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My house nearly burned down - Page 2
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icystorage
Jollibee19343 Posts
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rebdomine
6040 Posts
my laptop's video card got bricked a couple of weeks ago though so we wouldn't have been able to play dota. | ||
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disco
Netherlands1667 Posts
I know it's not optimal to put out electrical fires with water, since you risk destroying (by shorting) the equipment. But isn't it always preferred over not doing anything? Or is there some possible electrocution risk? | ||
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Targe
United Kingdom14103 Posts
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CuddlyCuteKitten
Sweden2588 Posts
On August 16 2016 20:15 disco wrote: I'm curious now.. I know it's not optimal to put out electrical fires with water, since you risk destroying (by shorting) the equipment. But isn't it always preferred over not doing anything? Or is there some possible electrocution risk? There's a pretty large electrocution risk actually. If it's an electrical device burning and you can safely unplug it I don't see any problems with using water after the unplugging.(water will brick any devices of course but it's already on fire...) If it's an outlet you have a bigger problem but you can switch that off with the main breaker. I think my top recommendations for all TL members when it comes to fires are: 1) Get a fire alarm/check that your fire alarm has batteries! This is no 1 priority. 2) Just sit down for 5 minutes and think about how you would get out from your house/apartment if there was a fire or how you would put it out. There are many youtube videos on the subject too. Tip: if you feel that you can put out with a blanket that is usually the best choice, on average it takes a longer time for a standard bucket of water to fill up from a tap than it takes for a small fire to get large enough that a standard bucket of water won't affect it much. When in doubt get the fuck out. Also if you are in an apartment and it's burning somewhere else in the building don't run out into a smoke filled staircase, it's the thing that kills most people because the smoke will get you before you have time to get out. At least for standard Swedish building code structures the fire department will have time to put out the fire long before it gets through your front door or walls if the choice is between a dangerous jump or staying in the departement and I imagine this is the case for many other countries too (checking how sturdy your front door is and how thick the walls are is a good indicator, also the newer the house is the better). Just having thought about these things even once can do amazing things to your speed in making the correct decision when you wake up from your fire alarm at 1 am. 3) Have insurance. Makes running from your house a lot easier. 4) Get a fire blanket. They are super cheap and extremely useful for putting out the more common smaller house fires and the also don't fuck up everything else in the room while doing so which is nice. (IKEA has them and most other safety things you want for cheap if you don't know where to look). 5) Take 5 minutes to check where electrical stuff is in your house and how it works (especially good if your living at home and have no idea because your parents fix stuff). Bonus is that you can now also usually fix blown breakers which can otherwise be annoying to try to do in the dark for the first time when you don't know where the fuck the main is. 6) Get a fire extinguisher if you want to tryhard because honestly they are also cheap. Don't get one for water, I think powder is the best because they can also directly put out electrical fires (and most any other fire too) without having unplugg stuff first. Do note that powder extinguishers will fuck up most of everything in the room so if you have no insurance it can be expensive! However even light insurance tend to cover 100 % of damage due to putting out a fire since insurance companies really like people who come prepared. If you don't want the powder extinguisher foam is better than water for electrical fires and equal to water in most other cases and water is the cheapest if price is an issue. Water is still good for putting out normal fires though. | ||
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