OK guys, here’s a little heads up about working in the garage! Saturday evening about 10PM, my daughter came into my bedroom to say the power had gone off in the rest of the house and her room smelled.
I took my flashlight and went out out the breaker box and a breaker was thrown, I tried to re-engage it but it tripped again. I could smell electrical smoke out side the house, I flipped up the garage door and could only see the dim halo of where a 4" light was hanging, it was impenetrable smoke from ceiling to floor. I dashed into the garage and opened the side door to get out the smoke, but it was being replenished faster than it was blowing out and I couldn’t see where it was coming from. I ran back into the house and told my sleeping wife, “we have a fire!!” she went back to sleep, my daughter called 911. When I ran back outside to the garage door, I could now see the flicker of flames through the smoke, it was coming from the laundry area. I grabbed the garden house and started spraying water in it’s direction, it seemed to be in the wall behind the drier. I went into the garage deeper and could see it was the drier and kept bombarding it with water. As I crawled over old boards to get closer to the flames, I could at last see nothing else was burning yet but the drier. With the hose in the lint trap and in the open door, which had flames inside the drum too, I had by now put it out by the time the fire department arrived, but before I could do anything to put out the fire. I had to grab two 5 gallon pails of acetone, a gallon of MEK, epoxy resin, 5 gallons of laminating, gloss, surfacing agent, etc. and like a chicken with out a head, stash them in my van. The fire department guys saw my glassing stands and immediately asked if I had flammables stored in the garage. I told them I did repairs on my own boards at home. My side of the garage had nothing to do with the fire, but it could have been really bad, every year we read about a family that lost everything just before Christmas, luckily it wasn’t us.
So folks watch those chemicals at home! It would have been a bitch had it gotten far enough along to light up my acetone. I would have been asking for the Swaylocks Christmas fund for the Phillips family. Ya’ll have a very Merry Christmas, we will!
wouldn’t want to think about what could have happened had one of you not been awake…
It was only a week ago my real estate agent forbade me keeping any fibreglassing chemicals on the premises…having read this, I can see her point about an ‘insurance risk’. [Imagine a block of 14 units going up in smoke ?? nasty stuff]
Jim, Thanks for the heads up. It’s just beginning to sink in to how flammable all our beloved chemicals are. I always knew Acetone was a bomb-in-a-can, but until some recent posts, I didn’t realize that resin was also a fire hazard. I’m glad you caught that fire in time. Somebody up there likes you. Doug
yeah thats what i was thinkin too keith. oh i am not worried honey its just a fire i am going back to bed. its amazing how many close calls you have in your life. my dad was cooking dinner one night around christmas out on the grill and the propane tank exploded. he would have been standing right by it if he hadnt forgot to get the tongs. things that make you realize just how fragile life are and how important your friends and family are too.
i am glad that you caught the fire early enough jim.
and an early merry christmas to everybody on here.
Your daughter is the hero of the hour…the year! In the WHAT IF DPT.: what if she had been asleep? What if she had not been there? What if you guys had been gone?.. I’m sure you have, but give her extra hugs and kisses. Thanks for the reminder that the reason for the season is to count our blessings. Have a merry one!
you told your wife there was a fire and SHE WENT BACK TO SLEEP?
This will wake her up: tell her because of the fire you have to get rid of all your washers and dryers and she’ll have to go to laundromats from here on out. After all, it wasn’t your chemicals that caused the problem. Which brings in more income to the family: laundry appliances or surfboard construction?
Hmm…I wonder…hopefully none of you guys work for the insurance industry…
you told your wife there was a fire and SHE WENT BACK TO SLEEP?
This will wake her up: tell her because of the fire you have to get rid of all your washers and dryers and she’ll have to go to laundromats from here on out. After all, it wasn’t your chemicals that caused the problem. Which brings in more income to the family: laundry appliances or surfboard construction?
I keep a fire extinguisher in the house and another one in the kitchen. We also have more smoke detectors than you can shake a stick at. Why? well, here’s another fire story - years back, just before Xmas I was out walking the dog on a rainy day when I noticed the neighbor’s roof seemed to be steaming. Funny, I thought, and when I looked closer I realized it appeared to be smoke, coming out between the wood shakes on the roof. I yelled at a neighbor to call the fire dept. & then went over and pounded on their door. No answer, only loud music inside. I pounded louder and louder until someone finally came to the door. I told them about the smoke, and they only laughed and said, no, we have a big fire in the fireplace. I insisted that they had a problem and finally pulled them out of the doorway to show them that the roof was smoking, not just the chimney. They realized this was wrong & went back inside to get the other people out. By the time the firemen got there, about 5 minutes later, there were flames shooting out of the roof vents and the roof was ablaze. The firemen were able to put the fire out, but the place was heavily damaged from both the fire and the water pumped in to extinguish it.
They later said that the fire in the fireplace had in fact started the blaze in the attic, apparently the chimney was one of those sheet metal types, and hot gas had vented out of a poorly made joint for long enough to ignite the wood around it. They also said that had they been five minutes later getting there, the home would have gone completely, and probably taken out one or more of its neighbors as well (attached homes). And these people were sitting around the fireplace, cheery as all get-out, while their attic and then roof was lighting up…made me realize that this kind of stuff can happen way too easily…
don’t forget to change the batteries in your smoke detectors, folks!
Wow Jim, I’m so glad to hear you are safe. Reading this inspires me to to a mini review for our Swaylocks family. First you don’t mention it but I hope a smoke detector woke you up…if not, battery powered one’s are very cheap insurance to protect the apparently deep sleeping wife. Second, fire extinguishers should be in you house and your shaping bay/garage for quick response…water could have really hurt you had the electricity taken a new path thru your body. Last, and forgive me if I sound like I’m preaching please double check your insurance. Mine thru Allstate is null and void if more than 5 gallons of gasoline is stored at home. It’s in the fine print and I would guess glassing supplies would qualify you to not be covered. Wouldn’t that be an ugly surprise to discover you are not insured.
Hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season. Gil
just a former firefighter looking out for his Swaylocks friends dreams.
Glad to hear all is okay with your family. Not sure if the the firefighters passed this scarey fact along, but fires usually go from ignition, to fully involving the structure in a average time of 4.5 minutes. That really was a serious close call, which we are all glad you avoided.
I ran back into the house and told my sleeping wife, “we have a fire!!” she went back to sleep, my daughter called 911.
Now that I think about it I used to work for a manager who pretty much operated the same way…as long as somebody took care of the problems for no extra pay, he didn’t really care about what was happening!
Thank God Jim everything worked out good! remember the “florida’s on fire” back in 1999 ,well a wall of fire was moving our way and hot ashes was falling in are yard,i was standing in the front yard and could smell catalyst coming from my shed.it was a @ 10 year old one gal. bottle that deteriorated and spilled all over the wood floor of my 12x12 shaping/glassing room ,i shoveled sand in there then flooded it with the water hose,I now keep the flammables in an old refrigerator out side of the shed
Jim------I’m no fireman, but I have heard that most fires start in the garage. I guess that’s why they are supposed to by “Code” have a “firewall”. I noticed up at the “cannery” on Maui that the guys store their resin out back in a chainlink, locked shed about 50 ft. from the building. Acetone sure can “flash”. Merry Christmas Jim. Maybe the guy this holiday was named after was watching out for you and yours! McDing
Laundry plugs often short out and burn up in humid environments. Mine went 2 years ago and got REAL hot but blew the breaker box instead of starting a fire. I DIDN’T re-trigger the breaker box before checking it.
The plug gets hot for months before it goes - if it is hot to the touch, get a new plug and outlet pronto!