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That's more than enough to ignite wood or old insulation under normal circumstances, but winter weather is less humid than in the summer. Once that wiring is loose, the electricity can arc, with a heat output reaching 1,500 to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Waste heat generated by the electrical current can cause wiring hidden within a home's walls to expand and contract, eventually loosening it. Coupled with a faulty circuit breaker, this overload can cause the products to overheat and possibly catch fire.īut it's even more likely that a fire will occur in a place you can't easily see. Devices like these may overload a circuit, especially one that's already reaching its maximum amperage allowance. Electrical devices that are built to put out heat, like space heaters and hair dryers, tend to use more power than other devices. On the next page, you'll find out about some of the other factors that you should take into account when preventing a very toasty holiday.Įven certified products can cause an overload. With a 20 amp electrical outlet, you're using around 80 percent of the available current, whic­h is the most you should be using per circuit. You divide that number by the volts in your house (usually 120) and you come up with 16.6 amps of current that you're using. ­Say you're using 2,000 watts of power with your holiday lights and other decorations. P/e=i (wattage divided by volts equals amps). To determine how much electricity you're using with all of those holiday decorations, you just need to do a little math. So how do you find out how much is too much? Actually, it's pretty easy. This means that you don't necessarily have to overload a single outlet to cause a fire.­ ­ If you wander back to your circuit breakers or fuse box, you may see a single circuit labeled "Dining Room" or " A/C unit and Washer/ Dryer." You may find that all of the outlets in an entire room are connected to a single circuit. Another potential ­hazard occurs when more than one outlet is wired to a single circuit. But circuit breakers and fuses aren't always reliable. ­If too much current is drawn from the circuit, the circuit breaker trips or the fuse blows, breaking the circuit to prevent an overload. Most circuit breakers and fuses regulate at either 15 or 20 amps.

This current is expressed in amperes, or amps. They regulate the amount of current - the volume of electrons moving through a conductor, such as an electrical cord - which can be drawn from a circuit. Somewhere in your house, you'll find a wall-mounted box, containing either circuit breakers or fuses (found in older homes).Ĭircuit breakers and fuses act as failsafes against electrical overload. At any given moment, the average American house has 120 volts of electricity flowing though it. Also check out the Dictionary Diversion Safe and the Spy Bolt Secret Container.To figure out how many things you can plug into an outlet before it will catch fire, first we need to get to the heart of how electricity works. You can purchase the electrical Outlet Hidden Wall Safe at Amazon for $6.95.

Do you have some small valuables like jewelry or maybe a nice watch that you really want to stash but don’t have tons of money to spend on an expensive safe? How about using the Electrical Outlet Hidden Wall Safe.