DONALD BRADLEY

Residential fire safety is a big deal. In the USA there is a good track record of home fire safety and numerous governmental and private testing companies make sure the products we buy are safe. Many products are labeled 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 tragic.

When hazardous products are found we have the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to report dangerous products to. The U.S. CPSC will investigate and institute a recall if needed. The consumer electronics industry did much to insure that people are safe within their homes from fire caused by electronic equipment. The television industry made the decision that TV's in America would be safe by making certain no combustible parts are exposed to electronic devices that can throw off a spark way back in the 1970's.

Consumer electronics have many components that can throw off a spark including resistors, diodes, transistors and capacitors. Simple overloads or component malfunction could cause a condition creating little fires within your television or stereo. Voltage spikes because of lightning as well as electric company troubles are one of the greatest factors that cause electronic part failure. A voltage surge can cause a sudden failure or a delayed (or latent) failure of those components.

Whenever an electronic part malfunctions, it may merely stop conducting electricity or open the circuit it is in or it could short the circuit. Short circuits could cause excessive heating of the component in question or surrounding circuits. This excessive heating might cause a tiny fire inside your electronic device and is often seen outside the cabinet as a puff of smoke as well as bad smell coming from the piece of equipment.

It is essential that this small bit of fire can not be used to ignite any adjoining flammable material and create a more substantial and more dangerous fire. In American televisions, the plastic cabinets are manufactured from fire resistant material and although it is possible to burn an opening in the cabinet with a torch, the fire fades out as soon as the torch is taken away.

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

Instead of admit there was 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 combustible material exposed to all the components capable of burning up. Russound and TUV Rheinland instead decided to put a fuse in line with only one component that can emit a spark.

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


TUV Rheinland, TUV Rheinland, Russound