Continuing our series about the potential safety or loss hazards that come with powering your everyday electronics and appliances is the topic of power strips. Power strips are incredibly useful devices, especially in older homes where power receptacles are not often found in abundance, and even where they happen to exist, they’re rarely in the exact place where you need them. Even if they happened to be placed perfectly in your home, chances are good that you’re going to have more than two devices to plug in at any given time.
For all their usefulness, though, power strips can also present some significant hazards when they’re not used properly. For example, in some very power-hungry scenarios, someone might be tempted to plug one power strip into another one. However, daisy-chaining power strips can easily overload them. Also, power strips need good air circulation. Keeping them inside a cabinet, or – even worse – hidden under a rug or curtains can be a serious overheating problem that can lead to a fire.
