stoopidheadbrewer
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- Nov 27, 2008
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USE A GFCI!! and a submersible heater.
In general brewing is not a dangerous hobby. Here's a lurker, though: Many of us (including myself) use water baths with aquarium heaters to regulate fermentation temperatures. Well today I got home and my faucet had been dripping and was overflowing the utility sink a bit. No biggie, easy enough to clean up and it's only water in an already grungy basement.
HOWEVER the heater I use got submerged by the rising water and is not a waterproof type. Thank goodness (thank God) for the integrated GFCI in my wall socket, it got tripped and probably saved me quite a jolt reaching in to pull the stopper from the sink, never mind the danger of other electrical problems the short could have caused.
I'm embarrassed to admit being so foolish (is it better or worse that I was sober?), but then I thought I better post about it because other people might get into a similar situation, and might also be foolish or worse yet foolish and drunk, so I am swallowing my pride and telling everyone to THINK AHEAD and put together a heating rig that has your back in case your common sense fails you.
Needless to say my heater is shot. And needless to say I will be replacing it with a WATERPROOF one. And if I ever move to a place where the wall sockets don't have GFCIs, I will be installing them (I'm pretty sure there are even portable wall socket adapter ones) anyplace I even think there could be electrical devices near water. Of course having them is useless if you don't know how to use them, and is no substitute for proper safety practices, but redundancy in a safety system is a good thing.
PS - The other place it would be a good idea for homebrewers to use a GFCI is for powering electrical pumps that move water and wort around brewing systems.
In general brewing is not a dangerous hobby. Here's a lurker, though: Many of us (including myself) use water baths with aquarium heaters to regulate fermentation temperatures. Well today I got home and my faucet had been dripping and was overflowing the utility sink a bit. No biggie, easy enough to clean up and it's only water in an already grungy basement.
HOWEVER the heater I use got submerged by the rising water and is not a waterproof type. Thank goodness (thank God) for the integrated GFCI in my wall socket, it got tripped and probably saved me quite a jolt reaching in to pull the stopper from the sink, never mind the danger of other electrical problems the short could have caused.
I'm embarrassed to admit being so foolish (is it better or worse that I was sober?), but then I thought I better post about it because other people might get into a similar situation, and might also be foolish or worse yet foolish and drunk, so I am swallowing my pride and telling everyone to THINK AHEAD and put together a heating rig that has your back in case your common sense fails you.
Needless to say my heater is shot. And needless to say I will be replacing it with a WATERPROOF one. And if I ever move to a place where the wall sockets don't have GFCIs, I will be installing them (I'm pretty sure there are even portable wall socket adapter ones) anyplace I even think there could be electrical devices near water. Of course having them is useless if you don't know how to use them, and is no substitute for proper safety practices, but redundancy in a safety system is a good thing.
PS - The other place it would be a good idea for homebrewers to use a GFCI is for powering electrical pumps that move water and wort around brewing systems.
