My normal shop heater is a blue flame 15KBTU propane heater. But the damn Home Depot bought regulater fritzed out yesterday when I needed to warm the place up to pad on some shellac for a nearly complete project.
SO I pack a small space electrical heater out there, plug it in and leave it on for a couple hours to warm the place up a bit. Go out, pad on my shellac and am standing near the heater. Remembering I need to clean the back screen off I discover that it is removable.
This job finished up in a couple of minutes, I put it all back together, and smell a bit smoke. Figure it is the dust that always gets onto elements when you clean an electric heater. BUT NO, I happen to stand around thinking a bit longer and bend down and see the plug-in that sits on my table saw cabinet is curing little wisps of smoke.
So I quickly kill the switch next to the outlet, unpluf the cord to the wall and pull the cover off the outlet there. A bit of sawdust on the bottom, but it was likely not enought to burn and continue a fire. But I see the guy I had bought the saw from, never tighed the screws that the wire touched! The hot line copper was black from charring, the plastic and paper back a ways about 3" were gone now.
$20 at the bord and I have a new set of 20 amp switches, and plugs to replace the whole set with!
Alan