Accidental Pellet Incident

[womaus]

In Massachusetts:

DA: Woman, 53, dies in Fitchburg house fire started by wood pellets

http://www.telegram.com/news/201609...-fitchburg-house-fire-started-by-wood-pellets

Appears the pellets were stored too close to a water heater.

Stay safe.

 

[doghouse]

In Massachusetts:

DA: Woman, 53, dies in Fitchburg house fire started by wood pellets

http://www.telegram.com/news/201609...-fitchburg-house-fire-started-by-wood-pellets

Appears the pellets were stored too close to a water heater.

Stay safe.

What a misleading headline, as if the pellets intentionally starts the fire.

 

[Bioburner]

What a misleading headline, as if the pellets intentionally starts the fire.

I agree, the source of ignition was the water heater and worse is the lumping the article together with a arson.

A warning to all is get smoke detectors and check them if you already have them for function and install fresh batteries. The home had no working detectors.
I have to replace a old CO detector this week. Will get a combo unit with gas detection. Smoke detectors can be had for less than $5

 

[alternativeheat]

I presently have two smoke/ co detectors offline. One because of this humid weather but all I have to do is snap it back up in place. The other I have to rewire the conversion pigtail in the socket and put up the new one ( different brand, we had one die that is no longer supported and this new one is supposed to take its place). But anyway, we still have 3 of the noisy suckers on line .

Don't they make ones that are not affected by humidity ? Maybe this new one won't be.

It's really a shame someone had to die over the simple lack of detectors being present in her house. That was the real killer there . There must be counties where they are not mandatory still but we had them since the first one after our first stove went in 40 years ago or so.

 

[Bioburner]

They are required in all new homes(hardwired and linked) and rentals in MN. Not sure about the requirement before home resale. Next month has fire prevention week. Several metro depts. have open house and give away batteries and detectors. I bought a CO and gas detector today for $30. Plugs in and has a battery backup. Replaced all my smoke detectors last year(5 hard wired)as they were 10 years old. Think the multi pack was like $4.5o each with batteries.

 

[alternativeheat]

We had to hard wire the whole place for smoke and some locations with the combo. We added on an apartment, there are two over there and five in the main house, one in the basement all wired together. But we couldn't pass code without them or get occupancy for the apartment without them. To which we have an awesome tenant that we hope to never lose ( along with anyone else) !

 

[Bioburner]

Another issue I have seen is removal of the unit or batteries to silence the alarms and so no warning when they really need the early warning

 

[alternativeheat]

Another issue I have seen is removal of the unit or batteries to silence the alarms and so no warning when they really need the early warning

Yes, well with 8 of them between the house, basement and apartment ,even with one down they are all wired together in here. I do have to wire that socket pigtail though, so the upstairs hall is down one. The next down the line is at the bottom of the stairwell and that is directly across from the stove and is smoke and Co. To me that is the more important one, even the contractor thought we were under over kill on detectors here but it's what the building inspector wanted and we passed the fire guy's eye with flying colors . So I'm not concerned about the one detector tonight.

 

[Pete Zahria]

A warning to all is get smoke detectors

Another warning is to not stack your pellets against a water heater......

 

[Bioburner]

Wonder if the water heater was gas and if it was properly installed? I have no heat off our Marathon.

 

[jedirye]

Instant h2o heater here.

 

[alternativeheat]

Yeah, our hot water heater is lp gas, it's power vented and basically cold to the touch. Maybe a little warmth off the top but not hot enough to ignite anything for sure. I just brushed a bunch of spider webs off it last weekend, so the spiders like it..

Turns out the replacement smoke detector didn't need a wiring change , we bought the Kidde adapter plug and snapped it up in place. But I like the mounting plate on these new ones way better than the old ones. Next year will be year 10 for these old detectors, I'll be replacing them then. I also found one CO /Smoke that is not pulsing for the CO and wondering if it's defective too. I believe it's supposed to be pulsing red led lights. It's a FireX 12000. I think I have a replacement out back for it, also a Kidde counter part, and one more adapter left..