Caught my desk cables touching a space heater... close call

I was working from my home office in Portland last Tuesday and smelled something weird. Looked under my desk and saw the main power strip cable was actually pressed against the back of my space heater. The plastic was starting to get soft and warped. I yanked the heater out and reran all my cables along a raceway on the wall instead. Has anyone else had a near miss with heat sources near their cable bundles?

2 comments

2 Comments

jade_lane191mo ago

Seems a bit dramatic, I've had cables near heaters for years without any melting.

the_piper1mo ago

Wait, did the plastic actually look soft before you pulled it out? That is terrifying honestly. I had a similar thing happen with a phone charger once, it was resting against a radiator and the cord got so hot I couldn't even touch it. You did the right thing yanking it, that could have started a fire so fast. People don't realize how sneaky heat damage is, it just warps stuff slowly and you don't notice until it's almost too late. Good on you for catching it when you did, better safe than sorry with that stuff.