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Started By
Message
Advice on electrical fire issue
Posted on 11/21/17 at 9:57 am
Posted on 11/21/17 at 9:57 am
Saturday evening I had a GFCI on my front porch blow and then proceed to melt down. Had all kinds of smoke in my home office, but not the rest of the house. Had to call fire department because my exterior wall was hot as hell.
They cut into the wall to see how high it was burnt and make sure everything was ok. I have a few questions.
1.) The smell of the smoke in my office is exactly as it was yesterday, but better than Sunday. Will it ever go away?
2.) The damage seems minor, at this time I am not going to file an insurance claim..but this smell is bothering me. Should I get an adjustor out here and see if I need to go further in repairs?
3) My neighbor is an electrical engineer, he has no idea how a GFCI would just go bad unless the wiring was bad. I had just checked this particular one last Wednesday because I was by it. It had nothing plugged in. I am leaning to replacing all the GFCIs in my house as I figure they were possibly all the same lot...is this an overreaction?
They cut into the wall to see how high it was burnt and make sure everything was ok. I have a few questions.
1.) The smell of the smoke in my office is exactly as it was yesterday, but better than Sunday. Will it ever go away?
2.) The damage seems minor, at this time I am not going to file an insurance claim..but this smell is bothering me. Should I get an adjustor out here and see if I need to go further in repairs?
3) My neighbor is an electrical engineer, he has no idea how a GFCI would just go bad unless the wiring was bad. I had just checked this particular one last Wednesday because I was by it. It had nothing plugged in. I am leaning to replacing all the GFCIs in my house as I figure they were possibly all the same lot...is this an overreaction?
6
Posted on 11/21/17 at 10:05 am to tigerfoot
Firefighter: What's your name?
Lance: Uh, Joe... John... uh, Joe-John.
Firefighter: Your name's Joe-John?
Lance: John-ston, Johnston. Joe.
Firefighter: You wanna tell me what happened here?
Lance: Uh, there was a fire, I dunno, I came by and it's... checkin out the fire.
Firefighter: Well that lady uh, Mona? She said that you two were in the building together when the fire started.
Lance: Yeah, she's a liar, cuz I dunno her so whatever, whatever she says is a lie, so...
Firefighter: K, so you're saying you weren't in the building with that woman?
Lance: No, not I! Aright, she started it, aright? Because she was like "I hate my job, I'm gonna burn this mother down!" And I said "You better not... you better not!"
Firefighter: She said it was an electrical fire.
Lance: It was. It was a total electrical fire, it was like uh, the switches had sparks comin out, and the sockets, and uh it was like the 4th of July, man!
Firefighter: Why aren't you wearing your pants, Joe?
Lance: I tripped, and uh then I had to take 'em off to run faster out of the flames...
[coughing]
Lance: I think I inhaled some smoke, will you excuse me one second, I'll be right back.
[runs away in the background]
Firefighter: [into walkie talkie] We got a sprinter. Five foot five, no pants, unkempt... portly.
Lance: Uh, Joe... John... uh, Joe-John.
Firefighter: Your name's Joe-John?
Lance: John-ston, Johnston. Joe.
Firefighter: You wanna tell me what happened here?
Lance: Uh, there was a fire, I dunno, I came by and it's... checkin out the fire.
Firefighter: Well that lady uh, Mona? She said that you two were in the building together when the fire started.
Lance: Yeah, she's a liar, cuz I dunno her so whatever, whatever she says is a lie, so...
Firefighter: K, so you're saying you weren't in the building with that woman?
Lance: No, not I! Aright, she started it, aright? Because she was like "I hate my job, I'm gonna burn this mother down!" And I said "You better not... you better not!"
Firefighter: She said it was an electrical fire.
Lance: It was. It was a total electrical fire, it was like uh, the switches had sparks comin out, and the sockets, and uh it was like the 4th of July, man!
Firefighter: Why aren't you wearing your pants, Joe?
Lance: I tripped, and uh then I had to take 'em off to run faster out of the flames...
[coughing]
Lance: I think I inhaled some smoke, will you excuse me one second, I'll be right back.
[runs away in the background]
Firefighter: [into walkie talkie] We got a sprinter. Five foot five, no pants, unkempt... portly.
Posted on 11/21/17 at 10:09 am to DirtyMikeandtheBoys
quote:Im five ten.
Five foot five, no pants, unkempt... portly.
Posted on 11/21/17 at 10:17 am to tigerfoot
1.
My guess is yes it will diminish.
2. Not sure how it all works but would be good to get an adjuster out and see what he thinks. Electrical smoke is some smelly stuff.
3. You may consider changing your gfcis to just regular outlets and switching the breaker to a Gfci. This would depend on how your house is wired and if and anything that shouldn't be on a gfci like a frige is on the circuit.
4. Thats straight up scary a gfci would do that. I'd guess that the problem was something in the wiring leading up to the outlet and not with the outlet itself. I recently replaced a wired smoke alarm in my sisters house because the original had a meltdown. Be ironic as hell if a smoke alarm was the cause of a damn fire.
My guess is yes it will diminish.
2. Not sure how it all works but would be good to get an adjuster out and see what he thinks. Electrical smoke is some smelly stuff.
3. You may consider changing your gfcis to just regular outlets and switching the breaker to a Gfci. This would depend on how your house is wired and if and anything that shouldn't be on a gfci like a frige is on the circuit.
4. Thats straight up scary a gfci would do that. I'd guess that the problem was something in the wiring leading up to the outlet and not with the outlet itself. I recently replaced a wired smoke alarm in my sisters house because the original had a meltdown. Be ironic as hell if a smoke alarm was the cause of a damn fire.
Posted on 11/21/17 at 10:28 am to tigerfoot
quote:
My neighbor is an electrical engineer, he has no idea how a GFCI would just go bad unless the wiring was bad.
they do go bad, just google it. the receptacles and breakers are known to go bad over time.
Posted on 11/21/17 at 10:32 am to Chuker
quote:It freaked me out.
Thats straight up scary a gfci would do that.
I heard a thud, like someone threw something at my house or something. Went outside and saw no one.
Went back to watching the USC UCLA game and heard my modem beeping because it had lost power. Checked breaker and it was thrown. Went into office to see what was up and had a faint electrical smell. Checked all electronics and their plugs, unplugged everything. Went and got flashlight and could see some smoke thru the beam, but not much. Checked everything out, felt all the outlets etc and went to reset the breaker. Came back in office and the smell was stronger. Went and turned breaker off. Game back into office with flashlight and the smoke was thicker. Said "oh shite"
Then I put two and two together about he sound outside, checked GFCI and saw brown soot blow out marks above it. Felt wall and it was HOT. Said "oh shite"
Went woke wife up, called fire department, all worked out ok. Still nervous as shite about why it happened, nothing was plugged into it at all.
Spent Sunday rethinking fire protection around the house. I didnt even have a fire extinguisher.
Posted on 11/21/17 at 10:33 am to tigerfoot
I've heard good things about those big ozone machines getting smoke smells out of rooms.
Posted on 11/21/17 at 10:34 am to Chuker
quote:The electrician that came out yesterday has some suggestions I plan on following. I am not well enough educated concerning electrical to relay them to anyone. It seems they ran alot of stuff off the GFCI outlets that they dont recommend doing like that anymore. Hell, my house has like 8 GFCI outlets.
ou may consider changing your gfcis to just regular outlets and switching the breaker to a Gfci. This would depend on how your house is wired and if and anything that shouldn't be on a gfci like a frige is on the circuit.
Posted on 11/21/17 at 11:14 am to tigerfoot
Yeah unfortunately people do some weird stuff with gfcis and wiring. My sister (different sis) has an older house. I was doing some work over there one day and using a porch gfci for a saw. Well as I was leaving we realized the refrigerator wasn't on. Apparently it was wired downstream of the gfci I was using on the porch 30ft away and on the other side of the house. ridiculous.
For some reason I keep putting off stocking my house with fire extinguishers. I really need to take the time to research the ones I should use and cough up the cash. There was a story either here or on the OT by a guy whose home was struck by lighting and started a fire in his attic. Thankfully he had a few extinguishers and was able to keep his house from burning. It was quite the scary story. IIRC the fire dept took like 30 min to get there so by then it may of been a total loss.
An fyi, since a previous poster mentioned that gfci do fail catastrophically I googled for more info. Yes, there are several instances of gfci's spitting fire or smoke.
For some reason I keep putting off stocking my house with fire extinguishers. I really need to take the time to research the ones I should use and cough up the cash. There was a story either here or on the OT by a guy whose home was struck by lighting and started a fire in his attic. Thankfully he had a few extinguishers and was able to keep his house from burning. It was quite the scary story. IIRC the fire dept took like 30 min to get there so by then it may of been a total loss.
An fyi, since a previous poster mentioned that gfci do fail catastrophically I googled for more info. Yes, there are several instances of gfci's spitting fire or smoke.
Posted on 11/21/17 at 11:32 am to Chuker
I'm surprised they wired a GFI outside. Typically what the do is run a GFI inside, then an regular plug downstream to the outdoor plug.
GFI's are mechanical, I wouldn't want that outside if I could help it.
GFI's are mechanical, I wouldn't want that outside if I could help it.
Posted on 11/21/17 at 11:45 am to tigerfoot
We've had quite a few bad GFCI receptacles over the past few months. Nothing like what you experienced, the ones we had just wouldn't reset.
Posted on 11/21/17 at 11:52 am to kengel2
My apt burned down due to a suspected faulty GFCI back in college.
Weird that you post this now bc I changed one out for an ob poster here this weekend. This is what it looked like
Weird that you post this now bc I changed one out for an ob poster here this weekend. This is what it looked like
This post was edited on 11/21/17 at 12:05 pm
Posted on 11/21/17 at 12:04 pm to BoogaBear
quote:My house has four outside and four inside. The more I find out about crap in this house the more I just want to sell and move.
m surprised they wired a GFI outside. Typically what the do is run a GFI inside, then an regular plug downstream to the outdoor plug.
GFI's are mechanical, I wouldn't want that outside if I could help it.
Posted on 11/21/17 at 4:01 pm to tigerfoot
quote:
Spent Sunday rethinking fire protection around the house. I didnt even have a fire extinguisher.
A lot of people don't. Or they have one that's 10 years old and discharged.
A friend was going to fry fish in a turkey pot. A bunch of people were over and I guess he got distracted. The oil overheat and caught fire. It was under his carport because it was night and the lighting was better. The pot was about 1/2 to 2/3 full of oil. Flames were about 3' out of the pot and maybe 4' from the carport ceiling. The paint was starting to bubble on the ceiling. My idiot friend was confident that it would just burn out in a couple of minutes. The rest of us were telling him he was about to burn his house down. His wife wanted to call 911 and he kept telling her not to, that everything was okay.
Somebody had a fire extinguisher in their car trunk, but it was old and didn't work. Guests were moving their vehicles because we were sure the whole place was going to be in flames very shortly.
The fire was too hot to get near. We couldn't disconnect the propane bottle because of the heat, but were able to close the valve, not that it slowed the fire down. I managed to get the lid most of the way on the pot, but he had a (unwatched) thermometer on the lip of the pot. Now flames are shooting out to the side. When it started melting a plastic garbage can about 6' away and the siding of his house was getting hot, We told his wife to call the fire dept. By the time they arrived (just a few minutes), I had managed to grab the thermometer with a pair of channel locks and get the lid completely on. First degree burns on my arm and the side of my face facing the fire. Fire hot.
The interview with the firemen was fun. My buddy insisted the oil temp was 200 degrees when it caught fire (which was bullshite). Laughter and ridicule followed. One fireman said, Are you should it didn't say twelve hundred? Then they fricked with us for not having any fish already fried. Good times.
I now take out 2 fire extinguishers every time I light a propane burner. Then second one is for when the first one doesn't work.
Posted on 11/21/17 at 4:18 pm to tigerfoot
How old is the house and have GFI's, etc been changed ever?
Have you had the house pressure washed lately?
Have you had the house pressure washed lately?
This post was edited on 11/21/17 at 4:20 pm
Posted on 11/21/17 at 9:47 pm to White Roach
quote:
My idiot friend was confident that it would just burn out in a couple of minutes
Yeah I'd limit my activities with said friend to just things that are very safe. He owed you bigly for getting burnt while putting out his own damn mistake and prevent further damage to his carport.
Where do you buy your extinguishers? I see Lowes sells First alert and HD and Amazon sell Kiddi. A local store that specializes in fire control may be the best source. 5lb tanks seem to be popular size at lowes and HD.
Posted on 11/21/17 at 10:34 pm to Chuker
I'll have to look at the size, but I think they're 2#, not 5#. They are about 12" or 15" tall and maybe 4" in diameter. Kidde brand, A/B/C dry chemical. I think I paid about $18 each at Home Depot about 8 years ago.
Posted on 11/21/17 at 11:08 pm to Chuker
quote:
Yeah I'd limit my activities with said friend to just things that are very safe. He owed you bigly for getting burnt while putting out his own damn mistake and prevent further damage to his carport.
He's a great guy, but just didn't seem to recognize the severity of the problem that night. Maybe he was embarrassed and was just trying to stay cool about it, I don't know...
He definitely had no clue how to deal with a grease fire. He had a big tumbler of water (maybe it was a cocktail, but he wasn't drunk) that he threw into the fire almost immediately. Of course burning oil came flying out of the pot and now the concrete is burning. About four of us said almost in unison, "WTF are you doing?!?" His response was, "Trying to put the fire out." He later swore he never knew you shouldn't put water on a grease fire. His poor wife was about to shite, and I can't say I blame her. I usually stay pretty calm in a crisis and can quickly sort a problem out, but things were rapidly getting sideways that night. As it turned out, we could have gotten away without calling the fire dept. But we'd already been trying to put it out ourselves for 6 or 8 minutes and didn't seem to be making a lot of progress. There was a couple of gallons of oil in the pot and we had no idea how long it would take to burn itself out.
After the fire dept left and we got the women and children calmed down, we still hadn't had dinner. The first thought was to clean the pot and try again, but that pot was beyond redemption. The oil had cooked down to about 3 or 4 inches of viscous black sludge and there was no easy way to clean it. (He ended up throwing the pot away) So we figured, frick it, we'll just order pizza. He nixed that idea because he didn't want to waste all the fresh trout. So he said he'd just fry it in a skillet in the kitchen. You should have seen that conversation with his wife. She was very apprehsive about letting him need her gas range with more oil, and rightly so. I've never seen so many people monitoring one pan of cooking oil before or since.
Posted on 11/22/17 at 8:38 am to CP3
Back stabbed and probably too many outlets downstream of it. Every outlet in my house is GFCI (my house was built in the 1950's, all 2-wire) and they are perfectly fine as long as you aren't maxing out the circuit regularly. Lot of houses out there with 20-Amp breakers feeding 14AWG wiring too, I run into it all the time.
Posted on 11/22/17 at 10:16 am to Clames
quote:
Back stabbed
I bought a couple really cheap outlets the other day and was surprised they still have the backstabb option.
My fathers house was built in the 50's-60's and has some seriously jacked up wiring. The most egregious is for the second story they ran a 4ga wire on a 80amp breaker up to large junction box to feed the entire 2nd floor. Problem is they tied in 12 ga wires directly into the main 4ga cable. So effectively you have 20amp circuits "protected" by a 80 amp breaker.
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