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Residential fire safety is a big deal. In the USA there is a good track record of home fire safety and different governmental and private testing organizations be sure the products we purchase are safe. Many products are marked with logo's and declarations of safety by testing agencies like Underwriters Laboratories and TUV Rheinland. When we encounter a product that is not safe, sometimes the results are catastrophic.

When unsafe products are discovered we've the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to report dangerous products to. The U.S. CPSC will investigate and institute a recall if necessary. The consumer electronics industry has done much to make sure that people are safe inside their homes from fire caused by electronic devices. The television industry decided that TV's in America would be safe by making sure no combustible components are exposed to electronic devices that can throw off a spark way back in the 1970's.

Consumer electronics contain many parts that can throw off a spark such as resistors, diodes, transistors and capacitors. Basic overloads or component malfunction can cause a condition generating tiny fires inside your TV or stereo. Voltage spikes because of lightning or electric company troubles are one of the primary causes of electronic part failure. A voltage spike can result in an immediate failure or a delayed (or latent) failure of these components.

When an electronic part malfunctions, it may simply quit conducting electricity or open the circuit it is in or it may short the circuit. Short circuits might cause over heating of the part in question or surrounding circuits. This over heating may cause a small fire inside your electronic device and is often seen outside the cabinet as a puff of smoke as well as foul odor coming from the device.

It really is crucial that this tiny bit of fire can not be utilized to ignite any adjoining combustible material and create a larger and more dangerous fire. In American televisions, the plastic cabinets are manufactured from fire resistant material and even though it is easy to burn a hole in the cabinet with a torch, the fire fades out when the torch is taken away.

There exists a web site where a consumer that had a ?whole house? audio unit catch fire in his home and he details his experience with the manufacturer, Russound and also the testing agency TUV Rheinland. The Russound CAV6.6 caught fire in his home and burned outside the cabinet. He was able to extinguish the fire with a fire extinguisher, but if he was not home, his home and family could have been lost.

Rather than admit there was clearly a problem with the product, a Russound executive threatened to sue the customer if he told anyone about the fire. There was a CPSC recall of the product, but the prescribed fix for the CAV audio unit left the flammable material exposed to all the components capable of burning up. Russound and TUV Rheinland instead decided to place a fuse in line with just one component that can emit a spark.

Neither Russound nor the testing agency, TUV Rheinland inspected the Russound CAV6.6 device that caught fire before proclaiming the defect and prescribing a fix. The question is: Would you sleep better with consumer electronics that can?t catch fire, or products like the ones built by Russound and tested by TUV Rheinland that probably will not catch fire? You decide.


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