"john" wrote in message
...
Hello, I recently had a scary incident happen to me. I had one of these
"Sharper Image Ionic Breeze" air cleaner's in my office room. It was
about 18 months old and it was turned on most of the time. I carefully
followed the maintenaince instructions and did everything by the book.

I happened to be at home at the time. (thank god) and came downstairs to
a strong smell of burning plastic. It was so strong I had to open the
windows.. At first I thought it was my computer burning up since its in
the same room..but it wasnt. The smell was coming from the Ionic Breeze.
I immediately took the cord out, continued to air out my house... and took
the thing apart to see what could of went wrong.

I took a picture of it -

http://www.oil-gas-prices.com/sharper-image.jpg

It doesnt look like much there, but I believe it was a couple of
capacitors that burnt out.

My question is... if I wasnt home, is it possible my house could of burnt
down? Because the burning smell kept getting worse and worse.

That photo shows a typical overheating of electronic components (which
generate more smell than danger).

However, having said that, the house behind mine burnt down because nobody
was there and a computer monitor caught fire and then set the drapes on
fire.

NFPA has documented that many home fires are started by failures in
electronic equipment.

It's a complex issue.