That 5-gallon bucket heater ate $60 of my Friday night in Phoenix

I left it on a cold job site to warm up some thinset, came back two hours later to a melted lid and a puddle, and now I'm wondering if anyone else has had these cheap bucket heaters just fry themselves or did I get the one bad unit in a hundred?

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casey_barnes19d ago

Was it plugged into a GFCI outlet or just a regular one? That matters because a lot of these cheap heaters fail by tripping the breaker, but if yours melted through without that, something else is wrong. Also, did you check the wattage rating on the bucket? If it's a 1500 watt unit sitting in a plastic 5 gallon pail with thinset acting like insulation, that heat has nowhere to go and the lid will soften fast. I'd bet the thermostat on yours stuck closed, but I'm curious if the bucket itself was rated for that kind of heat or just a standard Home Depot one.

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