check your smoke detectors bros - small house fire

DewChugr

DewChugr

Photoshop God
Jun 26, 2006
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Shortly before we went to bed Saturday night we smelled this odd smell, kinda smelled like a dirty state fair bathroom, not really like electrical or burning. Didn't really notice where it was coming from. Smelled it during the night and in the morning, seemed to appear when the furnace ran.

This morning the laundry room light wouldn't come on, fluorescent, worked fine yesterday. I know they usually don't just stop working instantly like that. No breakers were tripped. Went into my sons old room and the light in there didn't work either. noticed there was a burned looking mark on and above the outlet, see photos.

We have an AC smoke detector just outside this room, and it's on the same circuit I found out this morning. Apparently it's one without a battery back-up or sealed with a dead battery. Had the fire department come out with their thermal camera and they found nothing.

Anyway, minor damage, have to get the wiring checked out.

fire1.jpg


fire2.jpg
 


Also, if you don't have a carbon monoxide detector, go fucking buy one tonight.
 
Man, this apartment building near me burnt to the ground. I used to live in it as well, which is even crazier. Burnt to a crisp. Smoke detectors didn't go off. Luckily everyone got out, but none of their stuff.

I want a smoke detector in every damn room, and fire extinguishers stashed all over the place.
 
Lots of times rats will do that, they'll gnaw through the cladding and if you're unlucky you'll have your neutral find your ground and the empty 3-prongs on the circuit will short spectacularly.
 
If you want a better chance of getting out alive, there are two types of smoke detectors, ionization detectors and photoelectric. They work differently, and each one has it's advantages. Ionization is generally faster at detecting hot/flaming fires, photoelectric at slow burn / smoldering fires. One can lag the other by 10 minutes or more before it sounds an alarm.

Buy some of both, or look into "dual mode" units.
 
rish3 said:
If you want a better chance of getting out alive, there are two types of smoke detectors, ionization detectors and photoelectric. They work differently, and each one has it's advantages. Ionization is generally faster at detecting hot/flaming fires, photoelectric at slow burn / smoldering fires. One can lag the other by 10 minutes or more before it sounds an alarm.

Buy some of both, or look into "dual mode" units.
Click to expand...

As well as heat detectors for certain areas.
 
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