electrticians view sought

[devonwoody]

My neighbour and I look after each others homes when away on holiday, (I'm way ahead at the moment )
However he leaves all his electric wall sockets switched on with appliances still wired and relies on the appliance switch to turn off electric.

I myself think this is not the most secure way of preventing an accident, what are the views of electricians or fire experts?

 

[Anonymous]

Depends on the applicance

If on standby, then ther is a VERY small (as in 1 in several million) risk.
If the on/off switch on the aplliance is a true switch that breaks the circuit (not switching to standby), then there is no difference at all between what your neighbour does and what you do

 

[Woody Alan]

I had a food mixer that the wife got free from a clubbook sitting on the kitchen worktop suddenly start up whilst we were in the kitchen. When I stripped it down the grease used to lubricate the wiper on the switch had carbonised and created it's own track for the electricity to flow. So things can happen, but I don't turn everthing off before I go to bed and that may/should be more important than if I am not in the house. If it makes you happy and doesn't do any harm then turn them off. I should point out that I agree with Tony it's just that not all appliances have a quality switch the one I am talking about was a sliding affair, cheap and nasty.

Alan

Not an electrician but my wife says I am one in a million ..not sure what she's getting at though. :?

 

[Matt_S]

Putting aside safety risks leaving stuff plugged in uses unneccessary electricity. When you're not even there it's just plain daft!

I've seen a lot of varied figures but suffice to say "a lot" of the total energy usage from an average house is phantom loads.

 

[lurker]

My great granmother used to unplug the equipment AND switch off the socket. This was to stop electricity leaking out of the holes :shock:

Seems reasonble to me :lol:

 

[tiler99]

I cut the cable just to make sure too.....oh and tape the ends in case some juice runs back out. :wink:

 

[Shadowfax]

At the risk of sounding pedantic I think it best to just say that things can happen - and they do!
The advice from any fire safety officer, like me, will always be "if you are not using it, unplug it".
You can't really go wrong that way.
Stand-by seems pointless to me, actually. I have seen unexplained (initially) fires in electrical equipment and most of them were traced back to the appliance being left on stand-by. Not all of them, obviously, but this is the root of the above advice.
Best wishes.

SF

 

[devonwoody]

I knew I was right.

 

[andrewm]

I can't find a reference but I have always understood that unplugging equipment was a particular requirement if the property was fed by an overhead electrical feed. This is so that if the overhead cable should get hit by lightning the equipment would be undamaged.

I don't think underground cables can be hit by lightning.

Andrew

 

[Bodrighy]

I never used to switch stuff off unless I was away from home for more than a few days. Then one night we had an electrical storm and two of my computers blew up. I was told that the reason was that the electricity pole 3 miles away had got a direct hit and several houses (there aren't that many of us up here) had minor fires so now it's off and unplugged for me. Better safe than sorry.

Pete

 

[andys wood shed]

I can't find a reference but I have always understood that unplugging equipment was a particular requirement if the property was fed by an overhead electrical feed. This is so that if the overhead cable should get hit by lightning the equipment would be undamaged.

I don't think underground cables can be hit by lightning.

Andrew

No but your TV aerial can.
It then travels down the coaxial cable blowing up the tv then into the ring main destroying everything plugged in including the house alarm and if the Sky box is connected to the phone line you can kiss that goodbye also.
I know.
So everything is now switched off at the plug and unplugged for holidays

 

[caretaker]

Just had to say at work we have an old computer that has been running day and night for 15 years, we turn it off for about 2 min's a year to be electrically tested.
I will not tell the make.

 

[Shultzy]

caretaker, Is it an old IBM running Netware?

 

[caretaker]

No its an old Dell with windows 95 but it then go's of to a server.
I think that is right.
The computer has no drives, I am using it now.
I have just seen on the base unit it has NCD, it is a very small unit, found some more, Thinstar on the side.

 

[Mike B]

I have seen unexplained (initially) fires in electrical equipment and most of them were traced back to the appliance being left on stand-by

I recently watched a US documentary in which they interviewed an "expert" electrical engineer who had been investigating electrical appliance fires for over 20 years.

During this time he clearly stated that if an appliance has a mains plug on it then he had seen it catch fire/cause a fire at some time or another - in fact he couldn't think of anything which hadn't!

He also said that despite the new electrical installation regs etc, that modern appliances were much more likely to cause a fire than older appliances as the build quality and QC of the more recent chiwanese made appliances is no where near as good as it was on the older appliances.

Certainly makes you think....

Cheers
Mike

 

[devonwoody]

MikeB, I assume you mean that the appliance plug was the last point of state. on/off?. And reliance was on the off state.

 

[Mike B]

Devonwoody

As far as I can recall it was not specified whether appliances were unplugged or not.

The basic point was that any appliance whether it be a fridge/TV/VCR/hairdryer/kettle/PC/even a mobile phone charger can and has caused a fire and that the recommended safety advice should be observed.

Basically, unplug or at least power off when not in use.

Mike

 

[woodbloke]

DW - at home in the w'shop I don't unplug electrical equipment when not in use but the sockets are always switched off after use as the switch is a mechanical device that physically isolates the supply from the machine. Only two things run off timers permanently, one is the dehumidifier and the second is the ambient air cleaner.
In my job, all the computers run day and night all thru' the year....they never get switched off and even have an emergency battery backup in case the mains supply is interrupted, in fact some of the flat screens have got 'ghosting' on them because they stay in one view for so long - Rob