Smoke alarm and RCD avert tragedy
A family home had a radiant bar heater in an upstairs study, the type without an on/off switch. It just plugs into the a general power outlet or a powerboard. This one was on a powerboard, because of course, there are so many appliances used in the home study these days. Being summer the radiator was pushed out of the way near the curtains.
However the adult son does some work at home in the next room. An extension cord runs from the power board to his work table. When he turns on a piece of equipment that hasn’t been used in a while, he realizes it has no power. Tracing back, he checks the power board, then discovers the wall switch is off, so he flips it on and returns to his room.
In this case, unluckily, the radiator turns on too, and soon the curtains catch fire. The next thing that happens – the circuit breaker in the fuse box trips so the power is out in the whole house. Good. But before the son finds out he has lost all power, or about the fire, the upstairs smoke alarm starts sounding. He rushes into the study, finds the curtains alight and yells \”Fire. Fire.\” Mum and dad were just about to go out for the evening, but they rush upstairs to see the curtains in flames over 2 m high. Fortunately they managed to extinguish the fire quickly, using water and bed blankets. Some foot injury happened because it was a hot day and no one was wearing closed shoes.
Apart from the minor burn to the foot, no one was hurt. There were enough alert and agile people around to react quickly with the right ideas.
Learnings:
- Radiator with no integral ON/OFF switch left plugged. Poor practice. Don\’t do it.
- Unused radiator left where it might gather dust (problem when next used) Poor practice. Don\’t do it.
- Radiator on a power board. This could easily lead to overloading of the wall outlet or powerboard because these appliances are usually 1 kW, or more, thus require the full current available at a single outlet. Poor practice. Don\’t do it.
- Turned on power to a powerboard without checking what else was being powered up.Poor practice.
What did they do?
- Tossed the radiator
- Got all house electricals checked for effects of the fire, and any hidden wire overheating.
- Bought a fire blanket for upstairs and downstairs
- Spent a lot of time since then cleaning up the fire damage and being thankful it wasn\’t worse.
How can we help?
Have you done your annual smoke alarm check? In a tenanted building, have you replaced any smoke alarm older than 10 years? Call us and we can help,