Don't Let This Happen To You!

[93Z34]

I wanted to share the experience my wife and I had this morning at about 3:15 am. Imagine being snug as a bug in a rug in bed sleeping peacefully only to be awakened by the sound of a loud piercing chirping noise. As I was laying there in a stupor trying to figure out what the heck the nosie was, I began hearing more loud, annoying squeals, chirps and buzzers. Suddenly it hit me that the smoke detectors were going off, one by one in the house. I began smelling an electrical smell burning and rolled out of bed onto the floor to crawl out in the hallway to see what was wrong. I saw small wisps of smoke coming from the doorway to my model and computer room. I crawled into the room to see sparks and arcking from an outlet that had my surge protector plugged into it under my model bench. Small wisps of flame were also coming from the outlet as well. I went back down the hall and cut the power to that room at the breaker box and proceeded to calm my wife down as she was trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

After I somewhat regained my senses, I proceeded to investigate what exactly went wrong at the outlet. I had a power strip plugged into the bottom outlet with nothing plugged into the top outlet. Appraently there was a short in the power strip that went back to the outlet. I had two drop lights, my Dremel tool and a lead cord plugged into the 6 outlet strip. None of the lights were on and the Dremel was also shut off. I pulled the plug this morning and saw just how bad the oultet had melted inside the wall. We were extremely fortunate not to have had a serious situationon our hands. Also, if we didn't have smoke detectors, who knows what could have happened. We have a smoke detector in each room of the house and two in the hallway. I change the batteries in all of them every 6 months like clockwork as well.

The electrician just left and we discovered that the power strip itself was defective which caused an overload in the outlet which, in turn resulted in the arcing and fire in the outlet. Had I used an actual surge protector instead of just a power strip, in all likelihood, this could have been avoided as the circuit breaker in the surge protector would have blown.

So, we learned alot this morning at 3:15. I now have an actual surge protector to use, the outlet has been replaced, and we're thankful for smoke detectors. If anyone here is using just a regular power strip, think about replacing it with an actual surge protector. Had we not been home when this happened, we would have lost everything, no doubt. We got lucky this time.

I just wanted to pass along what I leanred from my near catastrophe this morning. Don't take shortcuts in your model rooms, or in any room for that matter and above all, use smoke detectors. There is no doubt they, in all likelihood, saved our lives this morning.

This is what was left of our outlet when I pulled it from the wall.

[Guest Gramps-xrds]

That looks like a GFCI outlet. It should have tripped it self at any indication of a ground.

Yes you were fortunate for the smoke detectors and for the little damage that occured.

I hope your wife isn't going to get paraniod now that this has happened. lol

[MR BIGGS]

You guys where real lucky some people are not. Good thing you had them smoke detectors around the house. I have a smoke detector in each room and a surge protector outlet in each room too. Most of the time they are a nuisance always tripping and just a pain in the butt when you have to reset them cause the blow drier or toaster tripped them. But they are there for a reason. I would rather keep re-setting them then lose all my belongings or even my house in a fire. Just glad to hear you guys are ok.

Edited February 5, 2009 by MR BIGGS

[Terry Sumner]

That looks like a GFCI outlet. It should have tripped it self at any indication of a ground.

Yes you were fortunate for the smoke detectors and for the little damage that occured.

I hope your wife isn't going to get paraniod now that this has happened. lol

Yeah...that is a GFCI outlet. I'd be curious if the elecrtician had some kind of explanation or reason why that thing didn't trip? It should have I think.

You guys are lucky. If you didn't have those smoke detectors, that would have eventually caught fire and you wouldn't have known about it until it was too late and the fire was really rolling! Someone was watching over you folks eh?

Terry

[Smart-Resins]

Well, you are fortunate indeed! We recently purchased this home and we had a problem when we used the microwave, the breaker would trip, so I checked the outlet out and it was fine. its a 1969 home, so did not really understand. We moved the microwave and it happened again. This time when I turned the breaker back on, it tripped again, twice in a row, so I left the power off and pulled the outlet out. One of its hot screws were loose and the wire had touched the ground screw, arking and welding everything together. Worste part was, it was in a metal outlet box, wich it all got welded to. So I had to use a big screw driver to break it all apart and fix!! So we were lucky. That was durring the day! You were fortunate for the smoke detectors to wake you up sincethe GFI did not apparently work properly either! Jody

[93Z34]

The GFI did not trip as it was supposed to. I'm not sure if the failure occurred before the arcing or after, but regardless, I would have thought the GFI should have tripped before it got that hot. I have no idea who manufactured the outlet, but I'm just glad we caught it in time. Another couple of minutes and I hate to think what would have happened.

[Aaronw]

Those plug in air fresheners have done similar things to outlets.

Not saying this was the case with you, but many old homes have out dated electrical systems. Modern society has added a lot more electrical devices than homes built in the 70's or earlier planned for. How many times have you seen the (one) outlet in a room with two power strips pluged into it. That is 12 places to plug stuff in on wires only designed to power 2 items, this is particularly common in kitchens and living rooms / family rooms (entertainment centers).

Don't hesitate to call the fire department either to check it out, that is why we are here. Even if you think the fire is out there can still be hot spots in the wall. I went on a call to an office where someone left an old space heater running all night, luckily the building was on an alarm system and the smoke set off a detector. The outlet was fried and there was char about 1 foot up the inside of the wall studs.

Good job on keeping your detectors supplied with fresh batteries.

[93Z34]

Those plug in air fresheners have done similar things to outlets.

Not saying this was the case with you, but many old homes have out dated electrical systems. Modern society has added a lot more electrical devices than homes built in the 70's or earlier planned for. How many times have you seen the (one) outlet in a room with two power strips pluged into it. That is 12 places to plug stuff in on wires only designed to power 2 items, this is particularly common in kitchens and living rooms / family rooms (entertainment centers).

Don't hesitate to call the fire department either to check it out, that is why we are here. Even if you think the fire is out there can still be hot spots in the wall. I went on a call to an office where someone left an old space heater running all night, luckily the building was on an alarm system and the smoke set off a detector. The outlet was fried and there was char about 1 foot up the inside of the wall studs.

Good job on keeping your detectors supplied with fresh batteries.

We don't do the plug in air freshener thing. I have model paint in my hobby room to freshen my air. Seriously though, I pulled the wall apart after it happened and found nothing to indicate a fire had started in the wall. Being a firefighter for almost 15 years taught me that fires can smolder for hours and even days before actually igniting. I have been rearranging my model room all day and sorting through electrical cords and unnecessary clutter in my room. One thing I realized was, that if a fire did break out in this room, it would quickly turn into a haz-mat incident with all my paints, thinners, and most of all, the styrene plastic kits stacked everywhere. Needless to say, I'm packing alot of the kits I know I'm not going to build anytime soon and storing them in our storage unit and in the shed behind the house. There's no way I could afford to replace all the plastic I'd lose.

[Aaronw]

We don't do the plug in air freshener thing. I have model paint in my hobby room to freshen my air. Seriously though, I pulled the wall apart after it happened and found nothing to indicate a fire had started in the wall. Being a firefighter for almost 15 years taught me that fires can smolder for hours and even days before actually igniting. I have been rearranging my model room all day and sorting through electrical cords and unnecessary clutter in my room. One thing I realized was, that if a fire did break out in this room, it would quickly turn into a haz-mat incident with all my paints, thinners, and most of all, the styrene plastic kits stacked everywhere. Needless to say, I'm packing alot of the kits I know I'm not going to build anytime soon and storing them in our storage unit and in the shed behind the house. There's no way I could afford to replace all the plastic I'd lose.

I went through a fire simulator where they had a photo of a hose and could add in smoke, fire etc in a class once. The house fire they had me running had heavy black smoke with occasional explosions coming from the back. My first thought was Oh, no its my hobby room, run away, run away.

Edited February 5, 2009 by Aaronw

[1989 Monogram ZR1 # 2785]

I'm glad you woke up in time...sorry to hear.