Talked to an electrician at my bar last night who said my cable management was a fire hazard waiting to happen

He pointed at my power strip buried under a messy tangle of cables and said "that thing's gonna melt one day" so now I'm drilling a grommet hole in my desk and routing everything through a $12 cable tray instead, anyone here use a specific brand of velcro ties that actually holds up?

2 comments

2 Comments

tarab541mo ago

Oh man, that electrician was probably right too! I had a similar wake up call last year when I reached behind my desk to unplug something and the cord was actually hot to the touch. Scared me straight! I grabbed a pack of these Velcro One Wrap ties from Home Depot and they've been solid for like 8 months now, they don't get all loose and saggy like the cheap ones. The cable tray made a huge difference too, everything stays so much cooler now and it's way easier to find what I need when swapping stuff around. Good call on drilling that grommet hole too, I put mine off for way too long and just had cables spilling over the edge of the desk.

derek9391mo ago

Ive been running basically the same setup for 5 years with cables everywhere and no tray. Never had a single issue. Theres a difference between messy and dangerous. If your power strip is rated for the load and not daisy chained, a pile of cables on top isnt gonna melt anything. The heat comes from pulling too many amps through a cheap strip or extension cord, not from a few HDMI and USB cables sitting on it. I think that electrician was being dramatic to sell you on a fix. Your money is better spent on a quality surge protector with a metal housing and a proper breaker. Those $12 trays are fine if you want it to look clean, but dont think your house is going to burn down without one.