Case of the burnt plug

Call it irony. Shortly after writing an elaborate post on home maintenance, I realized that I was a victim of negligence too.

Last night, the Air-conditioner at my grandparent’s house stopped working. They reported a flash near the plug point.

When I went there, I saw the plug and socket were black in color and the heat had done considerable damage to the wiring.

I was amazed to see such an incident as the air-conditioner was connected through a voltage stabilizer. Also there was a proper junction box for the whole system including a trip switch!

Anyway, I replaced the plug with a new one. While removing the old burnt plug from the system (picture of the same is shown above), I saw that the wire inside was charred and brittle and lots of strands of copper were flying around. (not crimped properly by the person who installed it).

I tried to assess the possibilities of this mishap and concluded that over-current caused the wires to heat up and melted the insulation. This lead to the neutral and live wires inside the plug to touch each other and there was a sudden inrush of current causing the plug to heat up and melt.

My two cents from this incident, which I would like to infer and also share with all here:

• Use good quality plugs and wires for your home. Use fire retardant or suppressing material. This is highly recommended.
• Make sure that your electrician is known and reputed. If he is trained and has a diploma it is even better.
• Use appropriately rated appliances especially with regard to current rating.

cheers

authors

Short URL: http://aavaas.com/?p=136

Posted by Vivek on Sep 26 2007 Filed under Socket/Switch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry