Schoolboy Error 2kw electric fire

[Jamiec2018]

Think I've made a schoolboy error

Running a brand new 2kw electric fire from the mains via an extension.

Smelt burning tonight and found the plug and socket housing red hot after the fire switched itskit off.

Checked the extension plug to find it has only a 5 amp fuse inside.......

Is this the most likely reason the plug and socket got hot or is there something more sinister with the fairly new socket?

Cheers

 

[SJD]

The 5A fuse suggests the extension cable should not be running more than 5A, i.e. not the 8A of the fire.

 

[westward10]

Could be a combination of an undersized fuse, undersized extension cable, poorly terminated plug or poorly terminated socket.

 

[static zap]

Was extension on a spool , fully wound out ?
(If not fully un-wound ,the rest will be a plastic blob!)

 

[Jamiec2018]

The socket was fitted 4 weeks ago and has been alright, I'll take it off the wall tomorrow and check anyway, especially for the heat damage. The socket has cooled now though and inside the extension plug the brown wire has melted!

 

[westward10]

Show a pic of the offending plug.

 

[Jamiec2018]

The socket was a 5amp fused every ready 5m non reel

 

[Jamiec2018]

Just going to take a photo

 

[Jamiec2018]

The inside of the plug

 

[Rpa07]

How about the pins of the plugtop? Melted plastic on the live pin?
Another photo?
Is that brown terminal tight?
Excited now!

 

[Jamiec2018]

Yeah brown is tight, pins are clean. The wire sleeve covering the live is melted where it it goes into the live terminal!

 

[westward10]

It is hard to gauge the size of cable from your pic but the 5A fuse is underrated for a 2kw heater and theoretically it should have failed but it has not. It looks like a poor connection at the brown conductor and/or a combination of the fuse getting hot contributing to this. A 13A rated extension lead should resolve this but you should also get the socket it was plugged into checked out.

 

[Jamiec2018]

Pins

 

[Jamiec2018]

It was plugged into the socket furthest away. No evidence of burning on that, just in the extension plug

 

[Jamiec2018]

Yeah the fire went off by itself so I presume the 13amp plug attached to the fire itself did it's job