Perhaps the weakest link in the US electrical system
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- Опубликовано: 29 май 2021
- I hope this discussion really strikes a cord.
(and hey, there's a pinned comment I think you should read)
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Hey there! Correction time (and more thoughts!): THHN wire is what’s _inside_ the sheathing of Romex, which is actually classified as NM-B cable/wire. As in, the conducting wires are THHN, the whole thing together is an NM-B cable. Yep. So there’s that.
Also, I want to be clear that of the problems we have, this isn’t a huge one. Generally, when things get hot because of overloading, it’s at the connection point and not in the wire. For instance, a lot of electrical fires start at the plug/socket interface either because the connection is poor, there could be corrosion, etc. And sometimes they can happen when nothing is overloaded! This is one of the circumstances in which arc-fault circuit interrupters can save lives. It may well be the case that very few fires are started because of the problem we’re discussing in this video. Especially since outside of certain high-draw devices, the risk of overloading the actual conducting wire is low in the first place. That’s why I am comfortable using them!
That said, I remain perplexed that this is an issue we’ve let persist. Most electrical fires aren’t the result of a single thing; they’re a cascade of individually not-great circumstances combining to make a bad situation. In order to reduce the risk of fires, we’ve continually been making the not-great things less bad. That way an increasingly large number of bad circumstances have to align for a fire to happen. Simply put, I think allowing unfused 16 gauge extension cords into the market is a potentially bad link in the chain that we could probably do with cutting out.
In fairness, it used to be much worse. 18 gauge (maybe even 20 gauge) extension cords were available many years ago, but we at least had the sense to make 16 the minimum as time went on. However, as I hope I’ve demonstrated here, that can still be problematic. Pulling 20 amps through that cord made it get very hot quite quickly.
ooof there is some misinformation in this video.
Hey, thanks for the correction
Couldn't agree more. Almost nothing in the electrical system in the US makes real sense when compared to the EU or UK standard. Thin wires? Lousy plugs that fall off and expose the bare metal? Good lord there's some much to do.
Thanks for the correction and remember to add that card at 5:10 🙂
As a Brit, I'd love to hear the full "ring main" rant.
You DO realize that with proper protection everywhere, my channel won't be able to operate, right?!
Flashbacks to the UK video
Well that's a small price to pay…
I mean if there's a will there's a way, & you always manage to find a way 😄
And without proper protection, we'd never get the "SHOWER HEAD OF DOOM!"
Something tells me that you’ll still find a way to shock yourself and possibly start a small electrical fire. I believe in you. You can do it!
"I plugged these two resistive heaters into this thin copper filament, and now I have three resistive heaters!"
It's basically a free heater.
Buy two heaters, get a third one for free!
@@megaharben It's not quite free. How much did your house cost? That's the price of your third resistive heater.
@@jonathanpinkerton1298 you got a point, but hey at least everyone in this thread understands what's going on.
@@jonathanpinkerton1298 you missed the joke ... none the less . My aunty almost set the house on fire with a extension runned underneat a carpet ... thank god nobody got hurt and only the rug had some burn marks
As an HVAC journeyman 20 years deep. This is probably the best video I have seen on basic household amp ratings and why they matter. Well done
As a new electrical apprentice, this was rather eye opening to what's going on in my house electrically lol
This person has also done a very good explanation on contactors and even went on a tangent about HVAC, which as someone who is in school about HVAC, and also who likes electrical-related things, appreciate his videos :)
The tech who installed the heat pump at my place needs to under more about brakers... they double taped the feed lugs from the pole up stream of the master braker. If the compressor goes locked rotor then the braker at the power plants the first line of defense. Log cabin was built in 1904 and was last updated in the early 70's, time to bring it into the modern eara.
@@daviddroescher
Your comment is so technical, obscure and personal, it's meaningless to most readers.
What's your point and what do you want?
Google the equation for the current potential at a fault. Without protection of a fuse or breaker, it is basically infinite.
A helpful way to understand why gauge numbers seem to be backwards (as in a smaller # means bigger wire) is to remember that they are indicative of how many of something can be made from a given amount of material. In this case, copper for wire. For example, let’s suppose I can make 14 wires from one pound of wire. If I decide instead to use up that pound of copper and only make 12 wires of the same length, then they would necessarily be a little thicker because I had more copper for each one.
Not exactly, but close. Shotgun gauges are based on how many lead balls the diameter of the barrel can be made from a pound of lead, but wire gauges were originally based on how many times a wire had to be drawn through a die to make that size of wire.
@@joekelley1734 I don't think they were providing an explanation but rather a way to recall.
While that's an explanation, it's still a terrible naming scheme. The vast majority of people interacting with the product are going to be downstream from manufacturing and have no reason to care and quite possibly no knowledge of why it's so unintuitive.
@@Belgand not terrible - one needs only educate themselves on the reasoning for the nomenclature. Just like Blue Ray vs DVD, not everything can be immediately intelligible without effort ahead of time.
just use the metric system, like anybody else
Talent: The ability to get people to happily spend 25 minutes learning about extension cords
He gets my attention every time. It's pure sorcery.
I didn't make it to 3 minutes. Get. To. The. Point.
Im an expert on many obsolete technologies because of this channel
@@jos9569 You saw how long the video was before you even clicked on it, so what made you think you'd be able to glean all the information you wanted in only 3 minutes? Also have you never seen one of this guy's videos? They're pretty consistently longform, which clearly isn't aimed at twitchy, caffeine riddled ADHD sufferers such as yourself.
@@jos9569 idk how you could tear yourself away at 3 min. By then I'm already hooked. You do realize the point of any explanation usually comes at the end. Did you want his conclusion at the beginning?
For my final in my high school speech class I demonstrated making pancakes right in the classroom. To do this I brought in a (rather modest) countertop griddle and, to reach the wall outlet... a flimsy brown extension cord. I didn't think twice about it.
...until partway through the demonstration-speech there was a flash of light as the cord literally melted away from the plug in the wall. We had to get a maintenance guy to come safely remove the now-bare-wire plug from the wall outlet. (He also brought a (better) extension cord, I finished my speech, and got a 99%. And the class got sample pancakes. :)
and no fire and no one was hurt.
@@hastypete2 okay?
@@hastypete2 mmm american
Great story!
I would have docked 5 points for not setting up an appropriate electric griddle station.
ALWAYS KNOW YOUR LOAD!
EXCELLENT video. I'd like to add:
- 6 ft accessories require outlets every 12 feet, not every 6, since you get 6 to the left, and 6 to the right of the accessory
- fire marshals HATE chained extension cords
- overloading extension cords also softens and melts insulation in the cord, and can lead to an arc and sparking, which ignites stuff (I've had a hair dryer cord IGNITE while I was drying my hair due to the cord softening at the dryer, so like RIGHT by my hand)
- fuses in 120vac plugs used to be common (I still have a few here, most are made of *bakelite* and use the bigger glass fuses)
- using an extension cord as a splitter isn't really all that economical - a super cheap 5 outlet power strip costs about the same as a standard 3 outlet extension cord
and I LOVED your 100mph analogy for "safer"
As somebody who’s been an engineering hobbyist for quite some time now, I can confidently say this guy is the absolute best at dumbing things like this down enough for the average person to understand.
Space Heater: "Do not use with extension cord!"
Also Space Heater: "Here's an incredibly useless 3 foot cord. Enjoy!"
Another reason why 🇬🇧 wins
It could be anti-trip? So that you don't stumble over it and knock it over perhaps. We got an Instant Pot and that was the reasoning it gave in the manual for a short cord.
@@MatthewJBD go team GB, always being nocked, for it very large plugs :-)
@@brightmong7290 most space heaters have a sensor if it’s knocked over it’ll turn off automatically
Yea, when he was saying 6 foot power cords for devices are pretty standard, I was like... most of my devices seem to cheap out and have a 1 meter (~3 feet) power cord, AT BEST these days, lol. All my game consoles (Xbox One, PS4, PS5)? 3 foot power cables. My monitor? 3 foot power cable. My PC's power supply? 3 foot power cable. My HDMI splitter? 2 foot power cable. I really WISH more stuff actually came with a 6 foot power cable at least, lol.
I work at a hardware store. One lady came in complaining her fuses kept blowing. So I sold her more, she came back a week later for more. She had told me she was only using a hot plate. Her friend ran into her. Turns out it was a small range type thing, microwave, coffeemaker and more. It was like everything in her kitchen was running off the same outlet. She wanted higher fuses. I said no it's a fire hazard. "But what if I'm home" no lady it's in your walls. You cannot see it.
Why are there too many stupid people? They think they're always right?
Lel, but what if i'm home, well something will still burn before you'll be able to extiguinsh it but even worse, what if you're NOT home
@@MrQuicheProductions
Being "home" could be worse - if awake there's the 'instictive' move to throw water on it, or otherwise fight the fire and, if asleep, being burned up with the house.
At least if one's out when the fire takes hold it's harder for it to kill you.
@@danek_hren because they reproduce at a higher rate
People asking for higher fuses are the very same people who would sue you even for your underwear if you would give them a higher fuse and their house would burn down.
10:12 Who also had this drawing in mind there, with the dog sitting at a table, thinking "It's fine", while the whole room is on fire?
Hi from the UK, where ring mains are the norm and spares (daisychaining) are frowned upon. All my plugs have fuses in them, and my 50M (100ft) real has an overcurrent fuse on the plug AND a thermal cut out on the reel. Let me give you an example. Last summer, I was having my kitchen remodelled, so I had to set up a temporary kitchen in the dining room. I had a kettle, electric hob, halogen oven, toaster,, George foreman grill, microwave, and 2 lamps the closest plug socket I had available was 20 M away at next to the front door and the remainder of the reel was wrapped up. You can imagine my mum's surprise as when she was making a cup of tea, beans, sausage, bacon waffles so kettle, foreman, microwave, and toaster on the reel got really hot and tripped out. She went checking the fuses at the breaker box, all on, changed the fuse on the plug nothing, turns out that the breaker, and plug fusenhad not tripped instead the thermal cut out had tripped. I unravelled the reel and left the 30 M cable loose behind a cupboard reset the thermal cur our and then it was fine for 3 months. If that had been America it would have blown up on night one.
My in-laws are deaf and, as such, we always have the CC on. I really appreciate that you manually create the CC. it is a noticeable difference when I watch your vids. I love the "Overloadedly Smooth Jazz" at the end.
One of the benefits of using a script.
Funnily enough, today I watched a video with auto-generated subtitles. The person started driving a tank with a ton of tank noise. The subtitles said [music]. Perhaps to some people who prefer Meshuggah :)
Through closed captioning is the only way to enjoy smooth jazz
the blooper captions are the best part
If your in-laws ever want to experience music for the first time in their lives again, LCD-4 has been known from deaf war veterans to be able to listen to music crystal clear. to them its worth way more than the MSRP.
Seriously, I love the line "the only conclusion I feel comfortable making here, is that I don't have enough information to come to a meaningful conclusion." We live in a world, and in particularly on an internet, that is so often devoid of nuance. Combined with a toxic mentality that generally prohibits admitting that you don't know something, and basic levels of communication and debate break down. You're one of the last few bastions of rational discourse and I applaud that. Thank you, Alec.
seriously. I keep waiting for this channel to say something that pisses me off purely because the guy is smart, and he just doesn't ever go there.
well, rarely.
I would really like to see a return to civilized argument.
We live in a society hehe
Yep, Alec is a gem.
Yes. I was extremely happy to hear him say that
Ring circuits are a brilliant idea, it means that no matter if the socket is the first or the last on the circuit from one side, the same amount of current can be safely drawn. Since each plug is fused and can only draw a max of 13A, it’s impossible to overload a circuit without blowing the fuse in the plug or tripping the breaker. Also it’s been standard for GFCI breakers here for a while now.
Also you can have more outlets in a given area which is great for fault finding as 1 ring circuit can in a lot of cases be upstairs or downstairs, kitchen or utility . We also can and do use radial curcuits as well and because we have fuses in our plugs every appliance can have a fuse in to reduce the amps available to protect the cable going to appliance
If there is a break in the ring your home will get burned and you have no idea until your home catch fire. A radial circuit with a bigger cable is better.
I've had this discussion before, and the end result was the only advantage was an alleged use of less wire (which is debatable). I have no idea how a ring circuit would “protect” the wiring any more than any other wiring arrangement. They all have breakers on the circuits.
@@rickcollins2814 The only main advantage if you have british sockets and plugs on the circuit because if your device draws current less than 32A you don't really need a special socket or outlet because the british plug has a fuse to protect the power chord from drawing too much current. But still for that system it is safer using a radial circuit but with 4mm² conductors as there is no fire hazard if there is a break in the circuit unlike the ring circuits with 2.5mm² conductors.
100 years and I have a whole bunch of extension cords that are cheap that I bought and plug-in air conditioner into them all summer-long melted them and I didn't understand why until now you probably just saved my life and my family's life thank you for making this episode and explaining it in the way that everybody can make sense of it thank you
Get 12 gauge ext cords
@@johnkelly1198fuck it get 1 gauge while you’re at it
_"plugging things into other things is dangerous"_
You never met my friend's neighbor. He took the fuses out of Christmas lights and replaced them with a nails or a bit of wire. The reason he did this was "the stupid fuses keep blowing when I plug all the strands in on this run". Yes this man systematically defeated every single fuse in his Christmas lights because he was plugging too many in to each other and was irritated that they kept blowing fuses.
that's why they should have breakers instead of fuses
Lol lots of people do that. Or just replace the fused plugs with non-fused ones
@@davidpar2 that's also the reason why the british plug is overrated
so he mighta had 20 plugs going in at once, eh? Like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
@@gamecubeplayer seems you dont understand anything about electricity 😂
I've noticed that every electric vehicle manual in the world says not to use extension cords with them. And I suspect the reason is simply because these cheap extension cords exist and they don't want to attempt to explain to the owner that they need a specific type of extension cord to handle the current. So instead, they just say not to use them at all. Interestingly enough, I know several people that use extension cords with their EVs, I've even been known to do it occasionally. But we all understand how to pick an extension cord with the right size of wire.
That's basically my problem with buying an electric vehicle. There classes of people who cannot safely or efficiently own them. Rental property owners would need to provide ample charging stations for residents. Home owners in neighborhoods without off street parking or more vehicles than space close enough to the building are also screwed.
Rtfm, use equipment properly and there is no problem
Electric Vehicles CHARGE using a 220 volt system ... extension cords ( in the US ) are ONLY made to handle 120 volts. ...
@@Crazt the US electrical grid .. was made to supply 120 volts to every house ... what would happen if EVRY HOUSE had a 220 volt electrical car charging system ... ( like operating a washer & dryer - every minute of every day ) ... would our electrical grid - as it is now - be able to handle THREE TIMES the power ( if each house had 1 electrical car - but how about 2 electrical cars at each house ) ... the amount of power being delivered to EVERY home in the US ... would BURN up our electrical grid as it was NEVER made to handle 220 volt being delivered to from every home ... 24/7 !
@@Darxide23 ... they use the same 220 volt electrical extension cords BOATS ( over 50 feet ) use to charge their systems while tied up at the dock .... smarter thing would have been to make the "extension cords" ... vehicle specific .
Are you saying I shouldn’t plug my space heater into the 50’ 16ga extension cord, of which the excess wire I keep coiled up under my mattress to provide additional warmth??
I learned this the hard way as a kid. I plugged in a hair dryer to one of those small white multiplug extension cords you show. The cable had been wrapped up so many times it became mis-shaped and tangled. I didn't even turn on the hair dryer, I plugged it in, walked out of the room and we heard the smoke alarm. Waked into the room, found the cord smoking and burning the carpet. My mom went to the breaker panel and found it arcing. The breaker never tripped but was dangerously flinging electricity as she tried to turn it off. Luckily everything was fine outside of the carpet being burned a bit. That moment imprinted on me. I have been afraid and taken great care to be sure to respect electricity. I drive my wife nuts with being very careful about how things are plugged in and how long and what gauge extensions are if we need to use them. I love arcade games and wanted to have ground level arcade space so I we built a shed and made it a nice, air conditioned place to enjoy them. My home's electric panel was 125 amp service, I could have potentially added the arcade to that but I spent the extra $1000 (which was cheap after a few bids) to upgrade my service to 200 amps. It was a hassle, the city had to cut my power in the middle of Texas summer while the work was done, then wait for an inspector to approve the work BEFORE my power was back on. But, I don't need to worry about running my dryer, main AC unit for the house and running 10 arcade machines in a room with it's own air conditioner. I also have a power meter have incorporated it into my videos by showing how much power arcade cabinets actually use. This information seemed to come as a shock to some who have been putting several on a single circuit/breaker.
All of this information and my obsession of respecting the electrical system in our house drives my wife nuts. I look like a crazy person but I hope to be a "crazy person" who doesn't deal with a house fire.
Based and arcadepilled.
I'm impressed on how you got your leg up on the table like that
That was the absolute highlight of the whole video.
I wonder how many tries it took him :D
Big guys can be limber. Lookup Sammo Hung
“Hawt!”
I knew that was a moment I would see later in a blooper reel
Throwing your leg up on the table with more extension cords was a pretty solid bit.
anyone that microwaves bacon deserves to have their breaker blow
Boss move for sure
I was hoping for a cables-on-his sock joke.
Why doesn't all US outlets have a switch attached to them?
@@bilinasmini3480 bloody hell, get out you bot!
Many small household appliances, such as hand-held mixers, have very short cords, so you need an extension cord regardless of how closely-spaced the outlets are.
Excellent video! Makes me wonder about the old wiring in my house (55 yr old) with grey conduit (not bob and tube) and the chance of overloading it. Guessing these gauges were still in use back then too. Luckily kitchen and bathrooms have been required so just need to be weary on the bedrooms and their plugs and not over loading them. Thanks!
The fact that you cover, in depth, the technology that we all take for granted, and not the new-fangled fancy stuff that everybody can't afford, makes you my favourite tech channel. Thank you
I have so little interest in The Latest In Smart Technology and would much rather hear about the mechanisms of how the things around us operate and the complexity of making appliances function as intended
@@felixc543 case in point: I have the exact same white extension cord at 5:42 with a few devices plugged into it 10 feet away right now. I always thought that was a bad idea, but never knew why. Now I do.
"Kitchens are usually designed more smartly to avoid this." Let me introduce you to my house, where when I moved in if you used the microwave and toaster at the same time, a breaker would trip that covered the kitchen, 3 bedrooms, a hallway, and one bathroom. (yes, I have fixed the wiring after discovering this)
My folks had two ovens connected on the same circut, after a rewiring of the entire place.
My office kitchen has one single circuit breaker for every plug in there (6) outside the fridge. You try to microwave or toaster oven or even plug in something random like a projector while the coffee maker is on (which is always, let's be honest here, it's an office) and the breaker trips. It is the stupidest design ever for a room.
this reminded me, at one point one of the light switches in my bedroom would trip a breaker and the entire house's power would go out. my parents didn't know about it at first, so whenever they'd make me mad id flip the switch
@@nataliegath395 ive literally daisy chained 12 outlets together in offices
@@nhilz Wow! That's crap, yet also amazing!
We in Czech (if it's thruthly connected) have 6A breakers for lights, 10A for basic outlets and 16A for high-power outlets (and 25A for 3-phase) and you can buy 10A extension cords and 16A extension cords so some danger but less danger.
I enjoy your humour...ever since I've been plugging in space heaters into outlets ,and only once an extension cord it got hot ,and it says on the heater itself do not plug into any extension cords. Every one that I have plugged into an extension cord got hot . And now because of your video I finally understand why that is. And I've only noticed this last Christmas that they started to put fuses in the strings of lights. Ps I agree with the not being fatal, I as a kid I stuck a coat hanger ,both sides at the same time into an outlet. It blew me back and I got knocked out. It burnt my hands to a crisp and I had to use Vaseline and wear knit gloves until they healed, I had calluses for years after. I couldn't tell you what i was thinking at the time...I probably was trying to time travel. 😁🤗
Me warming feet on the bundle of wires under my computer desk:
👁👄👁
my computer case that i still forgot to put the cover on for 5 months now warming my feet as i play beamng while running an ai model and my gpu goes to 101%
@@BigOlSmellyFlashlight honestly if it's just a glass side panel leave it off for the best air temperatures, lol just don't short it out by touching it with your static discharge from your toes. Maybe find a metal mesh side panel with 2-3mm holes to enclose the computer away from EMI/EMC for anyone nearby with a pacemaker or sensitive electronics doesn't go tripping.
Who the heck warms their feet in the middle of summer!?
Australians because it is winter over there
One guy in my engineering group works full time making a model of the electrical system in our plant, ensuring that overcurrent protection is, in fact, appropriate at every level of the electrical system. Another person did some work on extension cords and ended up banning most extension cords, causing grief and hard feelings throughout the plant: only 14 AWG cords with single outlets allowed!
That was dreadful tale from times of begining of mass installation of PCs in ex-soviet organisations. Looks like it is really tempting to shove space heater and kettle to that convinient power strip that come with new PC, and takes some time (especially for older users) to understand that it gets to funny results.
See, this is why I tend to buy 12awg 50 foot cords.,
The weird thing is briefly looking on Amazon, the 14 gauge isnt all that more expensive then 16...
At first I read "plant" as "planet" and was really impressed that a single guy could handle that job!
@@SeanBZA On top of that, it's hard to even find a decent pair of jumper cables at local stores now. They seem to only sell the cheap 16, 18, or 20 AWG ones. Anything less and they don't sell it or it's out of stock!
Idk how I found your channel, but I’m happy to be there. I learn so much
i dont know how it is in other countries, but over here where i live (Germany), every extension cord has their maximum wattage imprinted somewhere in the plastic case. every one i own/used so far, is rated for 16A at 230V, that is our standart circuit braker size for houses
Same in Sweden. But the max wattage isn't really that important, since all the cords must handle 16A, so one will comply knowingly or not. In Sweden, also all new electrical installations use not only overload circuit breakers, but also "ground failiure" breakers. (I think though you can have some wiring bypassing that for very certain purposes.)
I'm not sure - I live in an old house - but I think it is very unusual that electrical outlets will support more than 10A before the fuse breaks? So extension cords are then also always overdimensioned.
I think a lot of this is actually EU regulation these days. At least the extension cords and such, have to comply to EU standards, and have a "CE" compliance hallmark to show that.
@@andersgrassman6583 yeah, lots if eu rules nowadays. We have ground failure breakers as well. A few years ago, they were only required in bathrooms, but nowadays, they are usually installed everywhere
And every Extension cord has to have Minimum 1,5 mm² Kabelquerschnitt, ITS frankly bonkers that the us is at least 50 jears behind (No gfci in every circuid for example)
"It is confusing, but are you really surprised" is my favorite
"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." - Douglas Adams
why dont they have one nuculear generator off shore that powers a big fan that spins windmillsl all clean aeroelectrical power
Watch AEVs video on that cable car crash , someone made the same comment on that
@@djscottdog1 Cool, I'll check that video out. Thanks.
@@djscottdog1 Is it AEV or AvE?
42. . . Oops, wrong question.
Excellent video, very well done, didn't catch any sense of wrongness and agree 100% that more could and should be done.
I've personally come across 2 melted extension cords, both of which could have easily caused fires.
One was at dad's house where he ran a big chest freezer from one of those small, light gauge 2 wire extension cords which were too thin to carry the load. Don't know what the heck he was thinking because he should have known better. Curiously the nails he tacked it up with helped avoid a short because the lower conductor melted through the insulation and sagged away from the top wire.
The other melted cord was at my house. The guys who installed the dishwasher used a cord that was one size too small and not heat rated. It took some years but eventually the cord melted and made a high resistance short. The resistance was high enough to keep the current low enough so as not to trip the breaker. The cord drew power and kept getting hotter even though the dishwasher was off. Smoke started rolling out of kitchen. Curiously I happened to be getting a new furnace that day and the furnace guys happened to have been using a torch in the basement directly below the dishwasher. I went downstairs to tell those guys to cool it with their torch, assuming it was their fault. They swore they were not the cause so I dragged them upstairs to witness all the smoke. They moved the dishwasher and discovered the smoldering cord.
That one would have been a fire for sure because not only did the dishwasher guys use the wrong cord but instead of cleaning up their sawdust they swept it into a pile and left it behind the dishwasher, with the hot melty cord running right down the middle of all that sawdust.
That dishwasher got a new cord
that was heat rated and properly sized and it ran for 20 years...
When it finally died I installed the replacement myself.
In the outro bloopers you mention holding the NEMA 5-20R receptacle upside down. Doesn’t the standard put the ground pin at the top to protect the hot from falling objects sliding between the plug and receptacle?
This is funny because my school dance was actually evacuated due to whoever set things up, deciding to use one single outlet to run all the stage lights, speakers, projectors, and led panels. Sure enough, there was a fire in the school gym and the dance was canceled.
I just read that going, oh no, no he did not... no way ...
If only there was such a place where one could learn these sort of stuff...
was the song 'safety dance' playing or not playing at the time?
power strip-ception
First the pre-wash in the dish washer and now extension chords. This channel is giving me more things to be a dad about.
No one said anything about music.
The pre-wash in the dishwasher has actually made such a huge difference. I just used cheap generic cleaner for the pre-wash and then better pods for the maineash. Still kicks ass.
@@AlphaGeekgirl -
This was a very important point- I run a christmas lights drive thru park, and we use a DIY extension cordage that is also 20g and you can cut to length and attach male/female plugs as needed. I have incidentally overloaded a few of these and they literally burn up at the connections. By dumb luck, Ive not started a fire, and now I know better. But my parents did start a house fire with a bad powerstrip running ozone machines and a fan. Be careful out there folks!
I think the ozone machines are the greater danger. Ozone is a dangerous substance and should be avoided! They don't call it carcinogenic, but they do list it as mutagenic. My college professor gave us hell because he could smell ozone coming from our experiment.
Spot on. As an electrician I see this all the time. Another thing I run into is people using outdoor rated cords indoors. They think because the extension cord is thicker that it can handle more load. However, it’s still just a 16AWG cord it just has heavier insulation on it to prevent it from cracking in the cold. But used inside it’s like running an extension cord under the carpet, the heavier insulation causes it to heat up more. Heat is what damages the insulation. It caused stress fractures, which causes arcing, which causes heating, which causes fires! So, over heating your cable is what is bad and like you said, that’s why they have over load protection on building wiring. You size the wire to the load and the breaker to the wire. AFCI breakers are used in new houses now to protect the extension cords that are plugged into the walls.
If we required safety fuses on extension cords, it wouldn't be confusing, it would be profusing.
Hi.
I ask around to see if someone would
be interested in a lil Project of mine.
Some people try to be the 180 Degree Opposite
of Cancel-Culture and try to help RUclips
become less... well, lets say 'Messy' to use nice words only...
...
Interested to hear a bit more?
@Loturzel Restaurant go away
But knowing Americans, many would protest against it and claim that the government is planting spy bugs
@@loturzelrestaurant What?
@@ravenouself4181 I dont know how to say it more simple than: I have a Good-Cause-Project that costs no money and little Time; wanna hear more about how to help RUclips become less hate-filled and sex-sells-filled?
It is, obviously, not a MIRACLE WONDER Solution,
but who needs that? It worked enough in the Testing (by me) so that i know ask around if someone wants to also do it.
Unless there are more plugs per outlet, I don’t think having more outlet locations will reduce how often people use power strips. Even the simplest TV or computer setup needs more than just two outlets, and if the choice is between running an extension to the next outlet another 6ft away or to put a strip on the closest one, you still run into the gauging issue either way.
It alleviates the problem, it doesn't solve it. Most new homes will have 2 gang outlets where TVs will obviously be placed.
I use the 2 to 6 block, they are cheap, can take a lot of power and they look less messy than a power strip laying under the desk
If you're willing to spend more money on a good power strip it can be safer than plugging your devices directly into the wall. As mentioned in the video, there is no over current protection outside the walls of the house. If you plug a good power strip in, there is now a breaker outside the walls.
The problem is using a power strip as a permanent way to extend power, i.e. home entertainment, computer, etc, is a violation of NEC electrical code. Thing is there's a disconnect over what people can buy and what they can legally use it for which probably should be remedied
Both of those setups should use a high-end surge protectors or UPSs. So 14 or 12 Guage wiring and not Walmart quality internals.
Thanks. Recently I was looking at 25’ outdoor extension cords at the hardware that looked identical, but one was way more expensive than the other, but I couldn’t figure out why. However, after watching your video I suspected the wire gauge was 16 on the cheapo, and 12 or 10 on more expensive ones. Yup. Now I’ll look at the draw of what I’m going to use it for to determine do I need a 12 or a 10 gauge cord.
Oh, are contractor power strips better?
This explained so much I was confused about. Thank you very much! I got in to high powered electric scooters last year and a I’ve been trying to find something to explain how extensions and the gauging works. I have to use a EV adapter to power my 220v chargers on the go and I’ve been trying to find an extension that can handle them at 220v with a NEMA 5-15 female split connection run by a single NEMA 5-15 male. Brilliant explanation on the word “Safer”. Spot on!
After my Grandfather died we cleaned out his workshead. That’s when we found out he “wired” it with extension cords. Not too bad, just a workshead... Until the house he had with my Grandmother needed an updated breaker box. That’s when the electrician found my Grandfather also wired parts of the house with extension cords. Behind the walls.
This made laugh so damn hard and loud. Hilarious. Sounds like something I would think about doing.
Do you mean a workshed? I've never ever seen shed, spelled shead. Just wonder if it's how you spell it elsewhere or just a typo.
I use two extension cords to meet my ideal outlet position 😅😅😅
So? Some of the outlets in my mother’s house had been wired (by previous owner) with lamp cord!!! Lmao. Basically it’s the same stuff used in the cheapest, lightest extension cords.
@@PookyMo100 Hopefully, you are only running a light bulb in a lamp at the end of the cord. For all I know you might be heating your bedroom with it!!
I'm 70 seconds into the video and already, I can't wait any longer to share this story. My mother sleeps with a heating pad underneath her. One time she was taking a nap when she heard a pop and fizzle. The outlet by her bed had blown and left behind some soot. She had her heating pad plugged into a power strip plugged into one of those dinky extension cables, which was plugged into another dinky extension cable at the other end of the bed, which was plugged into the outlet that had just blown, the one that was right next to her readily available to receive the heating pad directly, the one that she couldn't access because she stuck her highly flammable nightstand in front of it. Narrowly avoided a house fire that could've been prevented entirely if she didn't needlessly daisy chain extension cables.
EDIT: Thanks for mentioning the fearmongering. Based on the rest of the video discussing the wire itself overheating I'm not sure if pop-fizzle is relevant here. I still stand by my mother being a complete idiot.
Yeah. Alec could have mentioned how the brass connectors in power strips do NOT conduct electricity as well as the copper making up the cable. So daisy chaining power strips with the second strip plugged into the 6th outlet on the first can cause significantly more heat than having the second strip plugged into the 1st outlet. The difference is the entire load of the second strip flowing through 12 inches of brass instead of 2.
That's why you should never chain two extension cords together. It's even written in the warning leaflet that comes with the cords.
Wow! Yes, make her stop that!
Also, maybe buy her high quality longer cords just to force the change.
STARTING WITH YOU DO NOT SLEEP ON TOP OF THE HEATING PAD
damn heating pads are so hard to make safe, the very idea is running contrary to what you normally want in a thing that's plugged in..
There are rental houses in the US that still have cloth insulated wiring.
Source: I rented one. It was terrifying knowing that our walls were basically wired to catch on fire.
Theres tons of houses with tube and knob wiring and lead pipes still… source; im a commercial and residential plumber. When I bought my house I had to demo everything. Youd be surprised at how many hazards exist. Including asbestos insulation, Plaster, etc.
@@swagkillayolonoscopesggoh yeah asbestos everywhere. Most places have it grandfathered in
I mean there's lead paint still around and you think they care about some cloth or lead pipes hidden in their house behind the walls. I bet they have a fuse box to make it a combo
I didn’t even know they used to insulate wiring with cloth until now. That sounds terrifying.
Your house probably also had aluminum instead of copper wire. Aluminum wiring was actually code until sometime in the 1970s (in the US; I don't know about other countries).
Yes, I'm commenting on a 2yo video... just found the channel and have been binging it. Love the way you make the most mundane and sometimes irrelevant to my life topics, if not interesting, pleasant to listen about :P
While the "distance to closest outlet" issue is also being tackled across the pond (central Europe citizen here), the issue of the number of outlets per room, and often times their location, is frankly braindead.
In today's world, in a modern home, nearly every room has about half a dozen electrical devices, plus at least half a dozen mobile ones across the home (the vacuum, a phone charger, a fan) and yet it's very common for most rooms to have 1 or maybe 2 double outlets and call it quits. And it's not like all household devices ride the line right up to overpowering the circuit of a single outlet, especially since as you mentioned the outlets tend to be chained within the wall anyway. A lot of apartments buildings are built with small rooms, hence the distances are small, but so is the number of total outlets available. And when you consider that many fairly basic things in any given room require electricity, a power strip becomes pretty much a necessity. I can't imagine trying to plug in a multi-screen PC office without either extension cables or a power strip. If we're talking a router and maybe even the speakers with a dedicated power supply, that's easily 4-6 plugs, and in a small-ish room, I might only have 2 available.
I have the same issue with just having a tv, some basic home cinema, a blue ray and a PS4... that's 4 plugs, and unless I set it all up in the middle of the wall, I'll need a cord to reach one or the other of the double outlets.
I am from Poland and there is similar problem in Poland with the number of outlets. But to be honest even if I had 15 outlets in my small room I would be a little bit wary of using them directly. I am kinda used to plug all my expensive electronics only via plug strips with EMI and RFI filters and overvoltage protection, to protect my electronics. Maybe in modern installation there is no need for them, but having a single button to cut off few appliances connected is still neat and it gives some placebo effect (but I am still one of those who if leaving house for more than one day will unplug all the non-essential electronics).
The one problem I have noticed, sometimes people buy just cheapest extension cords with a switch believing it has some kind of protection on board, but it fact it would be better to connect directly to the socket in the wall.
I work for an electric utility, we substitute "Safer" with "Improved Margin of Safety" so that the user's bias is reduced with the word "Safer".
Choice of language and wording is important
What about "less deadly"?
THATS FUNNY!! I am a utility infrastructure inspector for a City, we don't right up an issues as a hazard, we call it a potential risk.... Keeps the attorneys and OSHA of our backs when something does go wrong
It scares me people that people thought safer meant no danger at all. Like do we speak the same language anymore.
It's nice of you to cater to people's stupidity, but they will get just more stupid, and then you need to find yet another wording.
I have to say, the approach you took to explain this issue ("the breakers only protect the wires in the walls") is SUCH A GREAT way to frame the problem. How an explanation is framed is one of the most important parts of good explanations, and you do that really well in general. But I think it really shines here. Kudos!
Yeah I was surprised to learn how many people thought the fuses/breakers were for their safety than to stop the wires melting, when I studied electrical engineering. It was eye opening seeing so many first years that thought it would trip if they were earthing the phase
The weakest link is always the consumers themselves.
Thank you for turning me on to what a power meter is - I had no idea these things were available so readily and cheaply.
"My five-foot-tall cousin is taller than my four-foot eleven cousin."
"Oh, she must be tall then."
"Comparatives, how do they work?"
Metric guy here, what is a 4foot12 cousin then? Kappa
@@Meister_Knobi 5 foot
@@pswinford8 r/woosh
@@Meister_Knobi
The second number is inches. So it's 4 feet plus 12 inches. But since 12 inches is a foot it becomes: 4 feet plus 1 foot. So it's 5 feet.
19:48 "I don't have enough information to come to a meaningful conclusion." - Thank you so much. This sentence should be the go-to-answer of so many people, yet they decide to blurt out their ignorance. You don't. Again : thank you.
One of the many reasons I respect this man so greatly
I’v never understood… Why people make shit up or try to explain ideas they don’t even understand.
Saying the words… I DONT KNOW!!! Is one of the best feelings! Because it absolving yourself, and then you might just learn something in the process!
'I don't know' / 'I don't have enough information to come to a meaningful conclusion' should be taught in schools. It's an honest sign of intelligent thought. Superb channel!
I hate that this is so rare it deserves praise
The mark of true intelligence is knowing when you don't know. I tell people that ignorance is not an insult, it's a reading list.
Effin mint with the foot throwing the power cables 😂
Watching this video is terrifying as an Australian, who has
-All household circuits MUST have RCD-protected breakers in the breaker box by law (to the point where the colloquial term in most of Australia is "RCD Switch" not "Breaker")
-All household power sockets have a max amperage of 10A, sockets up to 32A exist but the plug size and shape is slightly changed to make it *impossible* to plug a the wrong cable into the wrong socket (Also there is not going to be a 32A socket in your house)
-All Power Cables must be capable of carrying the amperage of the socket they're designed to fit
Oh and, as an added bonus, I have never seen that kind of insane tri-headed extension-cable contraption before in my life, and pretty much all of our powerboards have their own safety switch.
"Imagine a coffee-maker, a microwave, and a toaster are all on the same circuit."
Don't have to. You just described my kitchen, along with a wall-mounted can opener. They're even in the same outlet, thanks to a splitter.
Yes I have tripped the breaker by running everything at once, why do you ask?
It's interesting that here in Australia we have similar Amp ratings, but due to 240v you can shove three 1500 watt devices on there and still have an amp or two spare headroom
I made a comment similar to yours then scrolled down and found a couple of other kitchen circuit overload comments then found yours. Kitchen wiring is janky.
Do you work for Too Many Small Kitchen Appliances?
This is why I run everything, except single items on multiplug extensions with built in circuit breakers and anything delicate with surge protectors.
Me glancing under my desk and realizing this is gonna be a video essay on why I'm sitting in the middle of an elaborate fire hazard
ShittyLifeProTips: Enable circuit breaker protection on underrated extension cord by tying a knot on the wires! Once the insulation soften, the conductor may contact each other and make a dead-short, tripping the breaker. The molten PVC smell, along with the spark will give you both smell and audiovisual alert as well. What else can you ask for?
lmao 😂😂
I mean, that... that's not a half bad idea(?) Unless you have an old FPE panel, those fuckers will never trip
That's a horrible idea. Circuit breakers aren't perfect. You're still asking for a house fire. Might as well sleep with oily rags in a room with lit candles.
surprisingly thats how the majority of circuits i encounter as an electrician go bad, when the wiring was installed someone got carried away with the hammer while stapling the wire and while it worked fine for lighting and small appliances. apply a larger load and boom instant short circuit with no way to fix it except run a whole new circuit. you also come across it a lot in remodels where wires are moved around and get pinched or are bent back and forth many times before the job is done.
@@OnlyNotes You're correct --- that _is_ not a half bad idea! With the emphasis on the not!
This reminds me of how in 2008, as part of a high-efficiency lighting code requirement, California started requiring the GU24 twin-prong light bulb fitting to prevent people from using incandescent bulbs in light fixtures. I think part of the concern was that the fixture may have been wired to only support the amperage of a high-efficiency bulb or might not be heat-resistant enough to handle incandescent bulbs. As such, GU24 to edison adapters were made illegal in CA. The GU24 requirement ended in 2017, so I guess the fixtures weren't the only thing getting heat.
The first time I encountered a GU24 bulb was in 2020, in a non-California state where I was trying to change my rental unit's ceiling fan bulb. I discovered the weird two-prong GU-24 bulb. I always use high-efficiency bulbs, but I didn't have a GU24 as (almost) no one in my state used them. It took me a while to find them at Home Depot where they were $11 each. Ouch. As ceiling fans are notoriously hard on light bulbs, I'd go through a lot of them. Fortunately edison adapters are legal in my state and I'm not dumb enough to stick an incandescent bulb in it.
Some extension cords here in the UK have both a fuse in the outlet block and (of course) one in the plug also. That way, you protect the house wiring and the extension cable too.
I love how our outlets look like someone who's getting shocked.
I like to believe that that's intentional and there were focus group studies involving small children and outlet designs.
@@Hamachingo - Yep, putting a cartoon face on something will keep kids away
Because they're all installed upside down.
@@loweffortgaming2593 I've heard about that.
@@loweffortgaming2593 Yup. Except at hospitals, where they followed codes.
"Imagine a coffee-maker, a microwave, and a toaster are all on the same circuit."
Yeah, I definitely don't have that exact set-up. I definitely haven't made turning off the coffee-maker before making toast part of my morning routine.
Well there wouldn't be a problem if you had them all on the same circuit. The only way it would be unsafe is if the current rating of a wire is less than the circuit rating AND the maximum potential load on the wire is greater than its current rating. If each appliance is plugged directly into the wall it should all be safe.
Yup North American houses are just like being in an RV!
I literally unplug my kettle to plug in my toaster every morning hahah
The kitchen should have the BEST wiring in the house. However, if I try to run my electric kettle at the same time as the toaster, the breaker trips. (*electro-facepalm*)
I had that issue in a Japanese apartment I used to live in, if I had the microwave plugged along the toaster, breaker went off. O_O, yet in my home house in Canada, we run everything at the same time in the kitchen with 0 issue.... Microwave + toaster + water boiler + coffee maker.. on 2 different outlet. Never had an issue. (Only issue are things breaking down and needing replacement, after 20 years of usage XD)
Been gradually replacing all of the extension cords and power strips in my house with surge protectors since you made this video. Down to only 2 or 3 cheap extension cords for niche purposes and all serious electrical hardware (except for big appliances in the kitchen and laundry room) runs through a surge protector before it gets to a wall.
Replaced our old outdoor extension cords with 14ga ones, too
Personally i much prefer surge protectors over fuses. Less hassle when you trip the breaker as opposed to blowing a fuse
You should look in to "vampire plugs" for that 16awg zip cord. You can even get a version of them with a fuse on the plug, allowing you to make a fused cord, of any length, and any amount of plugs, even polarized! Since many cord sets are already running SPT-2 cording, you can even add outlets to that little 2-prong cordset.
"This is the point where I step back" *camera zooms back*
Puns are great, especially quiet visual puns.
I also noticed that.
By the way, did you watch with the closed captioning on? If you haven't, go ahead and do it; it's worth it, even if your hearing is perfect.
@@JonesNate Thank you for letting us know! It's great! 😂😁
@@JonesNate oh yeah, his captions are top notch. Almost as good as Sean Hogan's (uncertain on that name)
European here: thanks to the higher voltage, every single extension cord in my household is rated 3250W.
Just checked, all my cheap extension cords are rated 250v/16A
Same here
Yup, checked too.
Just don't forget that the German Schuko connector is only made for 16A for a moment and 10 A continuously.
@Steve Dave In the EU at least, you are limited to 16A circuit breakers for power outlets so it would be redundant
Extension cord hell!
My boat starts with a 50 amp service. Sadly, the pedestal on the dock is 208 volts, not 240 due to the phase being two legs of a delta. At the pedestal is a Y-cable splitting the L1 and L2 out to independent 50 foot 120 volt 30 amp circuits. So coming off 208 volts doesn't matter because I use no 240 volt devices.
One 30 amp cable goes to a breaker in the engine room. Then it goes through a relay in the inverter/charger. If the shore power goes out, the inverter will pick up the AC load from the battery.
From there it goes to a panel with a 30 amp main breaker to four separate breakers, port outlets, starboard (gfci) outlets, microwave and aft HVAC. I assume these to be 15 amp.
The starboard breaker goes to the aft head (gfci) outlets, the galley outlets, the salon outlets and the foreword head (gfci) outlets.
The salon outlet, a duplex, has a two to six adapter. Plugged into this is an led light (.07 amp), a small fan (.35 amp) and an extension cord with five plugs.
The extension has an DLED TV (unknown power usage), and an LED light (.09 amp) and three extension cords.
Extension cord 1 has computer monitor (.7 amp) and a USB hub (.7 amp)
Extension cord 2 has the computer speaker(.1 amp) and the laptop (1.7 amps)
Extension cord 3 has two phone chargers (.7 amps each).
The total salon usage is 5.11 amps plus the TV. The only reason I need so many cords is because the layouts do not allow for more than two wall-warts.
Since the laptops and monitors use 19.5 volts, I am converting them to run from 12 volts to eliminate the need for the inverter on anchor.
I live in Portugal, where we have 230V @ 50Hz.
Our electrical setups are very close to France, Italy, and Germany, but differentiate in minor details.
We use 1,5mm2 (~15 AWG) for lighting and 2,5mm2 (~13 AWG) for plugs / sockets.
When I say 1.5mm2 I am talking on the cross-section of each wire, e.g., for lights our Neutral wire has 1,5mm2, our Power (Phase) wire has 1,5mm2, and the Earth has 1,5mm2.
In the past (early 70s and late 80s), the Earth connection was overlooked.
Later (late 80s to early 90s), the Earth was ignored on lighting, but installed on plugs / sockets.
Nowadays, every installation must have three wires: Neutral, Power, and Earth.
We also have circuit breakers, to avoid overloading each circuit, thus, the wire.
However, typically our wires go inside a PVC tube, which goes inside a brick plus concrete wall - generally, we do not use wood in our construction, both inside and outside walls.
Lately, to be more efficient, electricians pass a cable which has the three wires inside it, complying with the cross section mentioned above.
Many of the power strips brands boost that they have "surge protection" - which is good.
However, rarely do you find an actual fuse - which would be the ideal protection - for both surges and over-current draw.
Now I know why a lot of cables say uncoil before use. So the wire can dissipate heat.
That, and weird electromagnetic issues too. A coil of wire, even without a core, is basically a bad choke and will act as such.
I always thought it was because a coil of wire is essentially an electromagnet and current passed through it will cause a magnetic field, which can be problematic depending on what else is close to the wire (remember that a moving magnetic field can induce current in another electromagnet nearby - AC voltage would cause exactly that)
It might be both, but for high voltage AC specifically it might be more of a heat issue.
The same rule also applies to data carrying cables because of the interference the magnetic field can cause.
@@Jdbye it’s not even things near the coil that’s the problem - a collapsing magnetic field resists changes to current, and AC current means the field is constantly building up and collapsing. You effectively de-rate the wire to be able to handle less current by keeping it in a coil, because the building/collapsing magnetic fields generate more resistance than if it was uncoiled. Some wound extensions (in the UK, at least) actually have two amp ratings, a lower one for if it is coiled and a higher one if it is uncoiled for this reason.
@John Jenkins that’s partly true, but it’s definitely primarily because it de-rates the cable to being able to handle a lower amperage due to it acting like a choke.
@@jamestrotter7852 An extension cable has equal currents flowing in both directions, so wouldnt any inductance effects cancel out?
"Now here's where I step back"
*Camera cuts to farther away*
This. This is why you're the best.
Settle down man
@@codycast no, you start getting excited!
@Vap Pri how is this link still here? Why doesn’t RUclips do a better job removing spam links?
I have a home built in the 50s. It has lathe and plaster walls, so I assume the wiring in the walls is quite old as well and not up to modern standards. We wanted to add an electric heater (one of those fake little fireplaces) for a bit of extra winter heat in the living room. Most of them are 1500w, and I'm not even comfortable with that. I tracked down a model that has a hi/lo setting for 750w/1500w and only run on low. The breaker is 15 amp, but I don't trust that the inside wiring can handle a sustained 1500w load for hours.
In school (in UK) I had to learn to wire a plug and put a fuse in it. I remember the teacher telling us how important the fuse was and how it'd save our lives. He'd then tell us in USA and other countries they don't have to learn this because they don't care about it. He'd show us their plugs and tell us we are lucky. He really made me scared and that I had to learn to wire a plug or I'd burn my house down.
I don't know if they even teach this anymore in the UK. I'm pretty old.
Yep, they still teach all the basics of wiring a plug and a fuse as part of GCSE (unless it was just my physics teacher)
I learnt about wiring a plug in school in the late 90s but I don't know if it's still taught because nowadays every appliance comes with a plug and plus are generally moulded to the cable, so you are very much discouraged from doing your own wiring (a sensible idea really).
@@Dead_Metal It was just your teacher. I did Physics (and even electrical engineering) GCSEs in the late 2000s and neither one taught me about wiring a plug. Certainly we were never taught anything even adjacent in any other classes. Thankfully my parents did teach me, and it has come in handy :)
Ironically when you said you are just a person on the internet with google, it made you one of the most credible people here.
"And if you decide to microwave some bacon..."
Overloading a circuit, and doing something *truly* terrible.
There's nothing wrong with microwaving bacon. Spending half an hour and making a mess cooking bacon every morning isn't feasible. Com the pack of bacon and microwave it when you want it. Tastes almost exactly the same.
@@xenonram Yeah naw.
@@xenonram 🤢🤮🤢
Bacon microwaved between two paper towels is actually fairly decent. About 30 seconds per strip
@@xenonram Yeah, nah dawg. I'm the most pathetic chef in the world and even I think you're crazy
As an Australian, seeing that extension cord with three sockets on it is just WILD. That's fkn nuts.
In this part of the country (east central PA), we lose quite a few homes to electrical fires. The homes are old and the wiring is scary.
The home I rent was built before the USA was the USA. Obviously, the wiring is a bit newer, but some rooms have only one outlet, others have only 2-prong outlets. I could go on, but I have extension cords everywhere and I have to watch what I use all the time, especially in winter!
I am actually impressed they advertise the gauge that largely.
They're not stupid. They don't want to get sued if something happens and this way they can say it was clearly marked.
or the average ignorant consumer would be like "16 is a _bigger_ numberthan 14, it must be *_better!_*" 🤣
(of course if there were even any 14's on the shelf to compare too)
@@falxonPSN in the UK I've only seen the max amp displayed, the wire gauge could be anything out side of the (safety standard mark of some sort. :-)
@@youdontknowme5969 There was a 12 on the shelf when he was filming the store.
@@dh2032 this is how it should be. That's what matters to the average consumer. They also need to know examples of loads to size accordingly
"And Especially, These.. * swings leg onto table. leaves leg on table, casually continues talking*" XD
That's what makes him actually fun to learn from! And the dad jokes, he does them perfectly!
Very well explained 👏
Lots of efforts went into making these videos
Many thanks
I might be misremembering, but it seems like there were more devices back in the day (stereos, etc) that had internal glass fuses or breakers. Seems like I was replacing them or resetting them with some frequency 20+ years ago.
Maybe the need went away somehow?
Fuses can now be miniaturized enough to be attached on circuit boards as surface mound devices (SMD). SMD fuses can come in both single use as well as resettable. I’m not sure if this is why larger fuses are seen less often, however many new manufactured devices do also still come with the large glass or plastic fuses in the power cord.
What I missed in the video, was the fact insulation detoriates with temperature AND TIME. What that means is that you can 'overload' a wire and think that everything is fine. It may get a little warm, but it seems to work. However, the longer you do that, the worse the insulation is. After three years (time) your margin of safety is gone ... and if you are lucky you will smell the insulation smoldering before the fire starts. EXPERIENCE.
Yes, electrical fires have a distinct smell.
Years ago I was sitting at a piano bench with a floor lamp about three feet from me. The cord had deteriorated and it started arcing at the lamp end. The arc followed the cord and in less than a second flames where well above the bottom of the curtains by the outlet. (Seemed like two or three feet high to me.) I jerked the curtains away, but the arcing did not stop till it reached the outlet. At which point it self extinguished. The coiled pattern of the cord was clearly visible on the hardwood floors. There was no time to "smell" anything. I think an ARC FAULT breaker might have triggered, but such things did not exist, at least at the residential level then. In my opinion, if I had not removed the curtains, or if the floor had been carpet, a major fire would have occurred in less than 3 seconds. Insulation failure is a biggie to me. But then, that is not what this video was about, and one video can't cover everything.
I know electrical burning smell mostly from motors... what does overheated insulation smell like?
@@grn1 for a few dollars you can buy a new outlet at home depot. Plenty of instructional videos online that show how to change it. You'll want to cut off any burnt wire and don't forget to turn off the breaker first. A voltage meter and electrical pliers are good to have. I'm not an electrician, I taught myself and have done lots of small jobs like that. Tell you're landlord to fix it or you'll do it if they take $100 off rent. An electrician would probably charge $100 just to show up.
Just had a 30 amp 240v circuit catch the insulation in my wall on fire. Turns out, there's a junction box behind the wall used as a splice point. The breaker run is aluminum.... and that was twist tied to copper, then down to the outlet. The wire splice caught fire inside the junction box, then spread to the insulation and up the wall. Was awake and caught the smell before it became real bad. Fire department was less than 5 minutes away. Aaaaaaaaand.... breaker (30A) DID NOT trip.
I’m a general contractor, I’ll be having my non electrical employee’s watching this..... this is a very well executed general explanation of US electrical circuits . Great channel!!
👍👍👍👍
I agree.
Yup, and we install the recepticals upside down...cause it make a face? The ground pin is supposed to be up, so if something conductive falls into an plug not fully inserted, it doesn't short out. I don't know, like the metal fish your busy us holding onto and slides down the wall, hitting the extension cord and zap.
@@blaircox1589 NO! 🤬
@@blaircox1589 The fact that it was done that way means that most wall warts and other things are designed with the expectation of the ground down. Having it up, as is required in many commercial settings, can be a pain for residential devices.
@@MadScientist267 triggered, LOL Both ways have pros and cons, neither is right or wrong, but there is a higher probability of something conductive touching exposed prongs than an index finger on the bottom. Other than that, it's purely cosmetic and following what everyone else does as 'normal'.
I always learn something new from your deep dives into the everyday tech we all use. Every obscure or mundane curiosity thoroughly explained! 👍👍💚😏
I like the way Australia handles this. The socket is rated to an amperage, but you can plug a 10A cable into a 20A circuit for example (but not the other way around). Cables have to match the plug that feeds them (so that 10A male plug has to have a 10A rated cable attached, and can only have a 10A socket on the end). And then, to avoid overloading power strips, the powerstrips have to have their own breaker.
The only real issue is double adapters, but they're pretty hard to find nowadays (or they have breakers)
After watching this video, I went and inspected my extension cable running my window mount AC unit in my bedroom. I had never considered the extension cord gauge size on the cord I was using for my AC (it was a super cheap one). Sure enough, it was nice and warm. Ended up buying a nice thick (I cant remember the gauge, maybe 14?) extension cord specifically to run my AC unit. Thanks for possibly saving my house from burning down!
Yeh. Its probably not that big of a risk; I suspect if american homes burned down all the time due to this, it wouldve changed. And while I live in europe, with more power in the outlet, super thick power cables are also the standard.
Still made me switch out the quite old extension cord I use for my PC/desk with one with fuse and full outlet specification. Doesnt hurt to be safe.
@@termitreter6545 actually the higher voltage allows for thinner wires to carry the same power. Because Watts are Volts*Amps, you only need half the current for the same amount of power.
@@wta1518 Huh, I havent even considered that voltage and current might have different effects on reistance. So thats probably also why (vaguely speaking) amperage is more dangerous to humans than voltage, isnt it?
Thanks, learned something new today. Imma go googling electricity stuff now :D
@@termitreter6545 Well, no. Voltage difference allows current to flow. For safety from electrocution, both are important. For the subject of the video, which is mainly heating, there are other effects that are important. First there is direct heating of the wire from the current flowing through it. Second, the conductance of the wire changes with temperature, conductance goes down with increasing temperature in copper. This means that the more the temperature goes up, the worse with wire conducts and the more the wire looks like a resistor. As the wire conductance goes down (and the resistance goes up) then more of the total circuit power is dissipated in the wire rather than in the applied device ( such as a toaster). So more toasting happens outside the toaster and more in the supplied wiring. Eventually the plastic insulation melts and the conductors can short directly to each other.
A cash donation would go a lot further than a thank you. Message me for cash app details.
Good job highlighting this problem. There was a fatal fire in my apartment building many years ago caused by a space heater plugged into a thin extension cord. An elderly tenant and her dog died. RIP Helen.
And Sparky. :-(
Who was the woman who owned Helen? Guess you liked that dog, eh?
Got a chest-freezer for garage, but no outlets. No problem - outdoor extension chord. Been working for over a year, but I've noticed the chord is somewhat warm. After this video, I'm headed to the store for lower gauge / heavy duty extension. Thank you sir. Ya put the fear of God in me.
Is it possible for me to just buy a fuse that I could plug in between my outlet in my extension cord?
On the 'safer/less dangerous' linguistic quirk. I've run into a similar problem with 'feeling better'. Because if you're sick or injured, 'feeling better' can mean 'back to normal' OR 'still bad, but not as bad'.
yeah that's when I feel I have to throw in "feeling a bit better," but that's more over text. spoken, the tone tells exactly whether you mean feeling good again or just less bad
any time there is a need to convey a scale, and a comparator word (specifically when the other end of the comparison is not stated, ie "better than what, and by how much?") is used to denote a place along that scale, this issue will arise. When this exists, there is a generally agreed upon scale, but there is no objective scale, so different people can assume different scales.
this is basically a more all-encompassing way to restate what Michael Kortsen said, but the point in doing so is to emphasize the need to point out that a scale is assumed, and that by clarifying what that scale is, there is no linguistic confusion. the issue is that people hate unnecessarily long sentences or phrases, hence the backlash on euphemisms, so really we should just replace "I am better" with something like "I am unsick" since there is no other simple word to describe overcoming an illness of your own accord
@@vidiot5533 unsick is an amazing word, but no longer sick and now in good health also work. Sickn't is my personal favorite with friends though. There's also recovered, if you need a serious yet not wordy way of conveying "though I was sick I am no longer in that state"
that’s more of a problem with relative language
Which has it’s uses, but i feel like companies use relative words to cover up certain flaws
@@tacticallemon7518 Case in point: "it's uses" is less correct than "its uses"
That’s why AvE calls them “extinction cords.”
AvE gang
@Pimp My Ditch Witch He does it so often and so casually and consistently that when I introduced my friend to AvE, my friend thought at first that AvE had a speech impediment.
Good thing I'm living in Germany. Over here, every household circuit is rated at 16A, circuit breakers are dual-purpose (overload AND short-circuit) and you're not allowed to put an extension cord into market that doesn't fit the wiring standard (i.e. certified for 16A). The only thing remotely dangerous is coiling, since (and he doesn't really explain that in detail) coiled wires are just that, coils. And coils have induction, which raises the resistance.
Luckily the overload safety in the circuit breakers reacts to that before the wires overheat.
@Scotty secretly loves Chryslers "Scotty" doesn't sound like a name usually found in ovens so you should be safe. Also, why keep your love a secret? Chryslers are great!
Uncle bumble....
4:00
My kitchen’s circuit that’s connected to the microwave and etc. is also connected to the living room and small third bedroom. It gets tripped if you have the gall to watch TV and make popcorn at the same time
You are right. Having an over current protection device (or fuse) in the plug itself is a brilliant idea. Actually, I am indeed British. Im totally used to our system. In Britain, we tend to wire our houses in this way. 5 amp circuit's are for daisy-chain LIGHTING circuit's. (Remember that the UKs distribution voltage is 240 volts not 110 so the cross sectional area of our cables is lower and thus the Amperage is lower). Next we have our main appliance circuit's which are protected by a 30 Amp trip at the Main Board. Now here's the fun bit. THESE circuit's are what we call RING CIRCUIT'S and they are wired by looping a regular daisy-chain cable BACK TO THE MAIN FUSE (or Curcuit breaker) on the Main board. The benefit here is to do with the cross sectional area of our cables. In effect: by wiring it in a ring, you essentially DOUBLE the cross sectional area of the cable. This means you can draw TWICE AS MUCH Amperage as you would normally while the APPLIANCES THEMSELVES remain protected by their individual Overcurrent fuses as found in the wall plug.
After this, we typically have our KITCHEN Ring circuit on its very own, dedicated Trip (or main fuse) on the Main board so as to minimise disruption should you overload the KITCHEN APPLIANCES.
Following this, we would have other multiple HIGH CURRENT devices, such as immersion heaters, AC units etc on THEIR OWN circuit's too. The WHOLE LOT, then is protected by Residual Current Devices (RCDs) which are designed to detect an Earth-Fault or a leakage of current to EARTH (ground) thus shutting the circuit down.
In most cases, our system is pretty darn safe. The only flaws are mainly to do with the use of multi-plug bricks which plug into our outlets. The reason? They can get to heavy (as in actual weight) and cause the block to loosen from the outlet, so causing a loose connection, arcing, sparks and even fire. Thankfully, you rarely see them for sale today. I've simplified it greatly but you get the general idea. Thanks for amazing videos. I've loved every one of them.
I love how this channel continually manages to explain simple things that I should know, but do not.
"Now here's where I take a step back"
[camera zooms out]
That gave me a good chuckle
Same here! I liked it!
I always thought ring main was a good idea, it gives us a 230 volt 30 amp circuit on just 2.5mm cable, what don't you like about it? Also we can have two phase which is 415 volt here in the UK., although that's mainly for industry. I enjoy your videos, keep up the good work! :)
The purpose of the ring circuit was to save copper because there was expected to be a shortage after WWII. Fun fact there is not enough copper to go around for everyone to have a "first world" lifestyle. As such ring circuits with their lower environmental impact remain relevant.
Hi, live production technician here. We tend to work with high current cabling pretty often. I'd just like to point out the reason your coiled cables become more warm (mentioned around 10:10) typically isn't because of proximity, but induction. For this to occur in a more-than-marginal manner, you would already have to be pushing a pretty significant current through a wire and it's not something I tend to worry about as much with your traditional edison-style (or whatever the european equivalent is) cabling, but on a 30+ amp circuit (at 120v) it is possible to turn your cable into an electromagnet before the breaker trips, which generates resistance along the entirety of the coiled length of cable, and thereby heat. A breaker will not stop this process until the jacket around the hot leg has melted enough for it to short to ground.
If you find your cable is heating up in this manner WITHOUT EXCEEDING IT'S RATED CURRENT, you can throw the cable into a long, convoluted run, turn it into a nonsensical wad, or if you're not a sociopath, you can instead coil it in a "figure 8" pattern. An under-over coil works too, but I don't advise using this method as it's not easy to immediatly discern an under-over from an over-over at a glance.
A fun side fact, that old extension cable in your garage that is stuck in a tight, "curly q" pattern? Thats usually indicative of the cable having been overloaded. The neutral leg has heated up significantly enough to shrink and distort the jacketing around it. A good cold snap or a sharp pull can be enough to turn those cables into breaker finders.
The issue of electromagnetic induction in coiled cables is really only a problem in live production when using individual single wire cables for each hot and neutral. In standard household extension cords you have the hot and the neutral in close proximity, which nulls out any electromagnetic flux, so you won't have any induction.
Back to your live production example, even banded feeder solves the induction problem (even if just your three hots are banded together, separately from your neutral and ground).
I blame my fear of overloading an outlet on A Christmas Story.
"It's a major award!"
Hahaha! I had a vision of the "leg lamp" when watching this, the "old man" licking his fingers when plugging stuff in.
“It’s just one too many”
But he did have too many things plugged in... for what he was using to plug everything in and the power requirement. But even then, look at how many things it took for it to become too many.
"Fra - gee - lee? Huh, must be Italian."
That’s the first thing that came to mind when he mentioned it.
friendly reminder to all young musicians: SHILL OUT FOR THAT 14 GAUGE EXTENSION CORD, you'd be amazed how easy it is to overload a normal cable with an amp or lighting rig. especially if you decide to use a splitter
Shill out for the 12. Especially if you're a musician.
*shell out
Long extension cords runs need to be downrated. Something like 100 foot 12 gauge cord is only rated for 15 amp not 20
@@johnn3542 Indeed. I dont think he mentioned length in relation to amperage. The common cut off is 0-50ft 20a and 51-100ft 15a for 12 awg. One of the best things you can do is feel the cable and connections with your hand after they have been under load for a bit. The cables simply not making a good connection happens quite often.
@@rdooski Home Depot has some nice soft rubber easy to coil 12 gauge "Rigid" brand in black SJOOW extension cords. Decent price too, if you are into sound, these are the way to go.
I once ran about 250 ft of extension cord to power a camper. We got a heavy snow and the cord was covered. The snow created enough insulation to let the wires get HOT HOT HOT. fused the wire in various places; around which, the snow was melted significantly more than the surrounding area.
I freak out now when I see a blanket or clothes left on an extension cord.