General > General Technical Chat
My apartment's bath fan caught on fire
NiHaoMike:
--- Quote from: pigrew on June 12, 2020, 06:29:05 pm ---I've contemplated replacing mine with an interconnected system, but I'm not sure if it's worth the effort of running more 14/3 Romex through the walls (and my circuit breaker box is full after adding a SPD).
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There are a few wireless interconnected alarm systems like Nest, as well as low voltage interconnected alarm systems.
--- Quote from: james_s on June 12, 2020, 03:47:09 am ---Indeed, I actually knew a guy who died when he left something on the stove and fell asleep, set his apartment on fire and resulted in his death and everyone who lived in the building being displaced. He had a vaping habit and had disabled the smoke detector in his apartment, had he not done that he'd still be alive. He wasn't very old either, 22 I think, one of those sorts who was his own worst enemy.
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Two words: Darwin Award.
VK3DRB:
A mate's bathroom fan caught on fire. $20,000 worth of damage to his home. The cause was a fan from China which had no safety approvals, not even the RCM or CE marks. It is very likely it had no thermal fuse in its windings and the plastic has no fire retardant in it.
Unfortunately a lot of non-compliant product has found its way into Australia. The worst was mains flex cable where the insulation goes brittle and cracks when exposed to high temperatures like in a ceiling. The stuff was sold all over Australia through major hardware stores. The importer of this illegal cable was hunted down. The media called her the "cable girl".
https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/cable-girl-scandal-could-cost-80-million/news-story/6f8af4d1590fd580b234c98f1b1ada5c
tkamiya:
I've been finding many of electrical fixtures available from online sources are not UL or ETL certified. When it comes to wires, I insist on a particular maker and buy it locally. Fixtures, I make sure it is UL or ETL certified.
UN-certified products are EVERYWHERE in US. It is really a horrible situation. Kind of reminds me of aluminum wire fiasco, although nature of it was a bit different, damage was just as extensive.
VK3DRB:
--- Quote from: tkamiya on June 21, 2020, 02:07:57 am ---I've been finding many of electrical fixtures available from online sources are not UL or ETL certified. When it comes to wires, I insist on a particular maker and buy it locally. Fixtures, I make sure it is UL or ETL certified.
UN-certified products are EVERYWHERE in US. It is really a horrible situation. Kind of reminds me of aluminum wire fiasco, although nature of it was a bit different, damage was just as extensive.
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That is because the US, Australian and other governments are pretty much inept enforcing safety compliance with imports. That is why so much dangerous stuff comes in via eBay.
After an innocent young woman in Sydney was electrocuted by a non-compliant iPAD battery charger she had just purchased from a Chinese cheapo import shop in New South Wales, the chief of the NSW Office of Fair Trading implied to the media that non-compliant chargers were a new issue and they would look into it. The truth was that non-compliant chargers were commonplace in these types of shops and the government simply failed to so its job. They and the importer should have been made fully accountable for the death of this young woman. It was not the purchaser's fault.
The police fine people here $1652 for or not social distancing as required. We should be doing the same for every unsafe non-compliant import, starting with eBay imports.
Lord of nothing:
Sry here in europe a lot of Company buy in China without testing anything.
The resell there crap without think about risk (get sued and loose maybe all there private value).
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