Who's rewired their house for this hobby?

On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 04:11:45PM -0500, William Donzelli wrote: An amusing comparison, but the reports are clearly not measuring the same thing. The UK fires count fires that involved electrical appliances, which does not necessarily mean it was down to an electrical fault. Most of the 20,403 fires are "misuse" (10,735 fires) of "cooking appliances" (11,954 fires). I suspect these are mainly of the "forgot the grill was on" kind, and would continue to occur even if the properties didn't have electricity at all! The odds of dying if one has such a fire is 0.22% which are pretty good odds. The injury rate is 12% but it's not defined what an injury is. I suspect this mainly comes from emergency services figures: the fire brigade being called out to wake up a drunkard whose kitchen is full of smoke counts as a "fire", and a subsequent trip to A&E for a check-up for smoke inhalation and to bandage minor burns counts as an "injury". There were "21,300 reported U.S. non-confined home structure fires involving electrical distribution or lighting equipment resulted in 295 civilian deaths" i.e. a 14% risk of death from the fire. These are clearly more major incidents, directly caused by dodgy wiring or other dangerous electrical work. For the UK, the page contradicts itself in claiming eight deaths due to "Installations" but ten due to "Electricity supply - Wiring, cabling, plugs". That is some four or five times less lethal per capita than the USA. Fires and electrocutions are caused by *current*, and the voltage is very much a red herring. America should be treating its 110V supplies with the same respect the rest of the world gives to 220V, and not just half-jobbing it due to myths about the lower voltage being inherently safer.