A quick warning to those using old extension cords…

They might blow up in your face. That happened to me this recent weekend. I’m not kidding. An old extension cord blew up in my face.

So, I was on a mission to try and get Wi-Fi out to my field, about ~70 feet south of the southern end of my house. I had a Netgear WN3000RP network extender laying around, and gave it a shot. One issue, where I would put the extender, is in a part of the house my Wi-Fi router hates. I was getting 4 down/6 up by the network extender, because of the horrible Wi-Fi signal.

I thought I would put the network extender in a space between where the Wi-Fi signal goes horrible, and where it’s great. By the window. For that, I needed an extension cord. This is where my issues set in.

I grabbed 2 extension cords, one too short, one long. Started taping the long cable from the outlet to the window, using electrical tape (irony, right?). Best part? I needed to curve it towards the end, as from the outlet, it went west, and then curved north, before heading straight up 2 feet to the window.

Right when I was pulling the extension cord to the window, that’s when it happened. It all happened so fast I can barely recall it. Best guess, the sleeve on the live wires came off, and the little rubber cap contacted the live wire (since I found it ~4 feet from where the extension cord literally blew up), and a little explosion happened. A plant was directly nearby, it survived. I did too. So did my house. What I can remember was that the explosion was an orange red, so it was decently hot, but only lasted a split second.

In the process I broke the extension cord, and tripped the breaker for the outlet. And I was scared for my life for 5 minutes after. But, hey, I have a really interesting story to tell about how an extension cord exploded in my face. That is some serious karma right there.

So, let it be known, replace your extension cords every so often. And try not to do what I did.

Stay safe.