Check your fire alarms

[peterlondon]

At 5.30am we woke spluttering and coughing
The breadmaker was on timer to finish baking for around 6.30,a fault obviously made the thing catch fire.We are so lucky we wern't burned in our bed.
We have a economy seven system in our house.THis gives cheap rate power from 2am until 8am.
So before going to bed the washer,dishwasher and dryer are set to come on.
Dear oh lor...fortunately only smoke damage,but the smell.
Why wen't we alerted earlier.......because I took the bloody battery out of the smoke alarm because I was grilling and it kept going off,but forgot to put it back in.
Lesson learned,check your smoke alarms

 

[frigilux]

Good heavens, glad you're OK!

 

[iej]

Smoke alarms are absolutely essential.

In new build (here anyway) you're required to have a number of hardwired ones.

Ours are actually linked to the house alarm system (wirelessly). So, if the batteries are low, it would alert us immediately. Also, if there's a fire it sounds huge sirens, turns on the lights and alerts the monitoring centre which would send the fire service.

Definitely worth having smoke alarms in your utility room / wherever you have your laundry appliances (especially the dryer) and also near the dishwasher.

In terms of kitchen smoke, a good extract hood should avoid that issue

Glad you woke up though! That could have been very nasty although it's possible the bread maker might have contained the fire and just smouldered but you'd still have had a lot of smoke damage.

 

[wayupnorth]

Besides hardwired smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors, they are trying to enact a new ordinance in this state requiring all new residential builds have a sprinkler system. They are already mandated in all new commercial and big residential builds. My next door neighbor is a fire chief in our nearest city and swears by them for the extra $5000. He said, would you rather have a wet couch, or no house.

 

[iej]

I think that's probably over-kill here as houses are almost always masonry construction. Even the internal walls of my 1970s Irish house are plastered block work.

Structure is block work and some structural steel.

Your wood frame construction is probably a lot more likely to have rapid fire spread. I'd be more concerned about misfiring sprinklers causing serious floods.

 

[norgeway]

A sprinkler system..

Can be a nusiance, The retirement community I work at has all buildings fully equipped with sprinklers, as the maintenence/security person on duty at night, Im the one who has to diagnose and repair , or at least notify the maintenence supervisor when something goes wrong, many of ours are dry systems,,this means a column of air keeps the water out of the pipes ,thus they will not freeze in the unheated attic space , this sometimes gives trouble,,,but I would take my chances on flooding, over fire, it is code here.I know of a few houses with sprinklers, but not many.

 

[wayupnorth]

In new builds, using PEX above the ceiling with the sprinklers is not that much more when building a new dream home. But you're right, some water cleans up easier than fire damage. They supposidly wont trigger until heat reaches a certain point. Hopefully a smoke alarm will clear everyone out of the house first.

 

[tolivac]

Thanks for reminding me-have to change the batteries in mine.I would be concerned about sprinklers in case of electrical fires.That could make matters WORSE!

 

[davey7]

The Illinois fire marshall tried to force existing residential and commercial high-rises to install sprinklers earlier this year. Chicago is a home rule city, so that ticked off a lot of people, especially after the city created a program for high-rises (primarily residential) to meet improved fire safety standards without installing sprinklers. Forcing sprinklers would have caused a lot of buildings, even middle income, to be abandoned due to the excessive cost to install systems (no pex in Chicago sprinklers). Luckily enough people protested to their legislators who squashed the plan. It's required in new high-rises in Chicago, so that's a non-issue (except with cheap developers who actually run the pipes exposed - great in "lofts" but awful elsewhere).