Well thanks for joining us again today here at Sherwood Park Electrician and Edmonton Electrician halo power solutions. I’m Kevin Staigh owner and master electrician. And today I’ve got Bob Germin with me and Bob, welcome to the show. What are we talking about today? Well Kevin come across these receptacles and that they really stick in my mind of what can happen when you don’t really know what’s going on in your home with your electrical system. So Kevin I’ll just hand this off to you and so we both can kind of look at it together. Look at these. It’s not amazing. Just burnt to a crisp and it’s something that’s I think has been around in a, in a building for a while. But it is amazing that it actually got hot enough that it, yeah, look at that curve. If it’s current, it’s curve. It’s completely deformed. It’s melted, it’s melted, which means that it got to a temperature and you can see at the back, I don’t know how well you can see if from the camera, but it’s, it’s really burnt here.
And so the, it’s got very, very warm and I, and I guess really what it boils down to is what really caused this is it’s kind of the quality of installation. Would you agree Kev? Yeah, I would. These plugs have been what, what we in the industry would call them backstabbed where they’ve got a quick connect to the back and the wires can be just pushed right into the back and it makes an electrical connection. But timing time again, we see these connections fail, especially when they’re under a heavy load. That load typically in my experience as being space heaters, what have you rent? Well that’s the same, same thing. You know, that what soon as you said space here, there’s triggers to last winter when it was really cold in, in a, in a couple of weeks there the consumer doesn’t really understand.
The typical consumer in Sherwood Park and Edmonton doesn’t necessarily understand what is involved. When you start putting like Kevin said, a heavy load and you know, a heavy load, like a, like a heater put into a room and and it’s not attached with the proper size of an extension cord. And I’m sure you know, you could add to that. And I, yeah, we typically see it especially in Sherwood park and the older neighborhoods you know, cold basements in the wintertime. So Hey, you’re run over to home Depot, you pick up a couple of electric space heaters and put them in the basin. It’s nice and warm. But what you don’t see happening behind the wall is that due to the huge power draw that those heaters consume in really sorts overheating these old connections. And when you’ve got a plug like this one, you know, this is probably a 20 year old receptacle.
These connections had been stabbed in the back here for a long time. You can imagine how many times a electricity is flown, flowed through this little plug and really caused a lot of heat on it to the point that it melted it. And the homeowner didn’t know until things started burning. I mean this is, this is probably one of the worst I’ve ever seen. I don’t know. Well it is [inaudible] but you don’t, Kevin, you just reminded me that it actually can happen in, in the, that was in the wintertime, but it can actually happen in the summertime. And, and, and I know I just came to my mind. It was in my own home. The air conditioner that I had in the master bedroom is one of these air conditioners that you can plug in portable ones that has a hose that goes out.
They draw a lot of power. They do draw a lot of power. And I had it plugged in properly. I didn’t have an extension cord. It was plugged right into the wall. And I noticed when I walked into the, what are the spare bedrooms, I could smell something. And I thought, what the heck? And you know, being that, you know, with halo power and you know, 40 years in the industry may be more, I want to tell you really that, but it, it resulted in me, you know, doing some diagnostics and then I went in and found my temperature gun. And so I just started going around to the different outlets in in the spare bedroom. And I realized that wow, this thing really was a lot harder than the ambient wall around. And so I pulled it apart and just like these, the, the wires were not wrapped around each screw.
They were stabbed in the back of the plug. And,uwhat happened in, or what was happening is maybe better, we’re saying is you have your, your, your power panel that is connected to a number of these. So the power panel in this case, the, for the wire from the power panel came to this plug in the spare bedroom and then worked its way over to the plugs in the master bedroom. And the load,uin the master bedroom was actually going through this, this plug. And a lot of people all, you know, don’t really understand that is they think that, you know, each breaker, you know, is isolated to this. But no,uyou can have a number of loads and they can add up and,uthe power comes in this one and then is distributed out to this next one.
You know? And, and that really can be problematic because again this, you know, as you said, Kevin is this can heat up and then it actually starts causing a bit of a carbon. And on the wires, and, sorry, I’m getting a bit technical, but after you’ve been in the business 40 years, it just, sometimes you just, you talk too much around it, but it gets carbon on it. And then that carbon causes resistance and that resistance starts to act along with the heat. It’s almost like turning into a little toaster and it was so [inaudible] and we, yeah, you probably could have cooked some some toast. Yeah. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t the heater, but it’s, you know, if my air conditioner pulls a lot too. So you, you, you sometimes only sorta think of these things. You know, when it’s, when it’s wintertime again, you know, like you said, earth conditioners.
Yup. Every day. Even your hairdryer, I mean a hairdryer very girl is 1500 Watts. That’s a lot of electricity. That’s actually one on breaker FIP. It really is. It is. Yeah. And if it’s going through this and you have something else, you know, you’re, you’re taxing your system right to the top. Right. Okay. So if you’ve got a home that I would say is about 20 years old and you still have your original receptacles in there, you can imagine how many times devices have been plugged in and unplugged vacuum cleaners, heaters, you name it, they get worn out. And a real telltale with that, that I find in the older homes is when you find a cord plugged into an outlet and it’s literally just falling right out. And it’s a real safety concern because without loose connection and your can also cause heat, which can result in something hopefully not as bad as this, but this is an issue that that can definitely pop up.
So one of the services that we offer in Sherwood Park and the Edmonton area with halo power solutions electricians is a receptacle upgrade throughout your home. And it’s really a great, it’s a great upgrade,ubecause not only does it make your home more modern with the new style receptacles that we put in, it’s also safer because whenever we do a receptacle upgrade in your home, we use what are called the tamper resistant receptacles. Bob, what’s, what does tap resist? Well, temporary resistance,ugives you another step that you must go through before you can put something inside or receptical. Ufor example, a fork, which, you know,uone of my grandchildren,uyou know, in there, I think she was two,utwo and a half, you know, walking around with a metal fork, trying to put it in here. Well back in the old days,uuwe would put a little piece of plastic and uyou’d have to, you know, plug the, block it off.
Yeah. But y’all approved the child’s [inaudible] then nobody had to use something and you have to peel the plastic and pull it off. But now you know, with technology they’ve come up with something much better. Yeah. The tamper resistance are great. The way the way they work is they have a mechanism inside and it needs even pressure on both of the slots of the outlet for something to plug in. So if your kid picks up a paper clip or a small screwdriver or something and tries to jam it in one side of the plug, it’s not going to go in there. They’re not going to get electrocuted unlike the old days or the not too long ago days where that is a very real possibility. And I mean, even in my own home, Bob, it was built in 95 and we just recently upgraded them because, you know, a 20 year old home and we still have the plugs, that order of non tamper resistant V they’re dangerous for little kids, grandchildren, that sort of thing.
You know, the interesting thing about doing a video is we’re staying to topic and it’s so nice to be able to share things with people in Sherwood Park and Edmonton that need a Sherwood Park Electrician and Electrician Edmonton that can make them safer and, and, and not only that and maybe more effective and efficient, but you know, you, you take your car in and you spend many, many dollars over the length of you own a car. I mean, I have a Ford and I’m not, you know, flogging a Ford by any chance by just came to, came to my mind that I take it in and it gets its maintenance done and it’s, you know, you, you, you do it on a, on a regular basis. But the interesting thing about electricity, because it’s so quiet, you don’t even know what’s around and you’re not getting anyone sending out notes that you should come in and change your oil and stuff. But you know like you say, Kevin, at, as time goes on, everything really needs maintenance. Well, thank you for joining us today, Bob. Always a pleasure and be sure to check out her website, a halo power.ca and we’ll see you in the next one. Be sure to call Halo Power Solutions Edmonton Electrician and Sherwood Park Electrician.
Chicken or let’s say@halopower.ca.