Electrical safety and fire risk

Any electricians or otherwise savvy out there who have some thoughts on ways to minimize risk of electrical fires with all our heat lamps and lighting elements? Since adding all the baby cages and bringing the turtles and tortoises in for the winter I am suddenly much more aware of the risk with so many clamp lights and extension cords in my house. They're all plugged into surge protector strips and I try to not overload any wattages with the extension cords. The Home Depot clamp lights seem really cheaply made compared to the exo terra clamp lights with plastic base instead of ceramic. So I think I'm going to replace those for that reason. Any useful tips on things I (and others) can do to make things safer?

I can offer a few tips - I used to be the maintenance Mgr for a Comfort Inn - on the power strips- and I know this sounds odd- if they are over 3 yrs old- I would get rid of them , or clean them very well - they collect dust in the slits for the plugs - and can cause lint fires - and most ppl keep them stuffed down behind things, so you will never know until its to late - we built our house, we put all the plugs in " up-side down" - with the ground on the top- if something falls down, and the plug is out a bit, anything can complete the circuit that may hit the prongs of what is plunged in , by having the ground on top, it can not short circuit if something should hit it - if you blow a breaker, do not re-set it if it feels hot- the load on the wire may be what is tripping it - the further away the power source, the the more the draw - ( a very stupid thing we used to do in our farm house when I was young and dumb- we had fuses - we would put a penny behind it to give it more amp- DO NOT DO THIS ! lol - but who has fuses in their box anymore ?? ) to keep water out of the strip- best to put it higher than your water source if you can , if not- try to put a loop in the wire - the water (hopefully) will follow the loop, and drip off before it follows the cord to the power source - I hate clamp lights- I have seen them fail , and barns burnt down when people are trying to keep chicks warm - I have only used them in my barns when they were zip tied to chains - not sure what to tell ya on that one- hope some of this helped

My eyes will definately be following this thread!

Few things I've learned the hard way this year-

Reptariums do burn and they burn well enough to spread from reptarium to reptarium

Flourescent light ballasts can fail and can start a fire when they do. I've been told now that this is surprisingly not uncommon for the ballasts to fail dangerously by a couple of different electricians and an engineer who worked at a hotel.

The best surge protection strip in the world will not cut off because of a fire, a couple of different electricians have told me. Nor will a circuit breaker. They will probably cut out at some point, but not until the fire is already well underway. They cut off if a power surge comes from the power supply but not if a fire occurs on something plugged into them.

Which was particularly frustrating to learn.

I thought I was pretty safe running two outlets per circuit and never running more than 1000 watts on a given circuit with no daisy chaining of power strips and running 30 circuits in my building each with it's own breaker. Surge protecting strips on everything. Electricians told me the strips didn't protect from failed equipment plugged in- only from power surges from the power line coming into the building.

So what to do?

Seems the main things are don't skimp on cheap electrical equipment like I did. Pay the extra for every fixture and get stuff that is rated far above the application. Example- don't get dome-reflectors from walmart for $6 which are rated for 100 watts and run 60 watt bulbs in them. Buy reflectors rated for 300 watts and run 60 watts in them.

Other than that? Make sure everything is grounded.

I'm hoping to find out about other options as well- smoke detectors that cut power to the building and call your phone for example. Haven't looked to hard yet, but hopeful it's out there.

Never ever want to live through this again.

Im no electrician by any standard but when i remodel. These are some main points i consider.


*Make sure your breaker is the correct amp for the rooms wire. Better to have less amp breaker than more than what your wire is rated for.
*Steer clear of water. If you outlet may see moisture put in a GFCI.
*Be sure your grounded correctly all the way from the vertical 6 to the fuse box to the rooms outlets. You may need to turn the breaker off to the room and remove wall plates to verify.


Quite a few years ago. I had a power strip under a salt water tank. Well the overflow started literally over flowing and was dripping on the surge. Luckily i came home when i did. I stepped through the door and i could see a haze of smoke and could literally here crackling or popping noises. I ran to where it was coming from. Which was in the stand. I opened it up and the surge protector was literally sparking and smoking all over the place. All of the wires going to it were melted into it and the surge itself was starting to melt.

Oh one other thing I learned is that a hot ambient temperature up by the ceiling can be hard on flourescent tube ballasts. Cause of my fire was said to be the failure of a flourescent fixture's ballast. The fixture was not a lizard light, but the room light and was on the ceiling only about 4" from the top of the highest reptarium in the stacks that burned. I had to run to the airport that night and left the room light switch in the on position. Came home and went to bed. fire happened in the building while I slept through the whole thing. The ceiling light was the only light on in the building but it was late april and the building that time of year heats up a lot by night time and holds the heat for a long time.

So, another lesson learned- keep flourescents cool - I had a vent system on a thermostat that I had not used in years, opening windows during the day and closing them in the evening when I quit instead- it will be fully operational from now on 24/7.

I would scrap any old ballasts since most were filled with tar. I use nothing but digital ballasts because it is much better controlled and they don't get nearly as hot. You pay a bit more for industrial grade but they usually have a higher temp rating.

Carl

Hey Carl,

thanks for the tip.

Where can I get ballasts like that? The room lighting fixtures were aluminum or something and were ruined by the heat anyway- didn't exaclty melt but twisted and bent for lack of better word.

Are there fixtures easily available at big box stores that come with those sorts of ballasts if I go asking there?

For large setups, hard wired outlets every couple of feet all with GFCI. Rather then using those cheap plastic power strips, get the metal ones that are 3 feet long. Don't put everything on one 15 amp breaker unless you just have a small setup. No extension cords, especially lamp cord style. The lamp cord is undersized wire, and does not have a ground. No clipping of ground pins to plug them into a socket without a ground. Keep water out of outlets, and if you have wet hands, do not mess with the plugs. Don't overload your light timers or you can have a relay fire.

All I can think of offhand.

I second all ideas above, especially replacing plastic socket clamp lights and using overrated extension cords/dome lights. I would check into products like zoomeds lightstand or placing plant hangers on wall, to suspend lights from; instead of the clamp variety. In South Carolina, new home construction is using afci breakers for all habitable rooms for increased fire safety, could be something to look into.

fluxlizard said:

Hey Carl,

thanks for the tip.

Where can I get ballasts like that? The room lighting fixtures were aluminum or something and were ruined by the heat anyway- didn't exaclty melt but twisted and bent for lack of better word.

Are there fixtures easily available at big box stores that come with those sorts of ballasts if I go asking there?

Click to expand...

Yes both Lowes and HD sell the ballasts. I don't know if they sell complete fixtures though. Grainger would be the best bet for assembled units.

Once my collection builds up I will be switching to T5's and building my own assemblies. T5's with individual reflectors are the way to go. I have lots of bits and pieces left from my saltwater tanks.

Carl

ALL the information given is dead on!!!!! The only thing I can add is I had my alarm company come out and add smoke and heat detectors everywhere !!!
That's all I can do in addition to what has been posted!!!
Steve

I'm sorry Flux for what you've been through recently. Seeing your thread was the trigger to start this thread actually. I've heard of it happening before and there have been two local large herp breeding facilities that have lost almost everything in the last year or two. Right now it makes me very worried.

Thank you all for the good ideas! Definitely good information shared for all. This will be very useful for when I have to build the tortoise barn! Now for people who can't start from scratch or rip out the walls and redo the wiring...what kind of fixtures would be the safest for heat sources?

ferretinmyshoes said:

Any electricians or otherwise savvy out there who have some thoughts on ways to minimize risk of electrical fires with all our heat lamps and lighting elements? Since adding all the baby cages and bringing the turtles and tortoises in for the winter I am suddenly much more aware of the risk with so many clamp lights and extension cords in my house. They're all plugged into surge protector strips and I try to not overload any wattages with the extension cords. The Home Depot clamp lights seem really cheaply made compared to the exo terra clamp lights with plastic base instead of ceramic. So I think I'm going to replace those for that reason. Any useful tips on things I (and others) can do to make things safer?

Click to expand...

I agree use the ceramic base fixtures.
agree with counting the draw on each circuit / watching load
avoid using extension cords. don't plug one extenstion into another / daisy chain

I had a pony panel added to my electrical box, and had and electrician run two new runs (2 breakers) to the cham room, with GFI outlets (like you might have near your bathroom or kitchen sink)

CarlC said:

I would scrap any old ballasts since most were filled with tar. I use nothing but digital ballasts because it is much better controlled and they don't get nearly as hot. You pay a bit more for industrial grade but they usually have a higher temp rating.

Click to expand...

good idea

Some other options I've considered since remodeling isn't an option where I live currently. There are sensors you can put in rooms that will send a message via wifi to phone or email if temperatures are outside of the range you select. This would also be good for cold areas (or really hot areas) where power outages can be catastrophic. Downside for a fire is the fire would have to be going to raise temperature so it may trigger the alarm early but I'm sure there would be fire damage at that point.

There are also smoke detectors that will alert you via phone or email when triggered. This would be ideal for me as an extra precaution I think but most models appear to still be in development and not for sale yet. Lowes has a system you can buy that can control a lot of home systems (thermostats, cameras, even outlets) that has smoke detectors and can alert via phone. It's a bit pricey so I'm still deciding if it's worth it (and reliable).

Just thought I'd mention those. Especially useful in separate buildings imo!

So, since I can't modify the current electrical structure where I'm living I opted to get a Nest Protect, which is a fire and carbon monoxide detector that hooks up through my wifi system to send updates directly to my phone if there is a problem. It will also alert me if the wifi goes out of it the batteries are low. This is the only system I could find that works well this way and doesn't require a lot of other setup options/costs. It was really easy and I can pull up the status of my systems on the app on my phone anytime and check that all is well. Since I have my phone on me pretty much at all times when I'm not home I feel much better having some peace of mind. You can install them anywhere so I have one in each reptile room (chameleon and turtle/tort) room. And later I'll move one into the tortoise barn because as a separate building that extra notification system will be good to have. Just wanted to share...

thanks for the update - sounds like a great item for any of us to consider

I tried a quirky spotter- detects multiple things including temperature. Couldn't get it to work with my router's mac filter. Had to call the company to even get a mac address for the device (for some dumb reason it isn't on the device itself) and still couldn't get it working.

I'll have to check into the brands you gave ferret. Thanks!

fluxlizard said:

I tried a quirky spotter- detects multiple things including temperature. Couldn't get it to work with my router's mac filter. Had to call the company to even get a mac address for the device (for some dumb reason it isn't on the device itself) and still couldn't get it working.

Click to expand...

I thought about the Quirky Spotter but read multiple reviews that it didn't work well/reliably. I recently tried the Quirky Pivot Power Genius to control the lights for my chameleon. I thought it would be more reliable than the crummy light timers that I've had in the past that never keep the time. It was a huge failure! I tested it for a week on house lights and it worked well, but the day I plugged my chameleon's lights into it, our wifi modem reset (which I guess it does on occasion) causing the lights to go out and not come back on until I manually reset the system. There was also no alert to my phone that this had happened so if my husband hadn't walked into Egon's room, we would not have known his lights were off. I think these home automation things are a great idea, but for now, the technology is new and not something that can be relied on for important things like animal life support systems. *Note, I'm not knocking the Nest device. Just mentioning my experience with a similar "home automation" product.

As for my contribution to this thread, I have thought about this topic (fire/electrical safety) quite a bit. I only have one chameleon, but I have all of his lights and water pump on a plug-in GFCI, which is a great option if you are not in a position to re-wire your home (although that is the preferable option and not too hard from what I've read). I got this one, but there are many options including one outlet and power strip versions.
http://www.lowes.com/pd_223791-33536-30339015_0__?productId=1268933
Something to know about these is that if they ever are tripped they do have to be manually re-set so if there is a power outage when you were not home, your animals would be without their lights/water pumps until you return. Still, I think it is great peace of mind since we have water and electricity in such close proximity.

I also have the heat lamp cord clipped onto the cage using a Command small cord clip and Command velcro picture hanging strips. This way, in the event of an earthquake, this light would not fall to the floor which is carpeted. It would dangle from the cage (which is also earthquake-proofed).

Additionally, I have a cheap, but sort of silly-looking final piece of protection. I use gallon ziplock bags that I hang as a rain guard over the electrical outlets. I just have one side of the bag taped to the wall just above the outlet and the rest of the bag hangs over the outlet. There is still plenty of airflow from the sides and bottom, but it protects the outlets from overspray.

I was using a ZooMed under tank heater on a plastic roach bin for about 3 months, and the ZooMed heater actually began to turn black and crispy. It put a burn mark on the furniture, and melted the bottom of the plastic container.

When using the ZooMed under glass tanks, it has cracked the glass.

I now use human heating pads and heat wire with no problems.

Nick

I now use human heating pads and heat wire with no problems.

Click to expand...

During the rebuild we had our sulcata in our dining room in 50 gallon storage tubs. I had a human heat pad under one of the tubs. It was new and failed one night. Was super hot on the wood floor the next morning and strong odor alerted us to the problem.
Don't trust heat pads- I've got 12" flexwatt now on my insect shelves and a herpstat pro acting as a controller for each shelf. Put some kind of safety thermostat even on a heat pad I think.