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Do you ever worry about a malfunction and potentially burning the cat or starting a fire?
I have a few of these as well. Electric resistive heating like this is pretty safe. There's no control logic or anything, just a passive, high resistance wire. If a wire breaks it's going to just stop working. Unless you plug it in in the wrong country there's really no way for it to overheat.
Not to mention cats are pretty smart and will just leave when they're uncomfortable.
Wouldn't a fuse be enough to prevent that?
Yes, which is why all of them have a fuse on the cord. It's the same as modern heated blankets.
Is a fuse sufficient, or would one need a GFCI as well?
It would need to be a fuse on each branch of the heating element. And even so, sometimes a defect in one line of the heating element causes it to catch on fire anyway due to the concentration of current.
I mean, this depends on the layout of the heating device. It could also just be a metal plate with a single heating element underneath, using metal to distribute the heat.
Oh that’s a good idea: cut a thin metal sheet and sandwich it between the heater and the bedding.
For me, the worry is always a combination of potentially scratching through any protective insulation layer and then some type of accidental moisture (either urine or water). I'm a little too paranoid to keep them around.
People use heated blankets all the time. And cats are even better at quickly running from painful things.