An appliance repair emergency could be a leak or smoke or even a fire coming from the home appliance.
If an appliance emergency occurs in your home, unplug the appliance immediately and call Five Star Appliance Repair for local appliance repair in Yucaipa. If there is an electrical fire resulting from one of the appliances in your house, we advise calling the town fire department before you attempt to eliminate the fire yourself.
An electrical fire from an appliance can be very scary and very dangerous, but there are a few ways to be prepared in case of an emergency. If one of your appliances is in flames, it is important to not panic and to remain calm. Follow these simple guidelines below to help keep your house safe from electrical fires.
You are able to stop electrical fires before they start by following a few basic rules of appliance safety in a home. Do not plug in more than two devices into one outlet—the wiring might become overloaded and then spark a fire, especially when there’s debris like clothes or paper near the electrical outlet.
It can be easy to forget about the apparent dangers of larger appliances because they stay plugged in all of the time, but they can present as much of a fire hazard as smaller electrical devices like kitchen toasters and heaters. Larger appliances like a washing machine or dishwasher shouldn’t be left to run overnight or while you’re away from home, and try not to place a refrigerator or freezer in line of direct sunlight, in order to prevent possibly overworking their cooling systems.
Check all outlets on a regular basis for extreme heat, signs of burns, and crackling or buzzing noises that could point to electrical arcing. Be sure you have at least one working smoke detector on each story of your home, and test the smoke detectors regularly to keep them in good working order.
If there’s an appliance repair emergency involving an electrical fire, it might be tempting to put out the fire with water, however water shouldn’t be used on an electrical appliance fire.
Water conducts electricity, and throwing water on a power source might give a severe electrical shock. It might even make the fire worse. Water can conduct the electricity to additional locations of the room, running the risk of igniting other flammable items nearby.
The first thing you want to do is to unplug the electric appliance from the power source and call your local fire department. Even if you think you might be able to handle the fire yourself, it’s important to have help if the fire does get out of hand.
For little fires, you could be able to use baking soda to extinguish the flames. Covering the smoking or burning spot with a layer of baking soda will sometimes prohibit oxygen flow to the flames with minimal chance of electrocution. Baking soda also contains sodium bicarbonate, which is the same chemical in standard fire extinguishers. You also may be able to smother a smaller fire with a heavy blanket as well, but only if the flames are small enough not to catch the heavy blanket on fire.
For large electrical appliance fires, you need a Type C fire extinguisher. You should always make sure you own at least one Type C or multi-use extinguisher in your house. Extinguishers need to be checked consistently to be sure they haven’t expired. If you have a working fire extinguisher on hand, just pull the pin at the top, aim the nozzle at the fire, and press the handle. If the flames get too big to fight by yourself or you think the fire could block an exit, leave the home immediately, shut the door , and then wait for help from the fire department.
For the small appliance fires, call Five Star Appliance Repair once the fire is under control and we will identify the reason for the fire and repair the electrical appliance and restore it to its original condition.
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