Home fire safety is a big deal. In the United States there is a good 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.

Any time unsafe products are identified we've the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to report unsafe products to. The U.S. CPSC will investigate and institute a recall if needed. The consumer electronics industry did much to make sure that people are safe inside their homes from fire caused by electronic devices. The television industry made the decision that TV's in America would be safe by making certain no flammable parts are exposed to electronic devices that could throw off a spark way back in the 1970's.

Consumer electronics contain many parts that can throw off a spark including resistors, diodes, transistors and capacitors. Simple overloads or component malfunction could cause a condition producing small fires inside your TV or stereo. Voltage spikes due to lightning as well as electric company troubles are one of the primary causes of electronic component breakdown. A voltage spike can cause a sudden failure or a delayed (or latent) failure of those components.

Whenever an electronic part malfunctions, it could merely cease conducting electricity or open the circuit it is in or it might short the circuit. Short circuits might cause excessive heating of the part in question or surrounding circuits. This over heating might cause a small 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 critically important that this small bit of fire can not be used to ignite any surrounding flammable material and create a more substantial and more dangerous fire. In American televisions, the plastic cabinets are produced from fire resistant material and despite the fact that it is easy to burn a hole in the cabinet with a torch, the fire goes out when the torch is removed.

There exists a internet site where a consumer that had a ?whole house? audio unit catch fire within 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 extinguish the fire with a fire extinguisher, but if he had not been home, his family and home might have been lost.

Rather than admit there was an issue with the product, a Russound executive threatened to sue the customer if he told anybody about the fire. There was a CPSC recall of the product, however the approved fix for the CAV audio unit left the flammable material exposed to all the parts that can burn up. Russound and TUV Rheinland instead decided to put a fuse in line with just one component that can emit a spark.

Neither Russound nor the testing agency, TUV Rheinland inspected the Russound CAV device that caught fire prior to proclaiming the defect and prescribing a remedy. The question is: Would you sleep better with consumer electronics that cannot catch fire, or products like those manufactured by Russound and tested by TUV Rheinland that probably will not catch fire? You decide.


Russound, TUV Rheinland, TUV Rheinland