Burning Down The House

I'm laughing now, especially that I had a post not long ago about getting off on the wrong foot this year, detailing how many problems I had in January, but this is not a laughing matter, not by far.

Thinking back now, I think I can call myself lucky for getting out of trouble easily each time, but if I want to be honest, it's not luck. It's my ability to pay attention to the smallest details and to be vigilant all the time. Well, almost all the time :P

It's an ability that I developed early in life and most likely that's why my passion is trading and finance, areas where precision, balance and self control matters a lot.

Photo by Joel Filipe on Unsplash

Sometimes I like to test people and ask them how many steps the stairs to their apartment have, to see if they know where they live or could find their way to the door with their eyes closed. They not only have no clue but are also looking at me like I have taken leave of my senses. It funny to see their faces, but sad in the same time, as not may are paying attention to small details. We tend to take everything for granted, then when shit hits the fan, we are not ready to cope.

I grew up in tough times and when I was a kid, we had programmed power shortages each day, from 6pm to 8pm. We were let go from school a little earlier, to make it out of school, before the electricity is gone, but the walk home took 15 - 20 minutes, so when we arrived home, we had to walk to the 4th floor in pitch black dark. We knew each step, each turn and in a sense it was a fun game, not to mention it helped me a lot to develop some skills.

My brother is an electrician and when he talks, I listen. Sometimes he's sharing stories from work and you have no idea how much you can learn, just by listening to what he says, that can come in handy one day.

Photo by Joel Filipe on Unsplash

Once I was doing my washing and passing by the electrical outlet that the washing machine is usually connected to, I heard it was making a rustling sound and knew right away it's a huge problem because I heard my brother using this word once in a similar situation we witnessed together. (Crazy how my mind works. I can tell you where he said that and what the situation happened. When I told him, he was shocked as he could not remember any of it, but who can blame him as he's doing this every day.) Anyway, thanks to remembering that sound, I was able to disconnect the washing machine and avoid creating bigger problems.

But before I digress too much, let me tell you what's happened earlier this week. I dropped the ball and I'm not happy about it, not one bit! 😬

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Not long ago I wrote an unboxing post about the air fryer I bought. Since then, I've tested it with several occasion and could not be happier with the results, but that's a topic for another day (not that I'm planning to write about it).

The power consumption of this kitchen toy is 1800W, which is considered not a lot I suppose, but that depends heavily on where you live. My apartment building was built in 1970 and back in those days the communist government's main goal was to keep people in dark, in every sense of the word. Long story short, the electrical network can't support much. To make things work, I have separate circuits for different kitchen appliances, for the air conditioning, but still, I need to monitor consumption to avoid overheating the network.

A couple of days ago, while the washing machine was on, someone else (it wasn't meeee), connected the air fryer and the two were working simultaneously for about 30 minutes. Being busy with other things, I only noticed the strange smell, that was like burnt oil. It was strange as the fryer doesn't use oil and it is washed after every use, but could not figure out where the smell came from. It was late afternoon, when I saw the marks high up on the wall. 😬

Photo by Davi Rezende on Unsplash

I'm not a newbie in this filed, so knew right away, that seeing smoke like marks around that box (which is a connection point of several cables) is not a good sign, not by far. So I phoned my brother and he confirmed my suspicions. That's where the smell came from, thus the smoke and good thing it's a small fix as the wires are not burnt, but we'll see once he gets here and has a look. Fingers crossed. I'm not proud of myself for not paying attention, but it's too late for that.

I needed this like a hole in my head and it's frustrating to always watch consumption, but the other option is to rewire the whole flat. That's a work you do when you move in, not when you're already living there. It's a huge work, no matter how you look at it.

This shows how much life has evolved. We can't live without electricity and the demand is increasing day by day. Heating and cooking is made using gas, but the rest, starting from the baking oven, is running on electricity. Sometimes it feels like without electricity, life stops.

If I ever move to a new place, I'll make sure to have the whole place rewired and up to future standards. Right now I'm glad I didn't burn down the house, but this is no joke, I need to pay more attention.

If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides:

Burning Down The House

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