Has anyone heard of cfl bulbs burning down your home cause they catch fire..?

for the record, I used cardboard for my first hood, lined it with mylar..... cfls don't get THAT hot. as long as you keep a fan on them they're fine.

Put a fan on them and it will be fine.

Sometimes they overheat and do catch fire.

“The high wattage CFL’s are designed with an integral cooling fan to reduce the heat levels produced from overheating the electronic components. Using these lamps in enclosed fixtures may pose a serious risk to consumers”.

can anyone tell me when to start counting my Flowers time is it 1- 12or is it when I see the first sign of flowering

Never had a problem with bulbs, but extension cords are another matter.

Be careful with these, particularly when using the standard 16 gauge. You'll know when you reach the max b/c cord will begin heating up.

In that case, spend a few extra $$ for the commercial 14 gauge cord.

I'm not an expert, but I over engineer to avoid a fire situation.

First, everything is plugged into surge protectors. The surge protectors are plugged into a heavy duty extension cord. The extension cord is plugged into a properly grounded outlet (no adapters).

I use household extension cords that I inspect regularly. I try to never use more than one bulb per cord, but sometimes I have two.

Proper timer. Find out how many amps the timer is rated for, add the amps the bulbs used and times that by two. I think the timer is the weakest part of the setup, so I don't push the limit.

I don't use metal hangers or chains. Plastic ones work great and they are cheaper.

Lots of ventilation.

Plenty of remote thermometers, especially higher up to warn of heat build up.

Twice a day I check cords and fixtures for heat.

If you want to do one better, change that outlet to a gfci outlet, if you can't reqire it properly, they make timer outlets with a built in gfci. Or the safest would be to change the breaker to your room to a gfci breaker (the most exspensive and safest option). That was if some freak accident were to happen the gfci will trip and stop current which drastically reduces chance of fire. The gfci breakers are great because it cuts the power off at the breaker, therfore, the entire electrical circuit, wires, outlets and all are dead, if it detects a short.

Okay all here is what happened to me, the small little ballast that the bulb goes into got waywayway hot and started to smoke and turn a burn color (no doubt would have possibly caught fire if left like that for another couple hours) I noticed the bulb was pointing directly down so the heat of the bulb was going directly into the ballast, i also noticed that the ones pointed on an angle did not burn but got really hot. The bulb that got hot was in my reflective hood so the heat was slow to escape. I looked and the other lightsin the hood were starting to change color. Since then i have a fan blowing outside air directly on those lights and have had no issues since. So if you have them pointing down... Id say check them here and there