Without a doubt, daisy chaining is a safety hazard that people should easily know about. However, a lot of people still dose it because the wall outlets in their home or in their office cannot cater to their needs. You would expect that a power strip would be able to solve their problem, but sometimes one still does not meet all the needs at home, especially when there are a lot of people staying in there. People opt to try daisy-chaining to solve this problem, knowing the possible consequences. Here are some things that you should know about it to help you out.
What is daisy chaining?
Before anything else, one should know precisely what daisy chaining is all about. To put it simply, daisy-chaining is the process of wiring multiple devices in one place. When you do this, you should be aware of the possibilities. Where strips are present, the term can be said where one power strip gets plugged into another strip. When you plug a strip into another, you are multiplying the outlets at your disposal. Sometimes, people also plug another strip into the other strip that is plugged into another strip, causing them to form the so-called daisy chain.
Why shouldn’t you do it?
As previously mentioned, it is something that you should not do and is a terribly wrong idea, and this is because it can do so much damage to your home. For example, every electrical appliance in your home has a rating that includes the wiring, wall outlet, and power strip. By daisy-chaining, the chances are that you are going to exceed this rating is high. This can cause the whole thing to combust or to get into a short circuit because of overloading. This can definitely be something that your power strip cannot handle and thus, can cause it to heat up and eventually lead to something such as a fire.
Is it dangerous?
Without a doubt, doing daisy-chaining with your strips can be very dangerous. Daisy-chained strips cause more than three thousand residential fires that happen all around the globe. This is because it can easily overload your circuit, and even with a circuit breaker, this can cause too much damage to your appliances. The strips can get overwhelmed to the point of bursting into fire. Even professional electricians would oppose the idea of daisy-chaining simply because of the potential consequences. It can cause more than just fire because it can also electrocute someone that steps on the wirings.
Alternatives to daisy-chaining
What you can do to replace a daisy chain would be to replace your power strip with a cord that would actually reach an outlet so that you would not have to place a power strip on another power strip. As much as you can, try to find an outlet where you can plug in so that they meet the electrical power needed and there would not be any overload that can cause accidents.