Why is my power point warm?

Electricity passing through any connection makes a little heat. A fan heater, kettle or clothes dryer draws close to the most a standard power point is built to carry, so after a long run the plug can feel slightly warm. That warmth should be even and mild, and it should fade soon after you switch off.

Hot is different. If you can't comfortably keep your hand on the plate, if one pin or one side of the plug is hotter than the other, or if the plate or pins have browned, softened or cracked, heat is building at a single point. Energy Safe Victoria lists old or broken power points among the warning signs of faulty wiring.

The most common cause is a loose terminal behind the plate. Screws that held the cable firmly when the point went in can ease over years of heating and cooling, and a loose joint turns current into heat right where the cable meets the outlet. Worn contacts do the same at the front: once the springs that grip the plug pins lose their tension, the pins touch on a small area and that spot heats up.

Load is the other half. A heater on a double adaptor next to a dryer, or a power board feeding a heater and a kettle, pushes everything through one outlet. In older brick veneer homes around Altona and Williamstown, a single living room point often carries a heater for hours on cold July nights. Sometimes the culprit is the appliance plug itself.

Heat at a connection feeds itself. A hot joint oxidises, the oxide adds resistance, and the joint runs hotter next time. A circuit breaker won't step in, because it reacts to the total current on the circuit, not to one connection overheating at a normal load.

Energy Safe Victoria says not to touch or try to repair a loose, cracked or broken power point, but to cover it and have a licensed electrician replace it. We check the terminals, the outlet and the cable behind it, look at the next point along the circuit and replace whatever heat has damaged. You get a Certificate of Electrical Safety for the work.