“never plug extension cords into extension cords” is probably the most common piece of electrical related advice I’ve ever heard. But if you have, say, 2 x 2m long extension cords, and you plug one into the other, why is that considered a lot more unsafe than just using a single 4 or 5 meter cord?
Does it just boil down to that extra connection creating another opportunity for the prongs to slip out and cause a spark or short circuit? Or is there something else happening there?
For that matter - why aren’t super long extension cords (50 or more meters) considered unsafe? Does that also just come down to a matter of only having 2 connections versus 4 or more on a daisy chained cord?
Followup stupid question: is whatever causes piggybacked extension cords to be considered unsafe actually that dangerous, or is it the sort of thing that gets parroted around and misconstrued/blown out of proportion? On a scale from “smoking 20 packs of cigarettes a day” to “stubbing your toe on a really heavy piece of furniture”, how dangerous would you subjectively rate daisy chaining extension cords, assuming it was only 1 hop (2 extension cords, no more), and was kept under 5 or 10 metres?
I’m sure there’s probably somebody bashing their head against a wall at these questions, but I’m not trying to be ignorant, I’m just curious. Thank you for tolerating my stupid questions
I once read a theory on an electricians forum about how the USA electrical code’s mandated maximum distance between adjacent outlets on a wall, coupled with the typical bedroom layout, as well as home builders trying to be as cheap as possible, led to only a single outlet being placed directly in the middle of the longest wall. This is also the most logical position for a bed, so the theory is that the bed pressing against the outlet over time was a contributing factor to electrical-related house fires.
I cannot find where I read that originally, and certainly the granularity of nationally-reported fire data is not sufficient to prove that theory. And while the electrical code’s distance requirements haven’t changed, more homes will now put enough outlets so the only one isn’t behind the bed.