Discreet Dolls

Why charging your phone overnight can be dangerous, according to Montreal firefighters

Vinson

Well-known member
Nov 24, 2023
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It’s 11:30 p.m. and you’re in bed, doomscrolling your way to sleep.

As you go down a rabbit hole in search of Halloween costume ideas on TikTok — even though you know you’re going as Chappell Roan — you’re rudely interrupted by your phone.

“Low Battery: 10 per cent of battery remaining.”

You immediately switch to lower power mode in hopes of stretching out another 10 minutes of blue screen-induced happiness, but reality soon sets in: you need to plug in.
So you do, begrudgingly.

But did you know that firefighters, battery experts and safety gurus alike agree that overnight charging — not just for phones, but other personal electronics powered by lithium-ion batteries like your company laptop, your kids’ tablets, the vape pen you don’t want your spouse to know about — should be avoided?

It’s advice firefighters in Montreal were issuing following a port fire this week “fuelled by 15,000 kilograms of lithium-ion batteries” inside a shipping container. The noxious smoke from the fire led to a lockdown in one borough and air quality warnings for other downwind residents.

When should I charge my cellphone?
“We recommend folks get in the habit of doing it while they’re awake,” Matthew Griffith, section chief of prevention for the Montreal fire department, told The Gazette after.

“That way, if something happens, you’re alert and can detect it quickly.”

That’s included in the insight and recommendations offered by Dean MacNeil, a globally recognized expert on lithium-ion — or li-ion — batteries and leader of a National Research Council of Canada (NRC) team actively testing the limits of the new-ish technology.

 
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SchlongConery

License to Shill
Jan 28, 2013
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I worry a bit about the inevitable fires that are going to occur in condos and apartments with so many cheap (but still expensive) low quality e-bikes being brought up to the bikers apartment and being charged overnight. Leaving them in the front hallway and then having to get past the fire to escape.
 

curvluvr

Well-known member
Mar 28, 2017
1,246
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Let me get this straight... an entire container of batteries goes up in smoke, and Montreal firefighters suddenly become the experts and say that this can happen to your own cellphone battery at home?
Show me a person that doesn't charge their cellphone at night, and I'll show you someone who hardly ever uses their cellphone.
 

NotADcotor

His most imperial galactic atheistic majesty.
Mar 8, 2017
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Look what happened in Gaza. Point taken.
Pretty sure that was Lebanon not Gaza, unless there was a second bout.
That one is pretty easy to avoid, don't be a terrorist cunt and don't fuck around with technologically advanced people who have no problems letting you find out.
At least with the Japanese, they learned their lessons... Don't.... Touch... the... Boats...
 

Robert Mugabe

Well-known member
Nov 5, 2017
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Pretty sure that was Lebanon not Gaza, unless there was a second bout.
That one is pretty easy to avoid, don't be a terrorist cunt and don't fuck around with technologically advanced people who have no problems letting you find out.
At least with the Japanese, they learned their lessons... Don't.... Touch... the... Boats...
My bad. Hard to keep up. Won't really matter once history is erased in the next few months.
 
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261252

Nobodies business if I do
Sep 26, 2007
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I worry a bit about the inevitable fires that are going to occur in condos and apartments with so many cheap (but still expensive) low quality e-bikes being brought up to the bikers apartment and being charged overnight. Leaving them in the front hallway and then having to get past the fire to escape.
electric bike fires are a big concern as they are unregulated

Ask any firefighter

Good point about blocking fire escapes with anything

In a fire you are fighting thick smoke and cannot see

BTW, get a fire blanket to put out stove fires. They are inexpensive. Buy off the net as stores do not sell them as they are not approved because of some silly reason

You must deprive grease fire of oxygen

An extinguisher blows the grease fire all over the kitchen

Ask any fire fighter
 
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261252

Nobodies business if I do
Sep 26, 2007
1,007
396
83
Let me get this straight... an entire container of batteries goes up in smoke, and Montreal firefighters suddenly become the experts and say that this can happen to your own cellphone battery at home?
Show me a person that doesn't charge their cellphone at night, and I'll show you someone who hardly ever uses their cellphone.
I set my phone to stop charging at 85%
 
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HungSowel

Well-known member
Mar 3, 2017
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There are several different types of lithium batteries, the most dangerous ones are usually types that have the highest energy density for things like phones and ebikes. EVs nowadays use a safer type that has less energy density.

Safe, cheap, high energy density, pick any two.
 

Jubee

Well-known member
May 29, 2016
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Ontario
 

Jubee

Well-known member
May 29, 2016
4,471
1,891
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Ontario
My bad. Hard to keep up. Won't really matter once history is erased in the next few months.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
― George Orwell, 1984

Statues and street names have been in the news the past few years.
 

Jubee

Well-known member
May 29, 2016
4,471
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Ontario
I worry a bit about the inevitable fires that are going to occur in condos and apartments with so many cheap (but still expensive) low quality e-bikes being brought up to the bikers apartment and being charged overnight. Leaving them in the front hallway and then having to get past the fire to escape.
That is such a great point never thought of that and how great that is on (all) e-anything-with-wheels, they should market that as a feature.
 

xmontrealer

Well-known member
May 23, 2005
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Though slightly off topic, the apartment building I live in is large with a two level underground garage.

We just got an order from the Toronto Fire Department that only cars & small vehicles are allowed to be kept in the garage.

Any other items, such as seasonal tires, or anything else that tenants are storing in the garage, must be removed by today.
 

Butler1000

Well-known member
Oct 31, 2011
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I have an e bike and a phone.

Fires occur because people use off market chargers without inhibitors that read a full charge and stop charging. They do it to fast charge. And some even tamper with the battery to hold more.

Use recommended power cords, with the box in-between, and it's not an issue. My battery doesn't even get warm. I tested it several times.
 
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