Less fire-prone extension cable?

[Sarra]

I occasionally dabble in watching elechickens on youtube talk about elechicken stuff. I saw a video that mentioned that in Europe, it's extremely common to have a fuse in the end of electrical plugs, which tends to be replaceable. For those of you in Europe, that... Is EXTREMELY uncommon here in the US. In the US, we use circuit breakers to protect the in-wall wiring only.

 

Anyway. My pops uses an electric leaf blower to clean the roof, and he uses an extension cable. I KNOW from looking at the leaf blower that it isn't going to pull that much through the cable, but my pops is constantly worried about electrical fires, and rightly so. He has good quality extension cable, but I want to get him something for peace of mind, and I was curious if there was a product available in the US, for US outlets, that would add a 10-amp fuse to the circuit at the wall outlet. I've checked Amazon, and... Their search thing is useless. So, does anyone know of a product that I could get for my dad that would help with safety for extended periods of leaf-blowing? I would prefer something that is rated for outdoor use and can either be reset, for a circuit breaker, or replaced, as in a fuse, without replacing the entire product.

[Sarra]

Yeah, our house was built by an Electrical Engineer, so the wiring is an entire AWG thicker than was required by code in the 1970's, which means that it's actually more likely for a bad extension cable to catch fire.

 

I might grab a GFCI cable, then. Or maybe just get a 12 or 10 guage extension cord...

[CerealExperimentsLain]

7 hours ago, Sarra said:

Anyway. My pops uses an electric leaf blower to clean the roof, and he uses an extension cable. I KNOW from looking at the leaf blower that it isn't going to pull that much through the cable, but my pops is constantly worried about electrical fires, and rightly so. He has good quality extension cable, but I want to get him something for peace of mind, and I was curious if there was a product available in the US, for US outlets, that would add a 10-amp fuse to the circuit at the wall outlet. I've checked Amazon, and... Their search thing is useless. So, does anyone know of a product that I could get for my dad that would help with safety for extended periods of leaf-blowing? I would prefer something that is rated for outdoor use and can either be reset, for a circuit breaker, or replaced, as in a fuse, without replacing the entire product.

But... That's what the fuse/breaker in the breaker box will do... It's entire purpose in life is to trip when the load is high enough that there'd be a risk of the wiring catching fire.  So unless you use an extension core that'll fail before the breaker does, like one more for lamps, breaker in the outlet box, breaker in the breaker box, there's no difference except for how far you have to walk to reset the breaker.

[WhitetailAni]

34 minutes ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

But... That's what the fuse/breaker in the breaker box will do... It's entire purpose in life is to trip when the load is high enough that there'd be a risk of the wiring catching fire.  So unless you use an extension core that'll fail before the breaker does, like one more for lamps, breaker in the outlet box, breaker in the breaker box, there's no difference except for how far you have to walk to reset the breaker.

US electrical system has some big flaws.

[Mling]

The standard safety device used outdoors is called an RCD. Its not the same as a fuse, it wont protect for overload. It protects against the cord getting damaged. I use one when water blasting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual-current_device

 

 

[CerealExperimentsLain]

8 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

US electrical system has some big flaws.

I literally said " So unless you use an extension core that'll fail before the breaker does, like one more for lamps,"  You're linking a video that I've seen before and says the same thing as my own post.  Why are you linking this video?

[WhitetailAni]

Just now, CerealExperimentsLain said:

I literally said " So unless you use an extension core that'll fail before the breaker does, like one more for lamps,"  You're linking a video that I've seen before and says the same thing as my own post.  Why are you linking this video?

Because I'm tired and misread your post. It's 12:30 in the morning and I should be asleep right now 

Ignore me.

[Vishera]

9 hours ago, Caroline said:

you sure? I know brit plugs have one but I'm not so sure about the rest of Europe, standard europlug, schuko or GOST (russia and eastern europe) don't have any fuses on them, so it's not extremely common honestly.

I live in western Europe and we don't have any fuses in our plugs,only Brits have them in Europe.

[greenhorn]

I can also confirm that our plugs don't have fuses, I have only seen that in UK type plugs.

Use an extension cable with sufficient wire gauge and you're fine. Keep in mind though that for extension cords that are on a drum, that cord has to be unrolled for it to properly handle the specified current (might overheat otherwise). If you want additional protection, you can try to find a RCBO adapter (RCD with overcurrent protection) that is properly rated, but normally you shoudn't need that.

[Dutch_Master]

10 hours ago, Sarra said:

in Europe, it's extremely common to have a fuse in the end of electrical plugs

As someone else already mentioned, this is only the case for the UK. The rest of Europe doesn't use fuses in plugs. Reason for this "anomaly" is that the UK uses a ring circuit throughout the property (mind, this is domestic, not necessarily correct for commercial stuff) whereas on the Continent a star- or tree pattern is used for wiring. We do use fuses, but in the distributor cabinet. These are 16 Amps (at 240V) and protect a group of outlets distributed throughout the house. Most homes have at least 3, and often more, of these groups. One or more are additionally protected by an RCD, specifically those where water is nearby the outlets (kitchen, bathroom, etc). Larger properties have 400V 3-phase AC connections to the local (effectively national) grid as do homes who made the "transition" from gas for cooking and heating to electric (something much more common in the US). The 3 phases are equally distributed throughout the house to balance out the load between them. For older homes this load-balancing is done on a home level, not per room like described before

 

Personally, knowing a thing or two about electricity (I'm a certified refrigerant engineer ) I'd strongly recommend North Americans to change to the Dutch/German electrical standards, being much, much safer then what's currently in force on that side of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, I doubt that'll happen any time soon. Or at all

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Christmas lights.

 

 

Oh, you think I'm joking? They have a fuse

[H713]

Extension cords are only as dangerous as the people using them. They don't have to be dangerous, but even a fused extension cord is dangerous in the wrong circumstances. Furthermore, when the fuse blows, some idiot is inevitably going to wrap it in aluminum foil.

 

FWIW, IEC cables aren't much better. There are plenty of devices that use IEC power connectors which draw way too much current for a generic 18 AWG power cord.

 

We also have cheater plugs (which lift the safety ground), adapters to allow you to plug 15 and 20 A plugs into a 10 A socket, and a whole host of other things that can be even more dangerous. 

 

Size the cable appropriately for the load. All of this equipment will state its current draw on it. If you're really worried, size the extension cable appropriately for the circuit it is being plugged into, and the circuit breaker will provide adequate protection.

 

Where do fires happen? When someone plugs a space heater into an 18 gauge lamp cord, then tuck it in a corner and forget about it.

 

This is all an issue of P = I^2 * R. Do keep in mind that R also includes contact resistance. Corroded contacts in a power plug can be far more dangerous than an undersized extension cable.