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You’ve probably heard from all sorts of people 
that electric space heaters are dangerous things  

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which are likely to cause a fire.

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And it is true: 
they can be dangerous and they can start fires.

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However, likely not in the ways you imagine they can.

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Even this cheap plastic heater,
which cost less than $20,

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has multiple safety devices which make 
many of the dangerous scenarios you might imagine nearly impossible.

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And in this video I’ll show you the clever bit of engineering and logic that went into making these things safe despite their bargain basement cost.

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Now, before I continue, I need you to know that I’m going to be demonstrating 
some very stupid things which nobody should ever repeat.

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The written warnings on a space heater (or really any product) 
should never be ignored - they were written in blood.

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However, I don’t think we do ourselves any favors when all we know is 
“this is dangerous” but we don’t understand why and how it’s dangerous.

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That’s a kind of ignorance which leads to unfounded fears and paranoia.

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I quite happily use these bargain basement heaters 
whenever I need a source of supplemental heat -

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and not simply because I’m a Midwestern cheapskate 
and that's the one would buy anyway,

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but because I understand the ways these might fail 
and the protections they have against those failures.

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I love nothing better than when more people understand 
more things more completely so let’s take a peek inside.

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There really isn't a whole lot going on in these things.

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We have two nichrome wire heating elements 
sitting behind a fan driven by an electric motor.

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And, well that’s it!

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AC power from the wall gets sent through 
those wire elements and they start getting really hot.

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And the spinning fan forces air movement through those hot wires 
to transfer their heat output into the air and then spread it around the room.

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And thus explains the entirety of its basic principle of operation.

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The controls and how power is routed through the 
device are where things get more interesting.

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If we follow the power cord we’ll see that 
incoming power is first sent through this tip-over switch.

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That switch is actuated by a little plastic foot sticking out of the heater’s bottom

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and it must be depressed by the weight of the heater 
in order for the switch to close and the heater to function.

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That's the first safety device 
and it ensures the heater will shut itself off if for some reason it gets knocked over.

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Next to that switch are a few steel plates which simply serve to make the heater more bottom heavy and less likely to be tipped over in the first place -

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this is a pretty recent addition to these cheap heaters 
and it’s a very welcome one.

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It makes them far more stable.

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After making its way through the tip-over switch, 
power then finds itself at the thermostat.

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Even these cheap heaters have actual thermostats which react to the room temperature and will shut the heater off once it's warm enough,

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allowing it to maintain a consistent temperature by itself.

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These are basic things, just a bimetallic switch that the control 
knob applies varying pressure to in order to affect its trip point,

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so they’re not accurate enough for the manufacturer 
to print actual temperature values on the control

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but they are more accurate than you may imagine:

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if you run the heater on its maximum setting 
until the room is as warm as you want it to be

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and then you slowly turn this back down until it clicks off

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[click]

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it’s gonna maintain that room temperature fairly well.

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You might even put a little mark with a sharpie on where it's pointing.

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That way you can put it there again!

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Who needs fancy digital thermostats 
when you've got a brain at your disposal?

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Once it’s through the thermostat,
 power then finds itself at the main selector switch.

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This thing is a little complicated because the heater has 
two heating elements of different sizes to allow for three levels of heat output.

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The 600W or the 900W element can be run individually as a low and medium setting 
(called eco here for annoying reasons),

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or they can be run together on the high setting to produce 1,500W of total heat output.

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The switch selects between powering 
one, the other, both, or neither on its fan setting,

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a setting which turns this into either a pretty crappy desk fan 
or a decent white noise machine depending on how you wanna think of it.

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Anyway, power gets sent out of this switch through these wires 
which land on this terminal block on the heating element assembly.

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The heating elements and the fan receive their power from here.

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These two terminals are for the heating elements themselves.

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As you can see each element is simply a wire which is wound around a circular, slotted temperature-resistant support structure a whole bunch of times

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until it’s back at the start of the circle and on the other side of the terminal block.

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And on that other side, you’ll notice there’s a little something extra going on.

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We still haven’t completed a circuit here -

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everything we’ve looked at so far has come from the incoming hot wire and 
we have to connect it to the outgoing neutral wire for the heater to actually function.

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And this terminal here is where the neutral wire of the power cord attaches to.

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But the heating elements (as well as the fan and the neon power indicator) 
don’t connect directly to neutral:

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first they go through this switch.

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This is a high-temperature limit switch.

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It’s an unassuming little fella but it’s the reason why 
this plastic heater can be made cheaply yet also safely.

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This switch is normally closed 
and so will allow the heating elements to become powered.

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And under ordinary circumstances, it will stay closed forever.

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But if anything should happen which causes that switch to get hotter than 
75 degrees Celsius (that’s 167 Fahrenheit)

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a bimetallic snap disc will force the switch to open, 
breaking the circuit and shutting off the heater.

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Say, for example, the fan motor had failed.

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The fan in these things is critical not only to help move the room’s air around 
to distribute the heat they produce more evenly

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but also simply to get that heat out of its plastic body.

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The 1,500 watts coming from this is a lot of heat!

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And even with the open front and back, without that fan spinning 
this thing will quickly start melting and perhaps catch fire.

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But this limit switch will intervene if the fan stops turning for any reason.

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To show you this, I completely removed the fan from this heater.

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It’s gone.

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So when I switched it on, 
it started drawing full power yet couldn't move any air through itself.

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That could be a disaster, but not even 15 seconds later 
this switch opened and the heater shut off.

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Here’s a close-up.

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And for the record - I cut the fan motor out of the circuit, here.

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So that arcing is entirely down to the switch 
breaking the current from the heating elements.

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The heater was pretty quick to shut itself down, wasn’t it?

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That’s due to its design.

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Look at where the terminal block is.

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It’s at roughly the 10 o’clock position 
of the circular heating element assembly as installed in the heater,

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and that places the limit switch directly above the heating elements.

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With the fan functioning, 
enough air is pulled through to keep the limit switch cool.

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But if the fan stops, or just isn't working, the air next to the heating elements 
will quickly heat up and rise right into the limit switch.

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That’s why it reacted so quickly.

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But 75 degrees C is cool enough to open that switch in other scenarios, too.

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For instance, say the heater becomes blocked by something.

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Like this random griddle insert I have lying around.

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While the fan is still functioning normally, it’s not able 
to get that much air out of the heater with the griddle in front of it.

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And that means the temperature inside is climbing.

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Some air is still getting around the griddle so the 
temperature doesn’t climb that rapidly

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but about 90 seconds after placing it there, 
the limit switch opened and shut off the heater.

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Good job.

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Wanna see something even more dangerous?

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Every heater out there has a very explicit 
“do not cover” printed on it somewhere but what if, oh,

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a very flammable beach towel were to be thrown on top of it?

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Again - don’t ever do this.

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I had a fire extinguisher at the ready just in case.

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But, in just under a minute, the air inside the heater had exceeded 75 degrees Celsius 
so that limit switch opened and the heater shut itself down.

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The towel wasn’t even that hot when I took it off.

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But perhaps you noticed something a little strange in the clips I’ve just shown you.

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When the heater shut itself down, its power consumption didn’t drop to zero.

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It was drawing about 1 watt 
despite that limit switch being open and thus the circuit being broken.

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What’s consuming that power?

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Well, and here’s the twist - the limit switch itself.

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Take a look in the thermal imaging camera.

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That limit switch is still hot despite the rest of the heater having cooled off.

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And that’s because this limit switch actually has 
a small PTC heater embedded within itself

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and connected across the switch from the incoming hot 
to a second neutral connection down below the main switch.

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You don’t need to know what PTC means - it’s a kind of self-regulating 
heating element and they can be made very small.

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The upshot is, with the limit switch closed
that PTC heater is bypassed and doesn’t do anything.

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But if that switch on top opens, suddenly there’s 120V across 
the heater so it starts functioning and it gets warm.

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The purpose of this is to keep the heater disabled indefinitely.

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The moment that switch opens, because of that PTC heater kicking in, 
the limit switch will remain above its trip temperature so it cannot rest.

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Therefore it prevents the heater from working again 
so long as it has power going to it.

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And that means a single instance of overheating 
will effectively lock out the heater from functioning until someone tends to it.

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Resetting that limit switch is as easy as unplugging the heater for a while, 
shutting off that PTC heater and allowing it to cool off and close again.

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And it has written instructions on the heater to explain this procedure.

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But until you actually do that, 
the heater will remain locked out and it cannot turn itself back on.

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This is fascinating and I only discovered this behavior when I filmed this test!

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I fully expected the heater to reset on its own, start functioning, 
and then just trip again - which is a reasonable approach to safety.

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But a lockout is even safer.

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Whatever might have caused one of these things to overheat - say someone tossing and turning in bed and throwing a blanket on top of it in their sleep -

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still presents a potential danger if the heater can start back up on its own.

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So, by ensuring it can’t until the user takes positive action to reset that lockout, 
it lowers the risk of fire even further.

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This is such an elegant solution 
made using ridiculously simple components

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and that’s the sort of problem solving and ingenuity that really floats my bread.

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Butters my fancy.

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Tickles my boat.

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Now, this lockout mechanism isn’t quite perfect.

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For one, if while it’s locked out 
there was a power interruption for about a minute or longer

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then the switch will reset and the heater 
will start working again when the power comes back.

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But also, while the reset instructions imply 
that you need to unplug the heater to reset it,

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you actually don’t and that presents one scenario where it could potentially reset on its own even with a steady source of power keeping the lockout functional.

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If, while it was in the locked-out condition, the room temperature 
were to rise enough to trip the heater’s thermostatic switch,

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the opening of that switch will remove power from the PTC heater in the limit switch and before long it will cool down and close again.

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With the thermostat tripped it's not gonna start heating again,

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but if the room temperature then cools enough to close the thermostatic switch, 
the heater will resume functioning.

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But, in case it’s not apparent, that’s not a very likely scenario.

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Speaking of the thermostat, though - I’ve uncovered another surprise.

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Back when I started writing this script I said there were multiple safety devices.

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And there are two: the limit switch and the tip-over switch.

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And I was going to include the thermostat 
as a third line of defense against dangerous situations.

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See, I figured at its highest setting it might maintain a room temperature of...

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I dunno, 90 degrees? 32 Celsius?

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So even if the limit switch somehow didn’t trip in an overheating situation 
the thermostat should shut it off eventually and at least limit its heat output.

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But I wanted to test that, so I stuck the heater in a closed 
highly flammable cardboard box, set it to max, and poked a thermometer in the side.

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Again - don’t do that.

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Uh, turns out it got hot real fast which tripped the limit switch.

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Which, I mean, good!

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But that doesn’t answer my question.

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Thinking that was just a case of things getting too hot too quickly

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I tried it again but with the heater set to its low heat setting 
and the thermostat still set to the max.

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And the limit switch still tripped on me.

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So I put a different heat producing device with its own ability to regulate the temperature inside the box along with the space heater

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and kept the inside of the box near 150 degrees.

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The thermostat still functions as normal when the heater is in fan mode so I was watching the kill-a-watt to see when the thermostat would switch it off.

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But it just… didn’t!

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After more than 10 minutes of being in a 150 degree hot box 
(that’s 65 Celsius) it was still happily running.

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And when I checked to see just how much I’d have to move the thermostat dial back from max to make it shut off…

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it was a lot farther than I would have expected.

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I knew these thermostats aren’t calibrated very well but that’s ridiculous.

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So count the thermostat out as a safety device.

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If it's set to its highest setting it’s just never gonna intervene.

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That may very well be unique to this model of heater, 
and the limit switch in the heating element assembly is much more important anyway,

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but yeah.

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So now, let’s circle back to the start where I said 
space heaters are dangerous and can cause fires.

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I hope by now you can see that the design of the heater 
makes it extremely unlikely that the thing itself will catch fire

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but that is absolutely not the only way things can go wrong.

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The simplest and most straightforward fire hazard to explain is... uh...

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flammable items near a hot thing.

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The warnings about keeping flammable stuff 
at least 3 feet away from the heater are all about minimizing that risk

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(and by the way, 3 feet is a yard which, fun fact, 
is pretty close to a meter - keep that in your back pocket).

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However, that risk is situational
 and depends a lot on the kind of space heater you’re using.

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If potentially setting fire to objects in the room is your concern,

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you might be surprised but these cheap heaters 
are actually among the safest options.

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The device itself doesn't get very hot at all because 
the fan does a very good job moving air through it,

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and that also means the air that's leaving isn’t actually all that hot.

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In a room-temperature environment, the highest temperature reading I observed 
with a thermometer right in front of this was 155 degrees, not quite 70 Celsius.

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So unless something highly flammable manages to get 
through the grilles and actually touch the heating elements,

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this isn't likely to set fire to anything.

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That doesn’t mean you should tempt fate, 
but it should hopefully put your mind at ease.

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However, other kinds of heaters have much hotter surfaces, 
particularly those with heating elements that glow,

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so again that risk is very situational.

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But it’s easy to understand and to mitigate.

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The larger reason space heaters are known to be a fire hazard 
actually has nothing to do with the heaters themselves

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and everything to do with your home’s electrical wiring.

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Most of these things which are on the market, regardless of type, 
will put out 1,500 watts of heat and that requires 12 amps of current at 120V.

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That is the maximum allowed to be drawn continuously from a typical 15A circuit,

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and that means plugging in a space heater 
becomes an instant stress test for whatever circuit it’s on,

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and that can reveal electrical issues you didn’t know 
about and potentially with awful consequences.

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For instance, if there’s a very slightly loose 
wire nut in a junction box somewhere in your walls,

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or maybe there’s a connection point somewhere that's got a little corrosion on it,

195
00:18:13,306 --> 00:18:16,015
that’s usually not a problem.

196
00:18:16,015 --> 00:18:21,014
While it might introduce a little bit 
of electrical resistance at that point in the circuit,

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if all you’re using that circuit for is charging a laptop or phone,

198
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not much current will go through that connection
so the issue won’t ever present itself.

199
00:18:31,003 --> 00:18:35,915
But if you plug a space heater in, that can quickly change.

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00:18:35,915 --> 00:18:42,798
That marginal connection point will start heating up 
because of the large current the heater is drawing through the circuit.

201
00:18:42,798 --> 00:18:46,927
And if it heats up too much, that can start a fire.

202
00:18:46,927 --> 00:18:56,676
This is made worse by the fact that technically a space heater 
should be the only thing on a 15 amp circuit if it’s gonna be drawing 12 amps.

203
00:18:56,676 --> 00:19:01,109
But in real life, it’s going to be sharing that circuit with some other stuff:

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perhaps a TV and a sound system in the living room 
or a desktop computer in a bedroom.

205
00:19:06,894 --> 00:19:12,073
That means when the heater’s running 
at its full power you’re really pushing that circuit

206
00:19:12,073 --> 00:19:17,546
and so if there are any problems with the 
wiring they’re more likely to become an issue.

207
00:19:17,546 --> 00:19:20,030
But, I don’t wish to fearmonger.

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00:19:20,030 --> 00:19:23,333
That scenario is realistically quite rare.

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00:19:23,333 --> 00:19:28,619
The wiring that's in your walls mostly doesn’t get touched unless you’re doing remodeling or something.

210
00:19:28,619 --> 00:19:35,066
So spontaneous development of issues,
while that can happen, is quite rare.

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00:19:35,066 --> 00:19:41,053
However, the receptacles that you plug stuff into 
(including a space heater)

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00:19:41,053 --> 00:19:43,298
those things get touched all the time.

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00:19:43,298 --> 00:19:51,268
And each time a plug is inserted and then removed from a receptacle a teeny tiny bit of wear occurs.

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00:19:51,268 --> 00:20:00,587
The springiness of the contacts inside there can weaken 
and if the outlet is really worn it might barely be able to hold on to a plug.

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00:20:00,587 --> 00:20:08,040
Receptacles like that are primed to become a major issue when you 
plug a 12 amp load into them and let it rip,  

216
00:20:08,040 --> 00:20:13,317
and they are a major reason electrical fires 
start when people use space heaters.

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00:20:13,317 --> 00:20:20,181
A poor connection between the plug and receptacle 
can introduce enough electrical resistance to make the plug extremely hot -

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00:20:20,181 --> 00:20:23,914
to the point of melting wires and burning insulation.

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00:20:23,914 --> 00:20:28,103
If you have loose receptacles in your home, they really should be replaced.

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00:20:28,103 --> 00:20:34,511
Which, by the way, is quite easy to do but you’re gonna have to 
look for your own information and guidance there.

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00:20:34,511 --> 00:20:41,514
But then, even with a perfectly cromulent 
electrical system with everything in hunky-dory tip-top shape,

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there’s the problem of extension cords and power strips.

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00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:52,590
Although it is sometimes inconvenient, 
a space heater should always be plugged directly into a wall outlet.

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00:20:52,590 --> 00:20:57,439
No splitters, no power taps -
directly into a wall outlet.

225
00:20:57,439 --> 00:21:04,964
Extension cords, power strips, and all those adapters and whatnot
are not built to the same standards that actual receptacles are.

226
00:21:04,964 --> 00:21:10,970
So although those products may technically be rated
 to pass more current than a space heater needs,

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their often poor construction means each individual connection might not be so great and it introduces an element of risk which you might as well just not introduce.

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00:21:20,126 --> 00:21:27,103
In fact, the voltage drop introduced by the extra connections between the space heater and the wall outlet on the other end of that power tap

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00:21:27,103 --> 00:21:33,103
is part of the reason that the heaters 
were only drawing 1,200 to 1,300 watts in my testing.

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00:21:33,103 --> 00:21:40,911
Plenty of power strips have ended up very melted 
because someone plugged a space heater into them, so just don’t.

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00:21:40,911 --> 00:21:45,903
I hope you can see, though, that the space heater itself is not scary.

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00:21:45,903 --> 00:21:51,406
Even these really cheap ones are designed and built to be extremely safe.

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00:21:51,406 --> 00:21:59,635
The danger in using them is actually just because most people don’t have a very thorough understanding of electrical safety.

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00:21:59,635 --> 00:22:06,496
Most of the scenarios where a space heater can become dangerous are quite easy to spot long before that occurs

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00:22:06,496 --> 00:22:12,848
but you need to know what a poor electrical connection is and how to detect it.

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00:22:12,848 --> 00:22:18,608
If you plug a space heater into an outlet 
which is holding it firmly, you’re probably fine.

237
00:22:18,608 --> 00:22:23,882
But if that outlet can barely hold onto the plug, find a different one.

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00:22:23,882 --> 00:22:31,671
And if you want to be extra safe, 
feel how warm the plug is getting after the heater’s been running for 10 minutes or so.

239
00:22:31,671 --> 00:22:40,723
It’s completely normal for it to be a little warm to the touch, but if it’s hot - 
something’s very wrong and you need to shut off the heater and unplug it.

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00:22:40,723 --> 00:22:48,522
As a closing message, if you live in a place 
which is cold enough that a failure of your heating system could freeze your pipes,

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00:22:48,522 --> 00:22:53,802
I think it’s very wise to have some space heaters on hand for emergencies.

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00:22:53,802 --> 00:23:00,472
$60 can get you three of these things 
and while they won’t be able to match your main system’s heat output,

243
00:23:00,472 --> 00:23:07,202
they can probably keep your home significantly above freezing
 and at least one room can stay comfortable.

244
00:23:07,202 --> 00:23:11,564
And if you’re on the heat pump train 
but you don’t have a dedicated resistive heat backup,

245
00:23:11,564 --> 00:23:15,092
such as if you went with a multi-head mini-split system,

246
00:23:15,092 --> 00:23:17,337
these can do the trick just fine.

247
00:23:17,337 --> 00:23:23,256
The heat strips in a centrally-ducted heat pump system
are just a bigger version of this thing,

248
00:23:23,256 --> 00:23:33,393
so a few of these heaters can absolutely be used to fill in the gap when and if 
the outside temp is so cold that the heat pump can’t quite keep up on its own.

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00:23:33,393 --> 00:23:38,546
If you are ever in a scenario where you need 
to use multiple space heaters at the same time,

250
00:23:38,546 --> 00:23:42,639
you’re gonna need to identify which outlets are on what circuits

251
00:23:42,639 --> 00:23:47,984
because two space heaters running on the same circuit
will quickly trip the circuit breaker.

252
00:23:47,984 --> 00:23:52,185
Although - another fun benefit of these cheap fan-forced heaters

253
00:23:52,185 --> 00:24:00,639
is that two of them actually can share a circuit 
so long as they’re both set to low or one's on low and the other’s on medium.

254
00:24:00,639 --> 00:24:09,559
Strategic placement of these fellas can probably be your only heat source in a pinch - as those of you who saw my video on HVAC system sizing already know.

255
00:24:10,719 --> 00:24:15,651
That would be a very expensive way to 
heat your home in most cases but hey,

256
00:24:15,651 --> 00:24:20,438
the actual heaters are quite cheap so it’s a compelling backup option.

257
00:24:20,438 --> 00:24:24,044
However, as much as I like these cheap fan-forced heaters

258
00:24:24,044 --> 00:24:29,377
and think they’re unquestionably
 the most reasonable option to keep on hand as a backup,

259
00:24:29,377 --> 00:24:36,214
this baseboard-style of heater has become my new favorite 
when I actually want supplemental heat somewhere.

260
00:24:36,214 --> 00:24:48,118
This places the heating elements in open air and relies solely on the convection 
currents which form as the air inside heats up, expands, and then floats out the top.

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00:24:48,118 --> 00:24:54,399
These things are completely silent 
but they can also sustain their full 1,500 watts of output -

262
00:24:54,399 --> 00:24:58,773
something those oil-filled heaters simply cannot do.

263
00:24:58,773 --> 00:25:04,421
Because of how this works it has much hotter surfaces
 and that makes them more dangerous in some ways,

264
00:25:04,421 --> 00:25:08,533
but it also don’t have any moving parts which can fail.

265
00:25:08,533 --> 00:25:16,006
Still, sure enough, take a peek inside 
and we find the same exact limit switch that we do in the fan-forced heater.

266
00:25:16,006 --> 00:25:24,941
So if someone were to, I dunno, throw a beach towel over one of these things,
it will eventually lock itself out just like the fan heater does.

267
00:25:24,941 --> 00:25:27,873
Actually, I better test that.

268
00:25:27,873 --> 00:25:30,968
Again, don’t ever do this yourself.

269
00:25:30,968 --> 00:25:35,830
The limit switch did kick in when it was completely covered by the towel but…

270
00:25:35,830 --> 00:25:42,188
I wondered what would happen if it was mostly covered 
but the area above the limit switch wasn’t.

271
00:25:43,624 --> 00:25:46,769
Yeah here things aren’t so rosy.

272
00:25:46,769 --> 00:25:52,819
Because the limit switch is below the heating elements 
(which it has to be otherwise it would trip in normal operation)

273
00:25:52,819 --> 00:26:00,000
so long as there’s enough of the heater uncovered to supply 
sufficient airflow through those vents down there

274
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:03,807
the limit switch stays cool enough that it doesn't trip.

275
00:26:03,807 --> 00:26:08,036
I stuck a thermometer under the towel to see how hot things were getting

276
00:26:08,036 --> 00:26:13,718
and I kept creeping the towel further and further to the right 
to block more and more of the heater's venting.

277
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:22,600
By the end we had exceeded the thermometer’s 
maximum temperature reading of 200 Celsius, 392 Fahrenheit,

278
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:24,663
and the heater was still running.

279
00:26:24,994 --> 00:26:31,801
For the icing on the cake - I set a timer at that point for 5 minutes to end the test before things got out of hand

280
00:26:31,801 --> 00:26:38,029
and while it did shut off before that timer ran out, 
it wasn’t the limit switch that shut it off.

281
00:26:38,029 --> 00:26:39,995
It was the thermostat!

282
00:26:39,995 --> 00:26:44,445
That’s why power consumption went to zero and not a watt or two.

283
00:26:44,445 --> 00:26:48,103
Once I removed the towel it quickly turned back on.

284
00:26:48,103 --> 00:26:49,589
Not so great.

285
00:26:49,589 --> 00:26:54,162
And the adhesive on that little “hot” sticker sure was destroyed.

286
00:26:54,162 --> 00:26:59,295
But on the other hand, some of you 
have kitchen stoves which emit open flames.

287
00:27:01,366 --> 00:27:08,747
That might seem like a non sequitur but my point there is that we aren’t 
so scared of objectively dangerous things

288
00:27:08,747 --> 00:27:13,796
when we understand 
what those dangers actually are and how we can avoid them.

289
00:27:13,796 --> 00:27:21,022
In the case of this heater - sure, it might start a fire 
if someone throws their jacket on top of it.

290
00:27:21,022 --> 00:27:25,541
But so long as you’re careful enough to not do that,

291
00:27:25,541 --> 00:27:33,068
the fact that there are no moving parts in this thing 
means it can’t really fail in a way which presents a danger on its own.

292
00:27:33,068 --> 00:27:37,234
So, as with so many things in life, there are trade-offs.

293
00:27:37,234 --> 00:27:40,623
And those are up to you to figure out.

294
00:27:40,623 --> 00:27:45,399
Once you’ve done that, 
you can make informed decisions for your own benefit.

295
00:27:45,399 --> 00:27:49,222
And that’s a kind of empowerment that we all deserve.

296
00:27:50,188 --> 00:27:52,799
♫ manageably smooth jazz ♫

297
00:27:53,634 --> 00:27:56,029
And not simply because I’m midwub

298
00:27:56,029 --> 00:27:58,124
AAAGGH - I’m a midwestern.

299
00:27:58,124 --> 00:27:59,148
That’s hard.

300
00:27:59,148 --> 00:28:01,376
The springingnyess of the cont…

301
00:28:01,376 --> 00:28:02,573
spring-ee-ness.

302
00:28:02,573 --> 00:28:03,426
Springiness.

303
00:28:03,426 --> 00:28:04,842
The springingest…

304
00:28:04,842 --> 00:28:05,813
springingess?

305
00:28:05,813 --> 00:28:06,984
Springiness.

306
00:28:06,984 --> 00:28:07,820
Oh.

307
00:28:08,703 --> 00:28:09,633
That’s…

308
00:28:09,771 --> 00:28:10,631
s[bleep]

309
00:28:11,819 --> 00:28:13,727
I picked the wrong one.

310
00:28:13,727 --> 00:28:16,637
You mean I have to put this back apart right now?

311
00:28:16,637 --> 00:28:18,173
Back apart?

312
00:28:18,173 --> 00:28:22,342
This is a great use of camera resources - memory.

313
00:28:22,342 --> 00:28:31,783
This is… this whole thing is gonna be backed up in two places and it’s just me putting a thing back together that I forgot to do before I started recording.

314
00:28:31,783 --> 00:28:35,655
The switch selects between powering one, the other, both or -

315
00:28:35,655 --> 00:28:38,004
I’m not even pointing at it.

316
00:28:39,108 --> 00:28:42,231
Things do seem to be heating up.

317
00:28:42,231 --> 00:28:46,099
But the mere possibility of something occurring doesn't need to be scary.

318
00:28:46,099 --> 00:28:50,417
Learn about those possibilities and you can get ahead of them.

319
00:28:50,417 --> 00:28:55,280
Just a reminder. Useful in lots of ways.