When dealing with electricity the potential for fire always exists. With speaker wire the threat level is very low, as the voltages involved are low, while amplifiers usually have protection circuits that will shut the amp down in the event of a short circuit. Nonetheless the threat exists, so just be sure there's a good heat/smoke alarm in your listening room, just in case. That applies to all listening rooms.
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Speaker wire: Is it possible it could cause a fire?
Hello, a long while back I posted about needing advice on speakers and I finally got them all in aside a sub for the moment. I hooked up the center and side speakers no problem but, upon trying to run wire to the left and right surround speakers I decided to try and make it look the best I can. Based on the layout of my room, it seemed fairly simple to just run normal speaker wire under the baseboard that sits semi flush to the carpet, and for the most part it fit just fine. However, there were some spots that I had to shove in so tightly (I used a butter knife) that the possibility of some dings in the wire might have happened. I doubt it happened since the wire is pretty rubbery/sturdy but, it made me wonder, does this sort of thing pose a fire hazard of any sort?
This might be a totally idiotic question but, being a new home owner the last thing i'd want to do is catch my new home on fire by having a semi damaged cable carrying a signal on carpet. Being very inept with this sort of stuff (just knowing the basics of how to hook up) I felt I should ask the more savvy among the world to tell me if i'm safe or not
Thank you!
This might be a totally idiotic question but, being a new home owner the last thing i'd want to do is catch my new home on fire by having a semi damaged cable carrying a signal on carpet. Being very inept with this sort of stuff (just knowing the basics of how to hook up) I felt I should ask the more savvy among the world to tell me if i'm safe or not
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At the edge of wall-to-wall carpeting, there is typically something called a tack strip. It's a narrow piece of wood with tacks shoved up through it. The carpeting is stretched and the tack strip is used to anchor the carpeting to the floor at the wall. It is quite possible that one or more of these (extremely sharp!) tacks will penetrate the wire as it is shoved down into the space under the molding and very likely cause a short.Hello, a long while back I posted about needing advice on speakers and I finally got them all in aside a sub for the moment. I hooked up the center and side speakers no problem but, upon trying to run wire to the left and right surround speakers I decided to try and make it look the best I can. Based on the layout of my room, it seemed fairly simple to just run normal speaker wire under the baseboard that sits semi flush to the carpet, and for the most part it fit just fine. However, there were some spots that I had to shove in so tightly (I used a butter knife) that the possibility of some dings in the wire might have happened. I doubt it happened since the wire is pretty rubbery/sturdy but, it made me wonder, does this sort of thing pose a fire hazard of any sort?
This might be a totally idiotic question but, being a new home owner the last thing i'd want to do is catch my new home on fire by having a semi damaged cable carrying a signal on carpet. Being very inept with this sort of stuff (just knowing the basics of how to hook up) I felt I should ask the more savvy among the world to tell me if i'm safe or not
My advise would be to protect the wire by getting a "wire runway" in metal or plastic (available at Home Depot, etc...) and shove IT under the molding, THEN insert the wire into the runway. Alternatively, just run the runway along the top or bottom of the molding and paint it to match.
While you are at Home Depot, go ahead and check out the tack strips, just to see what you are dealing with. They would make a formidable single use weapon!
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