Check your ballasts in your fluorescent lights!!!

[BudgetRacing]

I was not aware of this but the fire inspector told me about it. I was having zero problems with my lights and one day my brother went out to the garage, turned on the light for 10 minutes and turned it off and went back into the house. We were in the house for about 15 minutes until my brother noticed a burning smell. He went out to the garage and noticed a fire. According to the inspector the ballast leaked and melted the cover. It then fell onto something that caught fire and everything in the garage was destroyed.

Insurance covered a lot of the stuff in the garage but because of the damage it was extremely hard to remember everything that was in there. It has been one year since the fire and i would say we missed about $10-15K worth of items in the garage. A lot of them were in home depot plastic totes that ended up melting into a ball of burned mess that we could not tell what it was.

I will say though if you have any damage to drywall in your garage fix it NOW. You can see in the pictures how much the drywall saved the structure of the floor above. The drywall was completely wrecked but the room above was minimally damaged.

 

[EOC_Jason]

I'm guessing you had those old magnetic ballasts that weigh a ton? Yes I've seen more than my fair share when they go out they can get ridiculously hot!

 

[mv213]

Better yet dump your fluorescent tubes and replace them with LED. They have replacement LED tubes that are easy to wire into the existing fixtures and no longer cost an arm and a leg. I used the TOGGLED brand from Home Depot.

Glad things weren’t worse for you! Scary!

 

[Bert_]

Any ballast in the last 50 years is supposed to have a thermal protector in it, they do fail once and a while though.

I'm curious what plastic it melted though since any decent light has a metal channel that the ballast is mounted in?

Unless this was one of those POS "shop lights" that you get at the box stores for cheap, I've seen those melt the ends of the fixture before. I wouldn't expect the cheap led shop lights to be any safer.

 

[ard]

Wait...arent those cheap "non-UL listed" lights supposed to invalidate your insurance?!?

OP- thanks for the heads up. Ive converted most to LEDs. Oldest fluorescent I have is 90s.

PSA: Take a video walkthrough of your house, shop. Pull open each box, and just narrate whats there. what it is, how many. Might not be exhaustive, but it helps GREATLY.

 

[58Yeoman]

Also, the instructions on the lights that I've bought in the past say to NOT mount directly to the ceiling, but to hang from chains. I'm figuring that the hanging ballast stays cooler by not being mounted flush.

 

[Fixin'Stuff]

Wait...arent those cheap "non-UL listed" lights supposed to invalidate your insurance?!?

Not in a residence. About the only thing insurance won't pay out on is if the police/fire dept. prove you committed arson. Most of the "if you do X, then your insurance won't pay" theories are urban legend.

 

[cybrdyke]

Typical failure mode for an old ballast would be that the thermal protector opens. If that has failed (if there was one), then the ballast heats up until the capacitor fails. This can be quite hot, enough to melt the packing material. It's not uncommon to see some of this black goo leak out of the can.
Fires as the result of a ballast failure are extraordinarily rare. Their track record of safety since the late 1930's is exceptional, but not perfect, though. Certainly, though, the safety record of fluorescent is far better than LED tubes, CFL lamps and (without doing any research), probably incandescents. Each light source has it's own issues.
CD

 

[Showkey]

Checking for what ???? Unfortunately same goes for checking your refrig, freezer, shop vacuum, battery chargers, dish washer, dehumidifier, extension cords or any of 100 things that can start a fire.

 

[Jlbc212]

Checking for what ???? Unfortunately same goes for checking your refrig, freezer, shop vacuum, battery chargers, dish washer, dehumidifier, extension cords or any of 100 things that can start a fire.

^^^ this ... one thing you can check for is an accumulation of lint in a clothes dryer exhaust. We should all regularly test our smoke detectors, know our escape routes, have a central meeting location outside the house and purchase adequate fire insurance.

 

[BudgetRacing]

I'm curious what plastic it melted though since any decent light has a metal channel that the ballast is mounted in?

I was told the bulb cover.

PSA: Take a video walkthrough of your house, shop. Pull open each box, and just narrate whats there. what it is, how many. Might not be exhaustive, but it helps GREATLY.

Do this, take pictures and keep receipts for any expensive items.

Also, the instructions on the lights that I've bought in the past say to NOT mount directly to the ceiling, but to hang from chains. I'm figuring that the hanging ballast stays cooler by not being mounted flush.

it was 10" from the ceiling for about 8 years.

 

[BudgetRacing]

Checking for what ???? Unfortunately same goes for checking your refrig, freezer, shop vacuum, battery chargers, dish washer, dehumidifier, extension cords or any of 100 things that can start a fire.

It is my understanding that normally when they fail they give some sort of warning.

Flickering.
Buzzing.
Delayed start.
Low output.
Inconsistent lighting levels.

 

[syhdeejey]

Thanks for warning, although I've already on the LED path. After all, LED is safer, at least compared with what you said. What's more, the energy savings will quickly pay for the difference in cost.

PS: Bypass ballast LED light can save the money for replacing old ballast, It’s a good deal.

 

[Ole Slewfoot]

I had hanging fluorescent shop lights in my barn/boat shed structure. There was a work bench down the left, and I had an extension cord to something draped in front of that. So one morning, I come through the door and there is all this black goo dripping off the cord??? I go for a closer look, and it's black, plasticy and hard with a slight burny odor. A little it was spattered on the floor below. Most of the stuff hung from the cord in liquid looking icicles. I'll admit staring at it in puzzlement for a minute before I looked up at the shop light hanging directly above. A small black spot marked the hole the goo had peed out of, and the light was still working. I'm usually cheap, but I threw that one away.

 

[Platonic Solid]

The classic smell of melting ballast potting compound is a warning sign that should not be ignored. Also, consistently replacing bulbs at end-of-life helps prevent ballast overheating.

 

[tapered-pin]

my best friend is an arson investigator and former fire fighter..

he said most of the calls he gets "that aren't kitchen fires" are from dryer lint and not cleaning out the vent line.

 

[gungatim]

LGR!

 

[nadogail]

Working ballasts should be warm to the touch, but never hot. Non working ballasts will feel cold.

 

[MikeF2316]

I had hanging fluorescent shop lights in my barn/boat shed structure. There was a work bench down the left, and I had an extension cord to something draped in front of that. So one morning, I come through the door and there is all this black goo dripping off the cord??? I go for a closer look, and it's black, plasticy and hard with a slight burny odor. A little it was spattered on the floor below. Most of the stuff hung from the cord in liquid looking icicles. I'll admit staring at it in puzzlement for a minute before I looked up at the shop light hanging directly above. A small black spot marked the hole the goo had peed out of, and the light was still working. I'm usually cheap, but I threw that one away.

I had this happen too. It dripped on the hood of my new car, there's a 2" diameter spot where the clear coat was damaged. Like you, I didn't try to rescue the fixture.

I guess one way you can check your ballasts is with a thermal imager. If you have 5 lights, and one is way hotter than the others, it might be time to change it.