We had a fire!

[smokeywolf]

So sorry to hear of your loss. Very glad no one was hurt. Although they are just objects, we work so hard to accumulate these things, they are very meaningful and important and it's so heartbreaking to lose them.

Any clue as to the cause of the fire?

Hope your mom's condition improves rapidly.

smokeywolf

[dagunnut]

Thank you for your responses, thoughts, and prayers! Thanks to the graciousness of a member here we will have some fishing and camping gear coming our way. We have also been given some tips on the clean-up and how to keep ourselves safe while doing it. A friend of the family that worked doing fire restoration for 8 years has given us a few tips to save what we can. We purchased several plastic storage bins to put the salvaged items into to keep it safe outside until warmer weather. The ash and smoke smell make it difficult to do any cleaning inside the home.

The fire inspector determined the fire started in the space between the ceiling of the lower level and flooring up above. The wiring shorted out from having the sheaving chewed off by a squirrel or mouse. The heat generated started the blown in insulation smouldering and that eventually built up enough heat to spread to the floor joist. Once the floor joist were burning it was only a matter of time until it burnt through the flooring to the open space up above. With all the dry hardwood flooring, magazines, books, and furniture there was no shortage of fuel. The neighbor up the hill called our uncle to ask him what he was up to, with all the smoke. Its surprising he even awoke to answer the phone, as he usually doesn't answer. He got dressed went outside and looked in the lower level, no sign of anything wrong. He then saw a puff of smoke off of the back of the building and decided to go up to the top and check. Upon opening the door he was met with a wall of dense smoke. The fire department was on scene 20 minutes later and the building was fully engulfed. It was 13 below and our uncle just sat there on his deck watching the blaze apologizing for not keeping our stuff safe.

Bad Water Bill and smokeywolf Thank you for your posts.

We are truly at a loss of words to express our gratitude for all your thoughts, prayers, words of sympathy, and kindness.

Thank You!
The Zanoni family

[txnative1951]

I saw a house get gutted a few years ago due to a fire that started in the detached garage. From the burn pattern, it looked like the fire probably started as a fuel leak on a car, then spread to the garage, and then traversed through the breezeway attic area into the house. This was in a fairly nice area of town with houses in the $400-500K (i.e. about 3 times the median home price in that city) or so range where most people own fairly new upper scale luxury cars (Mercedes, BMWs, Porsches, etc). Sometimes "excrement" happens. Fuel lines leak, the fuel hits a hot part of the engine, and it catch fire -- even on cars that are very new.

I've also seen a house catch on fire because a lazy renter did not ever clean the dryer filter or the exhaust piping on it and then it overheated and caught fire.

[Bad Water Bill]

For most of my life I have lived under the building codes of Cook Co Il.

All electrical wiring must be run thru thinwall tubing.

After mom passed away I finally learned the reason behind the tubing.

Her home was built in a different county shortly after the war.

All of the wiring was 2 strand romex which no longer can be in a home if you want to sell the home.

Over 2K feet of wire was pulled and replaced.

Sorry that I did not save the many places where mice had chewed thru the insulation between the 2 strands and in some cases 6-8" of naked copper wire was just hanging there between two walls.

Yes mom attended church EVERY DAY till her 95th birthday but shortly after that she went to join her husband (my dad) of 64 years.

[Sweetpea]

But... But...

That must have been cellulose insulation, which is not supposed to burn...

Seen it happen myself, and they keep selling the stuff!

[txnative1951]

For most of my life I have lived under the building codes of Cook Co Il.

All electrical wiring must be run thru thinwall tubing.

After mom passed away I finally learned the reason behind the tubing.

Her home was built in a different county shortly after the war.

All of the wiring was 2 strand romex which no longer can be in a home if you want to sell the home.

Over 2K feet of wire was pulled and replaced.

Sorry that I did not save the many places where mice had chewed thru the insulation between the 2 strands and in some cases 6-8" of naked copper wire was just hanging there between two walls.

So, the rats from Cook County have escaped?

So, 2-conductor Romex is no longer allowed. How about 3-conductor?

Some of us are old enough to remember houses with the bare wiring in the attics that was routed through / around insulators.



Apparently the proper term for it is "knob and tube wiring".

[dagunnut]

Ha Cook County IL. I spent seven years there as a kid. Yes I am a FIB but moved north at the age of seven to Capones up north getaway.

txnative1951 that wiring in your picture looks familiar did you take it at my parents first house up north. The house was over 100 years old when we moved in in 1977. It was a boarding house that was owned by the lumber mill founder in the iron mining town of Norway, Michigan.

Sweetpea it actually didn't burn the cellulose insulation smouldered would be the response that they would give.

[txnative1951]

txnative1951 that wiring in your picture looks familiar did you take it at my parents first house up north. The house was over 100 years old when we moved in in 1977. It was a boarding house that was owned by the lumber mill founder in the iron mining town of Norway, Michigan.

Nawh, it was just a link to an image on wiki that I found. I remembered seeing that type of wiring, but didn't know what to call it in my Google search, so I ended up getting some rather strange search results.

[Bad Water Bill]

So, the rats from Cook County have escaped?

So, 2-conductor Romex is no longer allowed. How about 3-conductor?

Some of us are old enough to remember houses with the bare wiring in the attics that was routed through / around insulators.



Apparently the proper term for it is "knob and tube wiring".

Cook Co wants 3 wire inside of thin wall tubing. A designated ground to ALL receptacles and switches.

Crook County rats are way to big to get between your walls.

[Sweetpea]

You can call it smouldering all you want, but if it lights up other flammables, then out was burning!

[txnative1951]

Cook Co wants 3 wire inside of thin wall tubing. A designated ground to ALL receptacles and switches.

I've helped friends add lighting or outlets to older houses before and some of the stuff that you see up there, you have to wonder about. I've seen lighting wired so that there is still a hot wire in there when the light switch is turned off. If it is wired *correctly*, you can turn off the light switch and then put your finger in the bulb receptacle and you won't get shocked. I've been shocked by power that was on the *ground wire*. Even without unwanted 4-legged visitors chewing your wiring, there's plenty that gets done up there that is dangerous enough already.

[Bad Water Bill]

Just as we will never be without "shade tree mechanics" we will always have the same type of "ELEKTRICKSHINES".

[txnative1951]

Just as we will never be without "shade tree mechanics" we will always have the same type of "ELEKTRICKSHINES".

Well, if *everything* goes right, they can get away with some of the stuff that they do, but if something goes wrong, it's going to bite someone. Not running power to a light receptacle before the switch is just common sense. Sure, maybe you don't think anything about it the first time you do it, but the first time you change a light bulb and get shocked even though the switch is turned off, you should get a hint that maybe that wasn't a good idea.

And let's not get started on plumbers either. I had a water leak in a line that went through my yard due to some roots. I wasn't sure exactly where it went, but I suspected that it went to one of the water faucets in the yard. So, I figured I would just cut it at the leaking spot and cap the side where the water was obviously under pressure (i.e. the source of the water) so that I could give it a couple of days to dry out while still allowing the house to have water. Well, it turned out that *both* sides of the cut had water under pressure, so somewhere it was being fed from both ends of the piece of pipe. Reminds me of one of the labs I was working in at one time and we had moved some of the computers and such around. Couldn't figure out why none of the machines would come on. There were quite a few power cables and power strips under the tables and they were daisy chained together. Figured that one of them wasn't turned on or a circuit breaker had blown. Turned out that the power strips were not just daisy changed together, but they looped back on themselves and thus none of them were actually plugged into a wall. Yep, they were all plugged in -- just none of them actually plugged into a wall outlet.

[Bad Water Bill]

I was finishing a new apartment in the basement and I turned off the water to the home owners place.
Much to my surprise the owner had tapped into her renters hot AND cold water lines(every one had their separate meter)and was stealing water from the honest folks that were renting from her.

No she never paid me one dime for building the apartment complete with bathroom kitchen etc.

A CPO (her next door neighbor) escorted me out of the place and I was told to never return.

So much for a sweet old church going lady.

But sometimes that IS THE CHICAGO WAY.

[txnative1951]

I was finishing a new apartment in the basement and I turned off the water to the home owners place.
Much to my surprise the owner had tapped into her renters hot AND cold water lines(every one had their separate meter)and was stealing water from the honest folks that were renting from her.

No she never paid me one dime for building the apartment complete with bathroom kitchen etc.

That is one of the reasons that we have "contractor's / mechanic's liens".
http://www.rocketlawyer.com/article/...al-Property.rl
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs...4&ChapterID=63

Depending upon how it was plumbed and whether there were any check valves, it's also possible that the renters were getting her cold and hot water also. Sometimes, it is not malicious intent, but rather just cluelessness. On the other hand, given that you're talking about Chicago, malicious intent might be a somewhat higher probability.

[dagunnut]

updated post

[Bad Water Bill]

Deleted because off topic.

[DLCTEX]

I recently cut a new door opening through a metal covered wall for a customer. The metal was covered with spray on cellulose insulation that had been there about 30 years. The sparks and heat from the diamond babe we were using kept igniting the insulation on fore and it flamed, not smouldered. I had to stop repeatedly and dash water on the flames. It was a good thing there was no wood in contact with the metal.