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Electrical house fire

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  • 16-06-2015 11:13am
    #1
    HankSchrader
    Registered Users Posts: 76 ✭✭


    Fuseboard in my house caught fire the other day. Was in bed at the time, got the fire out when the alarm went off so we are very lucky!! No appliances were on at the time. Alot of damage done in kitchen where the fuseboard was. The house is around 10 years old. A day or two before the fire there was a fault in the area with the power, it went for a few hours. When it came back other people in the area have said that their fuse boxes were making a loud buzzing noise, possibly because of the outage (power surge). Is it possible that this could attributed to our fire? If there was a loose connection (and there shouldn't have been) the fire could have started because of this. The main power switch in fuse box never flipped off. ESB had to come to disconnect power. Any ideas are welcomed as seriously p****d off this could have happened in the first place!!


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    #2
    meercat
    Registered Users Posts: 4,745 ✭✭✭meercat


    HankSchrader wrote: »
    Fuseboard in my house caught fire the other day. Was in bed at the time, got the fire out when the alarm went off so we are very lucky!! No appliances were on at the time. Alot of damage done in kitchen where the fuseboard was. The house is around 10 years old. A day or two before the fire there was a fault in the area with the power, it went for a few hours. When it came back other people in the area have said that their fuse boxes were making a loud buzzing noise, possibly because of the outage (power surge). Is it possible that this could attributed to our fire? If there was a loose connection (and there shouldn't have been) the fire could have started because of this. The main power switch in fuse box never flipped off. ESB had to come to disconnect power. Any ideas are welcomed as seriously p****d off this could have happened in the first place!!

    The fuseboard shouldn't be combustible itself. It's unusual that the fuse board is in the kitchen if the house is 10 years old. Was the fuse board boxed in??any pics
    A loose connection would be the likeliest cause but this shouldn't have caught fire unless there was something flammable close by. Sorry for your troubles but at least the fire alarm activated and you got out safe.


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    #3
    2011
    Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 12,595 Mod ✭✭✭✭2011


    HankSchrader wrote: »
    When it came back other people in the area have said that their fuse boxes were making a loud buzzing noise

    If a fuse board starts to make a noise that it has not made before it is worth investigating. Sometimes buzzing can be due to something innocuous shuch as a door bell transformer, other times it may be something arcing. Either way it is good to get it checked out by a professional electrician (not a DIY enthusiast).
    If there was a loose connection (and there shouldn't have been) the fire could have started because of this.

    Correct.
    The main power switch in fuse box never flipped off.

    I would not have expected it to.
    These devices are not designed to prevent a fire, they are only designed to operate (trip) if the current flowing though them exceeds a certain value for a certain length of time.
    There is nothing to suggest that the current flowing through this device exceeded the rating of the device.
    Any ideas are welcomed as seriously p****d off this could have happened in the first place!!

    I sympathise.
    Most likely a bad connection, it is impossible to say.


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