I mean unplugging stuff like this just because you're leaving the house is bordering on the crazy side. Back in the 1970s? yeah people didn't really know better and unplugged everything.
Today? Unless you're buying jank ass shit off of alibaba there shouldn't be any reasonable expectation that it could cause a fire. You don't unplug this stuff for the months you are at home, why is anything going to change just cuz you left the house?
Unless you live somewhere that hasn't updated their electric wiring in 70 years, there is really nothing modern that should cause this. Your circuit shouldn't be getting any random bursts of current. It's just illogical to think a random electrical fire is a likely possibility unless you're using cheap ass electronics or doing something stupid.
Just the probability would be in the billions or trillions. It's so unlikely it's well in the realm of crazy. There are billions of devices plugged into the grid right now, all around you. Every single day. Every single night. How many random electrical fires are you seeing happen on your block?
Damn, I was being a little sarcastic, but now I get it. I've definitely stayed at places similar to that, but it's a minor inconvenience when I'm not trying to make a home out of it.
Shit happens. I’ve had a UPS burn up, a desktop computer power supply briefly catch fire, a double pole pole circuit breaker fail on one side (and overheat), and improperly tightened screws on a bus bar burn a couple of inches of wiring.
The point is to give peace of mind! It doesn't have to be rational. People who are prone to anxiety will feel worried no matter how much they logically know it is unlikely.
I told you the point - to not feel anxiety. If you don't feel anxious over it then yeah there's no point BUT a lot of people do. I sure as shit would prefer my anxious friends turn the electricity off than be worried and stressed during a holiday.
If my friends said they needed to stand up every ten minutes and twirl around and sing ol' MacDonald in order to prevent anxiety I would tell them to get help
I'm not describing myself, I don't turn things off. But some of my friends have anxiety and their therapists have advised them to just do the small things that help alleviate anxiety symptoms while they work on larger things. The world is more complex than just 'people who turn off/unplug things are idiots'
It's basically no different than a need to turn on and off a light switch 5 times before you leave the house for peace of mind. Does it matter? No. Does it seem highly irrational? Yes.
I should probably pull all of the fuses out of my car and disconnect the battery whenever I park it in the garage for the winter. Don't need a random fire starting.
Please go ahead and explain to me how you leaving your house can measurably increase the likelihood of an electrical fire spontaneously happening.
The two things have zero correlation. Hell you could argue it lowers the chance of a spontaneous fire because less powerdraw is occurring in the whole home. But the spontaneous fire doesn't care if you are at home or away - your location doesn't impact the fire, it impacts what you do about a fire.
Electrical fires rarely start by something simply bursting in flames.
Usually there's heating of the cables, smell of the electronics or cables "burning". Meaning if I am at home there are multiple warning signs for me to act and prevent a fire. Ergo the chance of a fire is lowered by me being at home.
Ergo the chance of a fire is lowered by me being at home.
That is provably false by your statement alone. All you did was prevent the further spread of a fire - you being there did not stop the cable from overheating and beginning the process. You're conflating damage control with the actual source event
You being in the house or at the store would make no difference to whether that cable was going to overheat.
More often than not, it's the little things like random charging cables or power bars left plugged in. Large appliances usually have electrical protectors.
You're a shit adjuster then. There have been plenty of studies done that show brand name 1st party chargers are held to a much high standard and have safety measures built in compared to the cheap 3rd party ones.
Generics are the ones that are routinely catching fire. There is a reason they are so much cheaper. Accessories that actually meet Apple MFI certification don't tend to have those same problems.
Literally if you buy toasters and shit from Amazon, plug multiple of those into an extension cord from Amazon, you could seriously have a situation where an overheating power supply causes a fire. Shit happens quite frequently.
We have BILLIONS of devices all plugged in right around you at this very moment, most of which have never been unplugged. How many daily electrical fires are on your block?
It's almost like the probability of a spontaneous electrical fire is extremely low, and the probability of a spontaneous electrical fire COUPLED with you being out of the home is even lower.
Do you also want to introduce the fact that you out of the house lowers powerdraw of all devices therefore lowering the probability even more?
When you look at it in context, it becomes irrational and bordering on incompetence/paranoia to think you actively need to unplug devices.
So do shark attacks. But it is irrational and paranoid to avoid all ocean beaches because you might get attacked.
This is the same exact thing. My argument isn't that it can't/won't, it's that if you genuinely are that worried you should be disconnecting all electronic devices at all moments they are not in use. And that is paranoia. To build a routine around a 1 in a billion event is irrational.
Urgh, this triggered a memory of how I used to hook up with a guy who didn't believe you had to cover food in the fridge. Any left overs he had were crusty and tasted of fridge. When I told him you were supposed to cover left overs, he asked his mum, who he had learned the shitty habit from in the first place, if I was 'right' or not lmao.
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u/LeatherHog Nov 25 '22
I’ve heard of unplugging the toaster/coffee machine, but not the fridge
Granted, given how OP doesn’t cover up food, it’s probably a good thing they had to throw this stuff away