Here's a good one for you

[ribenavrs]

Been a long day today

So, out of bed at 0630hrs ready for a shower and shave and to the fire station to go to HQ for a Breathing Apparatus training assessment

Get to HQ with a bunch of the crew laughing and joking and generally enjoying the craic, have the Initial set assessment and waiting for the others to have theirs

Phone is on silent by request of the training staff

Get a call from the daughter (that I feel vibrate) asking me to pick her up and explain that she knows I'm 50 miles away and busy

2 mins later get a call from SWMBO saying she has sorted out a lift for daughter and all is well

5 mins later get a call from SWMBO ( FFS, what now!! ) in tears talking jibberish saying that the garage on fire and what to do. Ohhhhh st. I tell her to go and put it out using the fire ext. in the garage .............. She refuses ..........


I then ask my mate, whos van we are in containing all the fire kit, to give me his keys and I'm going home

Commence thru' town at rate of knots commesurate with knowing your house is burning down and continue at said speed the 25 miles home. After safely overtaking a couple of slower moving vehicles on a 1 mile straight with a kink onto another mileish straight and clock the scamera van peeking out in the middle of the straight. fk fk fk bugger. Slow down and pass at 60. arse. Annnnnnd speed up

We have an ADT alarm system installed and this did a fantastic job of alerting the other half to the fire and simultaneously calling the Fire and Rescue service, i.e my own station, out

Got home to find the standard response of 2 fire engines outside my house and now steaming garage. It was out

Apparently the tumble drier had caught fire which had melted the plastic water pipes in the wall behind it, therefore almost putting the fire out but drenching the whole garage in the process

Fire damage to drier, WM, Fridge freezer, contents of drier including my best pants and new christmas socks , water and smoke damage to surrounding area, elder daughters entire flat contents which we had moved her out of the day before, numerous Dewalt power tools and allsorts of stuff to be determined by loss adjusters

Many ifs and buts there, as she was allset to put the dog in the garage, fetch daughter and leave the drier going but all's well that ends well. Everyone OK and just a bit (quite alot) of repairable damage done to the garage

Please check your fire alarm regularly and replace your batteries asap if they bleep

Apologies for the long post, I hope it helps you in some way

[missdiane]

Glad everyone is OK

I've always worried about tumble dryers

Makes you think how far it would have spread if you did not have the direct call to fire brigade

Edited by missdiane on Sunday 17th January 21:19

[ribenavrs]

thanks

you're not wrong

I dread to think what would have happened otherwise

probably would'nt be sat at this table writing on this laptop

[Google [bot]]

ALWAYS CLEAN THE LINT!

[branflakes]

Google [bot] said:

ALWAYS CLEAN THE LINT!

Quite. You'd be amazed how combustible lint is.

[ali_kat]

One of my worst nightmares - so pleased everyone is ok

[Simpo Two]

Probably better off in the forum in which I expect it was originally posted! (ie general warning, not of much use to DIY folk)

[ribenavrs]

Yeah, I did post in the Lounge for that reason

Hey ho

I thought we were quite good with the lint and fluff, I guess we were'nt that good

I haven't had a good look in the daylight yet to see if I can see exactly where it started

Up now and ready for a day of cleaning and phone calls

[CO2000]

Good luck with the clean up, my Wife always goes on about not leaving the Tumble Drier on while going out - I'll tell he about this & no doubt get a told you so !

Edited by CO2000 on Monday 18th January 18:27

[FarleyRusk]

Glad it turned out okay. Bet you'll get a ribbing at work for 'catching fire' yourself though.

We run our tumble drier at night for the cheap leccy. Its in the utility room between the kitchen and garage. There are 3 closed doors and a staircase between it and the nearest smoke detector. Perhaps wise to put an additional (linked) detector there too ?

[ribenavrs]

Definately mate, the more the merrier. Safer too

Ribbing by text has been fairly constant

[missdiane]

Tell them you can't find the cat, they'll soon shut up

[Junior Bianno]

Glad no one was hurt. Could of been worse though - look what happened when my garage went on fire...

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[ribenavrs]

ouch

how did you claim ?

car on car insurance and garage stuff on house insurance ?

did they clean all the misc. stuff up or replace it

got the assessor coming in the morning

getting bored with the stink now

[Junior Bianno]

Yep - Car and House insurance. No probs really. Coughed up for a replacement Porker, all repairs to the garage, replacements to all damaged items and clean-up.

The only dodgy moment was when some hardnut loss adjuster phoned up and basically asked me why I burned my garage down. Apparently it's just part of the process and once they had properly investigated everything I got a payout within 2 months.

Edited by Junior Bianno on Tuesday 19th January 16:24

[ribenavrs]

thanks

will look forward to THAT phone call

[ribenavrs]

update for anyone that is interested

spoke to the Ins. co. on the Sunday afternoon who logged the call and said someone will ring on the Monday, they did and took brief details of what happened, due to the varied nature of the claim i.e buildings and contents a loss adjuster was appointed

he called, arranged a time and came on the Thurs. Just a quick visit to assess the room and make sure what i said happened had happened also approved my request to use my own contractor to provide building, electrical, plumbing and painting services. we agreed that a cleaning company would be used to specialist clean the garage and all the nooks, crannies and boiler system etc etc

this was then passed to the cleaning co. to assess and move forward

they came out on the following Tuesday to assess the damage and ensure the job was doable, they also wrote off the W/M, drier and F/F so I could replace asap

this task was passed to an approved co. to suggest models to replace which was fine apart from the F/F. appropriate model was agreed after some haggling

quotes now in from builder inc. plumbing, elctrician, flooring and a long list from the missus of burnt and damaged clothes and various other garage paraphernalia. just waiting for ADT to quote for a replacement detector head

need all the quotes in before the Ins co. will validate the claim

cleaning co. coming this thursday to clean the garage top to bottom and seal the paintwork and to list and then skip all damaged items and PAT test or skip the electrical stuff

so far so good, roll on thursday and we can get rid of the smell and crack on with the re plastering etc

apologies for the long read but it has helped writing it all down

ETA - no sign of an NIP, so looks like I got away with that

Edited by ribenavrs on Tuesday 2nd February 00:06

[D14 AYS]

Good luck with it mate, sounds like a nightmare!