another fire strikes one of our own

God my heart hurts for him. I don't know the feeling of your life crumbling in seconds around you and I don't want to. It's so sad. And so very close to home for me.

Grant if there's anything you need help with I'm in Barre and willing to devote anything you guys need. Clean up, anything.


Check out what's new on my website... www.Homegrownscales.com

Regardless of what kind of racks you have , home built, pro built, all can be a fire hazard. Being diligent and having a case of ocd about you connections and electrical components is key. Inspecting is key. Never band aid fix a potential issue. Also make sure fire extinguishers are in place and smoke detectors are working properly. I put in a sprinkler system in the snake rooms and it was pretty easy to do considering i have a drop ceiling. I have 3 sprnkler heads in the room and 1 in the walk in incubator. Total cost was around 600 bucks and so worth it.

6ft extension cords you buy for 1-2$ are fine for flexwatt as they are 16g and handle 13amps/1800watts. No one will ever over load that wire or cause it to overheat.

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As the owner of Vision Products, this fire and the other 3 or 4 fires that I have heard about in the last year are incredibly disturbing and have kept me up at night wondering what could have caused them.

I have talked with many of the players involved in some of these fires and a disturbing pattern seems to be forming and it involves cheap Chinese power strips used to plug all of the heating elements and thermostats into.

Back in the old days, power strips used to cost quite a bit and were made in the USA and had a metal case around where the numerous plugs were situated. Today, we all go to Home Depot or Walmart and grab 2 plastic power strips (made in china) for $4.99 and never give it a second thought.

We think nothing about paying $1000 for a rack, thousands of dollars for breeder Ball pythons and hundreds of dollars for high quality thermostats and then we splice the whole thing together using a plastic, made in China, $2.49 power strip.

On top of that, how many of us actually read the label on the power strip to see how many watts it will safely accept and then factor in exactly how many watts we are actually plugging into these things? I know that I have been guilty of overloading cheap power strips and I have even had two of them short out, melt the plastic case a bit and turn smokey black. Luckily, they were both on concrete floors with nothing close to set a fire.

I recently went out and bought some higher quality power strips and I got the smoke alarms connected into the alarm system and I feel a bit better about all the electrical gadgets that I have running at my facility.

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^ Very good point. Don't mess around with this stuff folks.

All the Power Strips I buy are $8 each 200 joules surge protection and handle 1825w

The Higher the Joules the more youll pay and better protection you get. 200 joules is plenty per rack that is under 200 watts. My average Surge power strip maxes at 60watts.

Just dont buy off brand, and if you can buy the ones in computer sections as their rated to handle electronics better than whats sold in general stores near extension cords..

For the people worrying over soldering vs clips please don't. It's really a preference IMO. You can screw up soldering too. It's really the quality of construction that matters. When using clips you absolutely have to make sure they are securely in place. Both my racks use clips and I've had no problems at all with.

As someone else mentioned, I'd be more worried about the surge strip you use.

I don't really trust those little plastic covers either. We crimp the metal clips onto the flexwatt and then wrap the heck out of them and the edges of flexwatt with electrical tape.

Ok so i watched the video and that all makes sense to me and is something i would feel comfortable doing but i dont get why that method is safer than using the plastic clips? Like once you finished you just wrapped up everything that was exposed in electrical tape... So if i just went over the plastic connections with electrical tape wouldnt that be the same?

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

Ok so i watched the video and that all makes sense to me and is something i would feel comfortable doing but i dont get why that method is safer than using the plastic clips? Like once you finished you just wrapped up everything that was exposed in electrical tape... So if i just went over the plastic connections with electrical tape wouldnt that be the same?

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Using the tape is better over the plastic covers yes, But clips and solder 2 different methods of wiring up.

Clips being they over time can get loose and cause problems. When Solder is loose you lose connection and no heat.

As long as you check the clips often making sure their not wiggling on the flexwatt and insulate with electrical tape you should be fine.

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Originally Posted by RichsBallPythons

6ft extension cords you buy for 1-2$ are fine for flexwatt as they are 16g and handle 13amps/1800watts. No one will ever over load that wire or cause it to overheat.

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True, but the heater cable the insulation will not burn unlike the plastic insulation on cheap cords if the connection arcs the insulation will not catch on fire. That is why I suggest it. The small additional cost adds a small amount more safety.