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Post by frankfurt gull on Dec 28, 2009 13:21:03 GMT
My eldest daughter recently attended a course at the Berlin State Prosecutors Office and was told by the pathologe (had to look that one up) that the most common source of domestic fires are hot water kettles. I have often heard of chip pans or electric heaters causing fires but never a kettle. Have any forum members experienced a kettle fire? I have been giving my kettle suspicious looks all morning!
I know this has nothing to do with football but my thinking is that if I can save one forum member from a house fire then the warning will have been worthwhile.
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Dec 28, 2009 13:29:45 GMT
Good morning Germany and you my dear friend frankfurt gull, no I have never heard of a kettle ever catching on fire. Old style chip pans that sit on cooker ring yes, TV's left on standby and adapters like the ones we use on house phones etc can also catch fire. Plug sockets over loaded are often another cause and at this time of the year the biggest cause has to be candles, something I would never allow to be lit in my home.
If you are worried about your kettle you can always turn it of at the plug after you have boiled it to make a drink. ;D
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Post by aussie on Dec 28, 2009 13:30:36 GMT
That`s right out there with exploding ice cubes mate but then it is Berlin after all! To answer your question though, never in my life time have I heard of a kettle fire, I take it you mean electric kettles! It could only happen if the fuse in the plug was over-rated because the split millisecond that the kettle goes faulty the fuse should go, also the trip in the consumer unit would go and there would be no source of electricity to burn anything.
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Post by frankfurt gull on Dec 28, 2009 13:34:51 GMT
She was talking about electric kettles, I´ll get some more info out of her when she gets back from the pub.
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Post by aussie on Dec 28, 2009 14:06:41 GMT
She was talking about electric kettles, I´ll get some more info out of her when she gets back from the pub. Is that wise?  |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Dec 28, 2009 14:16:53 GMT
I will come back to kettles in a minute, but I must tell you about the projection clock radio that is on its way back to Argos as I write this. We had one bought for us last Christmas, but it was a cheap Comet Proline one that never really worked properly at all.
So Carol and I were thrilled to get a much more expensive one this year that really was state of the art. So time to get it set up and we put in the backup batteries and plugged in the adaptor and the clock is then meant to set up the time, date etc all on its own. But the strange thing is the clock is clearly marked as the GB model, but it gets its time signal from Frankfurt. We waited the 10 minutes it said it would take but it failed to find the required signal and so we set it up manually.
Got into bed on Christmas night and there was the time up on the ceiling and Carol had set it to go off at 5.30am as she was working on Boxing day. It went off and off she went to have a shower only when she went into the bathroom the clock was showing it was only 4.30am.
I even got up an hour early myself and found Carols note by my coffee cup that was all ready for me just to add the water( she is such a wonderful wife my carol) letting me know the clock was an hour fast.
So I read the instructions again and also looked for answers on line and decided to reset the bloody thing and start again, only this time on set up it found the signal and set itself an hour fast again. So I redid the time manually again and found a way to remove the update symbol from the display and thought it was all sorted now.
Only Carol got up an hour early again for work yesterday as the clock went an updated the time again at 2am and the alarm went off again at 4.30am. Checking the Argos site I found a few reviews from people who bought it and were not happy
"I purchased this clock as it is advertised as a self setting clock, however when you read the instructions, this only works if you are near a signal in Frankfurt, not much cop for suburban London"
"this item sets to 1 hour fast (frankfurt time) when you set to gmt it resets back to frankfurt"
So it has gone back and Steve (Carols son) has this very second come home with a different one I hope we have better luck with.
Back to kettles etc, while staying at Rolfs home in Holland, I was surprised how poor the electric wiring and plug sockets looked, they are no where near the standard they are in the UK and in my view looked very dangerous, maybe it’s the same in Germany?
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merse
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Post by merse on Dec 28, 2009 14:49:32 GMT
She was talking about electric kettles, I´ll get some more info out of her when she gets back from the pub.  They're a right bugger if you put them on a gas hob though.................I've seen it done one drunken morning round a mate of mine's! ;D |
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Post by frankfurt gull on Dec 28, 2009 16:30:27 GMT
we bought a new weather station recently and this has to be set to pick up the local signal. sounds to me as if argos purchased european clocks bulk somewhere. i have never heard of any electrical appliances which ignore the one hour time difference. (rendall just scored). while we are on the topic of electrical appliances we have always bought cheap toasters for about 10 Euros. There was a super-duper siemens spaceship of a toaster on special offer for 39 Euros recently when we needed one. worst toaster weve ever had, put on yer toast, go shopping and when you come back it might just be ready. make sure any toaster has 1200 Watts or more.
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Dec 28, 2009 19:03:30 GMT
frankfurt gull, that clock radio as I said would only search for the signal from Frankfurt and the model clearly has GB after the model number. Not to worry I'm glad it did it as we have a super one now, reduced in the Argos sale by £15 and so cost £5 more than the other one. The Oregon Scientific, set up with the correct time straight away and when it did I thought we were unlucky again and got a faulty one. The projection was not working and I had switched it on, but then I discovered it had a light sensor and would only come on when it there was no light on etc. I could also not at first get the radio outside temperature thing working, but got that sorted as well, so now on the clock face we have the inside temperature showing and on the ceiling along with the time, the temperature outside. Maybe its that way around so you can decide if you really want to get out of bed and go outside.  |
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Post by frankfurt gull on Dec 30, 2009 9:25:46 GMT
I´ve checked this on the internet and there seems to be something in it. Two firms have recently recalled electric kettles (or water cookers as the Germans call them) due to faulty parts, Severin recalled their kettles due to a faulty overheating protection part and Rossman recalled their kettles due to faulty heating spirals which go into melt-down. Its a good job the Germans don´t build nuclear subs! So I´ve warned you all, don´t buy German kettles at Argos.
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