Electricity – friend or foe?

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

Fires can occur if the electrical wiring is faulty or if homeowners violate certain rules for using electricity. For example, connecting a large number of appliances to the mains can cause wires to overheat, which can lead to the ignition of insulation. Wires also overheat due to poor contact, at connection points between wires, and at connections to current consumers.

Incandescent light bulbs also pose a fire hazard. This is due to the high temperature of the glass bulb's surface, which can reach +550°C. If an electric light fixture is wrapped in cotton cloth and connected to the mains, ignition can occur within 15 minutes. Therefore, it is forbidden to wrap or cover electric light fixtures with fabric or paper, or to make homemade lampshades from them. The danger of incandescent lamps also lies in the fact that when air enters the bulb, the filament burns out.

All electrical consumers must be protected from short circuits and overloads. Fuses and circuit breakers, designed for a specific current strength, perform this function. However, there are still many cases where homemade fuses (bundles of wire wound on a plug, commonly called "jumpers") are used instead of factory-made fuse inserts, with a cross-section several times larger than required. In such cases, the fuse ceases to perform its function accordingly.

It should be remembered that wires cannot be tied in knots, joined by twisting, glued with wallpaper, or passed through walls and partitions without additional insulation. To prevent damage to the wire insulation, it is not permitted to paint or whitewash cords and wires, nail them, fasten them to heating systems, or use telephone or radio wires as current conductors. Electric heaters and other appliances must be connected to the network only by means of plugs through socket connections. It is necessary to ensure that switches and sockets are always in good working order.