This goes beyond the scope of what we do, but I wanted to share this. My wife smelled plastic burning so I pulled apart the outlet. The missing screw was loose causing the wire to arc over to the outlet. Because there was no ground fault, the GFI didn’t trip. My circuit tracker also indicated proper connection, but the outlet was hot to the touch. If I had been inspecting this house I would never have caught it with the tracker alone.
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An IR imager would have.
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Be thankful your wife noticed it before your house caught on fire. Thanks for sharing.
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Bless you wife and be glad everyone is safe.
And welcome to our forum, Donald!..Enjoy!
Don,
An inexpensive IR Temperature gun can be used to look for over heating electric receptacles. You might want to get one and check all the receptacles in your house.
Any recommendations on a small compact temperature gun that anyone has used and liked? TIA!
RAYTEK Mini-Temp MT-6 is my favorite.
If you want a small cheap one, i bought one of these for my assistant to use and it is surprisingly good for the price. Of course it doesn’t have the resolution or features of their more expensive models, but this is not a device for thermographers either.
Consider the Flir One Pro if this fits your needs.
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Loose connections cause resistance which causes heat. It can burst into flames and burn the house down and never trip a GFCI (because there is no ground fault) or circuit breaker (because there is no over-current situation). Same reason your coffee maker doesn’t trip those devices (only difference is that the coffee maker is designed to contain the heat produced by electrical resistance)
Glad you found it and took action.