How close am I coming to death every weekend trying to free my stuck english muffin?
First, the way I see it, the wires/elements inside the toaster appear to operate in a similar manner to the element on an old-style stove. You know, the kind with the spirally thing that gets hot. I’m pretty sure it’s just a resistor that the electricity runs through and it heats up. But I know from experience that you don’t get shocked if you touch a stove element with a butter knife.
Second, how well would a common household butter knife conduct electricity?
Third, wouldn’t my home’s circuit breaker protect me?
And fourth, Hi Opal!
I know that’s not really the correct usage, but I just want to be in on all the fun!
Have the MythBusters tackled this one? Anybody willing to run some trials? Do they have english muffins in England, and do they just call them muffins?
The heating elements in an electric stove are insulated. They don’t normally have an electrical connection to the outside covering of the burner. The wire in a toaster is not insulated. If you touch them with a conducto while they’re on, your hand will develop a potential of 120 volts with respect to ground.
The kind I have in my apartment? I feel so old-timey!
The true danger is that you will feel the your mother’s disapproving stare, even if she is many miles away. Same as if you pick up a (disease-ridden) feather.
I personally have touched the heating element of an active toaster with a knife. I was not shocked. This doesn’t mean it can’t happen, of course. After inadvertently touching the element a couple of times (that bagel was REALLY stuck in there!), I broke the element and ruined the toaster. They are actually quite fragile.
It’s not a bad idea to use a non-conducting probe or unplug the toaster, but if the elements are’t hot, they aren’t getting electricity. And presumably you wouldn’t be probing while the elements were hot (would you?).
Quite nicely.
It might help, but would by no means guarantee that you didn’t get shocked.
You could do what I did- replace the toaster with a toaster oven. No more stuck anything, and no more having to be sure to slice bread, bagels, etc thin enough to fit in the toaster. I love my toaster oven, and can’t understand why anyone would rather have a toaster.
Your home’s circuit breaker is to protect the home, not you, not directly at least. It stops high levels of current from overheating your wiring, which can start a fire. It will only trip if the amount of current is greater than the rating, let’s say 20 amps. I believe that you can be killed with a lot less than 20 amps running through your bod.
A GFCI is designed to protect you, and is currently standard equipment in modern wiring found in kitchens or near water sources. If your house is older, it may not have this protection, it’s typically a square outlet with two buttons on it. GFCI monitors the incoming current and the outgoing current along the hot and neutral legs of your circuit. If they are uneven, the breaker trips very quickly. If you get shocked by your toaster, a portion of the current from the hot leg goes through you, so the neutral leg will have a lower current than the hot, and will trip the breaker. Since it is specifically designed to protect people from electrical shocks, I would trust* a GFCI to protect me from shock, I would never trust a circuit breaker to do that.
*trust in that I expect it will operate to protect me in case of accidental shock, not that I would shove a knife in a plugged in toaster and expect to be safe just because it’s got GFCI
OK, OK, generally I unplug the toaster. :rolleyes: I didn’t know my Mom posted here.
Just kidding. The outpouring of concern kinda made me feel good.
Although sometimes I’m pretty sure I can free it without much trouble, and unplugging is, you know, more work. Anyway, maybe I just wanted to infuse the post with a little extra drama.
Aha! Thanks, Xema, I meant to ask whether it is only dangerous if the toaster is on (i.e. toasting). So really, I don’t have to unplug as long as I’m careful not to hit the plunger while the knife is in there?
Good suggestion, Anne, although counter space might be an issue for me. Can you get tiny toaster ovens that are just for, you know, toast?
And thanks, Cheesesteak, I knew that a GFCI was supposed to protect you from electrocution somehow, but I had no idea how it worked or what the difference was between GFCI and a regular circuit breaker.
Thanks to all. I think the only question that remains is: what about english muffins in England?
My past experience notwithstanding, I wouldn’t risk it. You would only have to nudge the ‘plunger’ for an instant.
Also, poking deep inside the toaster with a single implement is a good way to ruin the toaster, as I mentioned earlier. You should try to grab the end of the muffin with two forks and pull it out.
I used to work in a breakfast type restaurant and had a co-worker do this exact thing. Shocked the shit out of her, so her hair stood on end.
Fortunately, it was the '80s, so you couldn’t really tell.
(Her boyfriend who also worked there decided to insulate some exposed, sparking wires with tin foil. We decided they were no longer allowed to own any small appliances.)
When my brother was about 6 or 7 years old, he came in from swimming in the neighbor’s pool and decided to have a piece of raisin-bread toast. He climbed up on the counter and put the bread in the toaster and pushed the plunger.
When the toast didn’t come up (I don’t know if the plunger popped up or not), he grabbed a fork and stuck in the the toaster.
120 volts of electricity surged through the fork, up his right arm, across his (wet) body, down his left leg and into the stove that his leg happened to be touching. Fortunately my mother found him right away, unplugged the toaster and called an ambulance.
He ended up being okay except for some burns on his hand and leg. And he never did that again.
I say, in the strongest possible terms, don’t take a chance. Use wooden tongs or something or unplug the toaster first.
My grandparents had several table knives on which the tips had been melted to slag by my grandmother trying to poke things that were stuck in the toaster.
My grandfather made a pair of tongs out of tongue depressers to avoid ruining further cutlery.
My father made a pair of those too! Two tongue depressors with a small block of wood glued between them at one end, and the tips just far enough apart to fit in the toaster slot. I don’t know what ever happened to them, but I wouldn’t mind having another pair. They don’t conduct electricity, they don’t get hot either, and they don’t squish whatever you’re fishing out of the toaster.
