Electricity – friend or foe?

In our daily lives, we constantly encounter electrical appliances. It is hard to imagine a home without a television, mobile phone, or computer. However, improper use of electrical appliances can lead to fire.

Fires can occur if the electrical wiring is faulty or if the owners violate certain rules of electricity usage. For instance, connecting a large number of appliances to the network can cause overheating of the wires, which may lead to insulation ignition. Strong heating of the wires can also occur due to poor contact, at the junctions of wires, and their connections to electrical receivers.

Incandescent light bulbs also pose a fire hazard. This is due to the intense heating of the glass bulb surface, which can reach +550 °C. If an electric lamp is wrapped in cotton fabric and plugged into the network, ignition may occur after 15 minutes.

Therefore, it is prohibited to wrap or cover electric lamps with fabric or paper, as well as to make homemade lampshades from them. The danger of incandescent bulbs also lies in the fact that when air enters the bulb, the filament burns out.

All electrical devices must be protected from short circuits and overloads. This function is performed by fuses and circuit breakers, which are designed for a specific current strength. However, there are still many cases where homemade fuses (bundles of wire wrapped around a cork, commonly referred to as "bugs") are used instead of factory-made fuses, with a cross-section several times larger than required. In this case, the fuse ceases to perform its functions.

It is important to remember that wires should not be tied in knots, connected by twisting, covered with wallpaper, or passed through walls and partitions without additional insulation. To avoid damaging the insulation of wires, it is not allowed to paint or whitewash cords and wires, nail them down, secure them to heating systems, or use telephone or radio wires as conductors. Electric heating and other appliances should only be plugged into the network using plugs through socket connections. It is necessary to ensure that switches and sockets are always in good working condition.