how do some people burn their house down with their grow?

One of the biggest worries we have is the safety of growing indoors.It's one of my and i'm sure yours biggest fears that somehow our grow will burn down our house.

i keep thinking about it ,how does it actually happen? I mean one of my fears is that the ballast or the wiring going into the reflector will just decide to catch fire someday

BUT ,is that really likely? Surely companies making grow lights have to, by law, be producing a product which is safe to use inside a house and if there was any risk of fire using the product for it's intended purpose it wouldn't be on sale.Like say i was growing tomatoes or chillis or fruit and one day my ballast caught fire and burned my house down.Surely i could then sue maxibright or whoever for a whole lot of money.

we don't worry that our tv or pc or other high wattage electrics will catch fire because we know by law it needs to be safe ,so this has to apply to grow lights to...

So really ,i'm using this logic to convince myself that it is completely safe to grow indoors.

But i do know fires happen ,and i want to know how they happen??

anyone know?

fires happen from neglect. water and electricity dont mix. make sure your not using more amps than you should be. if your trying to go medium-big scale. hire a professional electrician

extension cords cause alot as well sometimes ballast blow up never happened to me bur a friend bought a cheaper one and it sparked everywhere

Carelessness and crap electrical systems mixing with hydro system spills.

PattyWagon said:

Carelessness and crap electrical systems mixing with hydro system spills.

Click to expand...

That's it in a nut shell, why do you think people always say to have a licensed electrician do your electrical work, people think they know what their doing and run too many watts through wires that can't handle the amperage, when that happens the wires can get so hot that they can melt the insulation and catch things on fire, it does happen so when it comes to electrical always remember:

"IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR DOING, DON'T DO IT!!!!!"

Most homes run 15amp wall plugs. you can over load that pretty fast with a grow.

Post #4 summed it up in one word.

Carelessness, is the only reason stuff like that happens.

Peace

Asmallvoice

hmm yeah i never even thought of hydro ,of course there is alot more water involved so alot more chance of something happening... i do soil just and always take the plants out of the grow area to water them i also only run a 250 watt digilight ,which the ballast doesnt heat up to bad at all ,you can easily keep your hand on it even after it's been on all day..i also keep it extremely securley chained in position with addition failsafes in place.

madprofessor said:

hmm yeah i never even thought of hydro ,of course there is alot more water involved so alot more chance of something happening... i do soil just and always take the plants out of the grow area to water them i also only run a 250 watt digilight ,which the ballast doesnt heat up to bad at all ,you can easily keep your hand on it even after it's been on all day..i also keep it extremely securley chained in position with addition failsafes in place.

Click to expand...

When we first started growing we worried a LOT about that too. I think your concern will serve you well as mine has for me. Just be smart about how you do things. Experience will help calm your fears too. One time when we first started growing, the 1000 watt light came on but the fan to cool it did not - the light burned for awhile before I caught it, but did not start a fire or melt anything.
Good luck growers.

CaptainCAVEMAN said:

When we first started growing we worried a LOT about that too. I think your concern will serve you well as mine has for me. Just be smart about how you do things. Experience will help calm your fears too. One time when we first started growing, the 1000 watt light came on but the fan to cool it did not - the light burned for awhile before I caught it, but did not start a fire or melt anything.
Good luck growers.

Click to expand...

yeah i guess that with safety as well as security if applicable ,the best thing to do is try to figure out how something is going to go wrong then do what you can to stop it happening.good luck