The Cord Epidemic

              A few months ago my family was going through this phase where every couple of months or so we'd replace a charging cord to one of the electronic devices in our household.

Well, after dealing with the last replacement I decided it was time to come up with a solution.

While going around and inspecting all of the device cords, the first thing I noticed was that most of them were either laying on the floor or draped over some furniture.

When I looked closer I also noticed a couple of them were showing signs of wear near the connector ends, just like the ones we replaced. 


My initial thought was to try and save the cords since we just finished a round of replacements only days before, so I wrapped one of them in electrical tape to help reinforce the outer layer.

Now, I have to admit, although this idea was effective it wasn't the prettiest. The once sleek charging cord now looked like it belonged on one of the small power tools in my garage.

Not only that but I wasted nearly an entire roll of electrical tape on this one cord, realizing this was not the answer, I continued on for another solution.

For the second cord I decided to try using heat shrink. For those of you not familiar with this product, heat shrink is a rubbery tube like material that slides onto a cable like a sleeve. Once in place the material is heated with a small candle, torch, or hair dryer and it shrinks tightly around the cord.


Like the electrical tape, the heat shrink was effective, however, there was only one problem.

If the sleeve was a couple sizes larger than the cord, the material wouldn't shrink enough to tightly wrap around the cord. Since some of the cord connector heads were significantly larger the heat shrink could not be applied to every cord.

That evening one of my kids tripped over the charging cord near the kitchen, when I saw this I immediately went over and coiled up the cable, not wanting it to unravel itself I wrapped the cables end around the loop so that it would stay out of the way. A short time later however, the cord was back on the floor.

Thats when it hit me, why not coil the cords up temporarily when they weren't in use. Remembering the pack of velcro straps from a project a few months ago, I went to the garage and grabbed the leftovers.

Attaching each velcro strap to the cords was simple, since each strap came with a predesigned cinch loop the velcro straps were virtually guaranteed to remain attached to the cord.


For the shorter cords where the velcro straps didn't make sense I found these small inexpensive suction cups with clips on them.


With a reasonable fix now in place it was time to get the family on board. Forming this new habit was actually easier than I expected, I simply explained that if any one's cord was not coiled up when they were not being used all electronic privileges would be lost for a month.

In addition to that they would have to buy their own replacement cord.

Well after a few hiccups I'm happy to report that we have gone more than ten months without a replacement cord and there doesn't look like any of our device cables will need replacing anytime soon.

I hope you've enjoyed this article, if you have any questions, comments or an experience you would like to share, feel free to do so below. Until next time, stay safe.