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Many accidental house fires are caused by faulty electrics such as overloaded sockets and faulty electrical appliances.
A nationwide alert has been issued warning of the dangers of fires caused by exploding e-cigarette chargers.
More than 100 fires have been blamed on the devices over the past two years.
Many blazes are taking place because some e-cigarette smokers are not using compatible chargers. This means too much current goes into the batteries, causing overheating, and then explosion, with battery material shooting metres out and causing a fire if it lands on anything combustible.
Cases that have emerged recently:
Mobile phones are considered essential nowadays. But do you know the dangers surrounding fake mobile phone chargers?
1.8 million chargers are bought on-line each year in the UK by mobile phone owners in search of a bargain.
Although it can be cheaper to buy imported, unofficial chargers, fake mobile phone chargers are often made with poor quality components that fail to meet UK safety regulations. This means they can cause injury, electric shocks and even fires.
For specific advice about the importance of using the right chargers for iPhone, Blackberry, Samsung, Nokia, HTC, Motorola, LG and Sony mobile phones, visit the Electrical Safety First website (opens in a new window/tab).
We recommend you:
Most people have extension leads in their homes, using 4-way bar adapters to increase the number of appliances that they can plug into a wall socket.
However, although there is space to plug in four appliances, this does not mean it is always safe to do so. Different electrical appliances use different amounts of power. To avoid the risk of overheating and possibly fire, you should never plug into an extension lead or socket appliances that together use more than 13 amps or 3000 watts of energy.
Use our calculator to plug in some typical household appliances to see the effect on the load, and to get useful tips on how to avoid overloading your sockets.
The Socket Calculator has been brought to you by Electrical Safety First.
For more safety information visit http://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk
Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service
Service Headquarters
Lime Grove Avenue
Carmarthen
Carmarthenshire
SA31 1SP
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