Electrical fires can be prevented

Electrical fires can be prevented, homes and lives can both be saved and a local man is trying to get the word out about how to do this.

Licensed electrician Todd Nance is a certified thermographer for Hot-to-Spot Thermography in Eden. Nance said he isn’t trying to boost business by getting his message out, but trying to save lives.

Thermographs use infrared thermal imaging to look at electrical equipment, such as outlets, in homes to make sure this equipment is installed and working properly.

Nance said these tests aren’t required in home inspections. Electricity will be checked, but to really see if it is a fire hazard, Nance believes it is important to use infrared testing.

Nance met with Rockingham County Fire Marshal Robert Cardwell on Friday to discuss electrical fires. Cardwell told Nance in the meeting a lot of fires are believed to have been electrical, but if it can’t be proven, it can’t be reported as electrical, so it’s reported as undetermined. This also works with arson cases. If it can’t be proven as an arson, it’s listed as under investigation-undetermined.

Nance has thoroughly researched fires, the causes of fires and how electrical fires could be prevented. With stats from the State Fire Marshal’s Office to the product safety commission, the more he dug into this information, the more he became concerned for people’s safety.

One of Nance’s main concerns in electrical fires is the receptacles, which the dictionary defines as “a fitting connected to a power supply and equipped to receive a plug.”

Nance discovered a lawsuit was filed in 2005 against them, but they were already out of business. Nance said, “I found a letter from the new commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Committee in 2011 stating, ‘We don’t have the money to do anything about it. There’s nothing we can do. Our focus is now on child safety.’”

Nance said there are a lot of people out who don’t know they have a serious problem in their homes because this isn’t being reported.

Nance said an elderly North Carolina couple lost their lives in the past month because of an electrical fire. Perkins Daycare in Eden burned down six months ago because of an electrical fire, according to Nance, who said for the time the building was built, it makes sense the type of receptacle was installed.

Nance said for Perkins Daycare he went in and inspected the receptacles and discovered the wires were installed around the screws, which is the proper way to install them, but the plugs heated up quickly while he was testing them, which isn’t good.

Nance said in 1996, the electrical code changed to require 20-amp circuits. Nance said when this happened, hairdryer manufacturers supersized their hairdryer. An 1,875-watt hairdryer puts a heavier load on receptacles and not every person uses the blow dryer in their bathroom, so if a person plugs their blow dryer into a 15-amp circuit, it overloads the circuit. The same happens to blow dryers.

Nance spends his time proving how dangerous this can become by testing his own circuits in his home.

Nance’s infrared camera can see how high a wire is heating up inside the receptacle. Recently Nance investigated a funeral home in Eden and found it had 37 bad receptacles.

Nance found a wire heated up to 146 degrees in a receptacle due to what he said was poor workmanship. The wires were installed in the back of the receptacle instead of on the screws. The wires were inserted where a screwdriver is supposed to be placed to release the wires, instead of the hole in a receptacle where wires can be placed. This is what Nance calls a guaranteed fire; however, this receptacle was in a location in the ceiling of the funeral home which is seldom used.

Nance believes electric inspections are very important. The normal inspection done when you’ve bought a home doesn’t include an infrared inspection. All the inspector does is take a polarization plug and place it into the outlet and confirm whether it’s wired correctly in the back. The inspector isn’t allowed to touch anything inside the panel. The electrician also can’t see the problems inside. Only someone with an infrared camera can find the problems inside the wall and be knowledgeable of what proper temperatures are and if the temperatures are acceptable.

The Consumer Product Safety Committee put a document out in the 1990s, according to Nance, which says an electrical inspection should be done every 10 years on homes. However, the report goes on to say if there are any symptoms such as frequent power outages, overrated powers, lights often flickering or arching and sparking or odors, you should have an inspection done immediately. The average home inspection was done 40 years ago, according to Nance. The Consumer Product Safety Committee also recommends running a portable heater and sticking your hand on the cord or the receptacle to feel heat, he said.

A fire in Ruffin earlier this month is believed to have been caused by an extension or “drop” cord connected to a heater, according to Cardwell, though this fire is still under investigation by Deputy Fire Marshal Tommy Curry.

  Cardwell said, “There’s not an extreme amount of electrical fires in the county, but they do occur.”

Nance said the importance of preventing electrical fires is his main concern. “It can happen to anyone,” Nance said. He encourages doing research and finding ways to prevent the fires from happening.