PSA: Your phone charger block can burn down your house

[Daniel]

Apparently, a phone charger blocks takes current from the socket and then has the job of big time reducing it so it can power your phone.

Long story short, phone charger blocks have a difficult job. It's not a 1:1 transfer or energy or even close. This causes heat. So, phone charger blocks can and often do melt down and/ or explode.

I personally knowing what I do now would not leave one plugged in at night after I went to sleep and wouldn't leave one plugged in if I left the house.

Clearly you can't extinguish flames if you're asleep or gone.

I was a little bit surprised by this but it's a fact.

In a similar way, a power strip does nothing to increase the power generated by the electrical outlet where it is plugged in.

So, if a power strip has for example 6 electrical outlets, you're still getting the available power of 1.

If there are technical specifications involved, but the bottom line is that apparently you can easily overload a power strip. If you do, it too can and they often do also melt down and/ or explode in flames.

I've stopped leaving my phone charger blocks plugged in unless I'm using them.

I'm considering turning my charging strips off when I leave the house.

[jon-nyc]

I leave mine plugged in though I’m aware the transformer uses power even when I’m not there. I avoid cheaper chargers though. I think almost all of mine are Apple.