"Oren" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 24 Jan 2014 12:05:06 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

(Preface) This morning I decided to do a little woodworking in my garage
that is attached to the house but only connected to the house on one side
wall. At -6F outside and 32.5F in the garage this morning when I got up,
I decided to preheat the garage to get it a few degrees above freezing. I
pulled out my trusty 1300 watt fan-helped floor electric heater, plugged
it in and went about doing somwe other garage chores, and then did my
woodworking.

When I was done, about 2 hours later, I turned off and unplugged the
heater. To my surprise, the plug was warm, not hot, but definitely warm
to the touch. I took a closer look and realized that the prongs of the
plug were badly tarnished/corroded. An even closer look showed that the
insulation on the power cord itself was badly cracked and fallling
off(from overheating maybe) for the first inch or so where it comes out of
the plug.

Needless to say, I was thankful that nothing bad had happened. I could
have gotten a shock from the power cord before the GFI for the garage
circuits kicked out, or even a small fire if the cord had ignited some
stray sawhust laying around. I am normally quite safety sensitive, so
this was a wake-up call to think about safety a little more than I have
apparently been doing lately!!!

I have an electric space heater for my garage. Had a ext. cord heat,
like in your experience.

Reading the other day that ext. cords are NOT recommended for these
space heaters.
I bought a little heater and it says it must not be used with an extension
cord.