
 
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