DGersic
Well-known member
It’s been a long day.
I arrived at my beach cottage in NJ about 11pm Thursday night, basically just made the bed, turned on the baseboard heaters, and went to bed. This morning (Friday), I woke up about 7:15am, made a mug of tea (electric stove), and was contemplating life when about 7:45am there was a loud Bang! Bang! Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang! from outside the house. Sounded like somebody trying to start an unmuffled badly tuned lawnmower.
Except there are no lawns here. It’s all rocks and sand.
Opening the door and looking out to see what was going on, I found my meter pan actively throwing flames and sparks, and smoke pouring out of the mast. Sorry, no pictures or video, it was a bit hectic. Neighbor called 911 while I grabbed a set of pliers to remove the do-not-disturb tag, opened the meter pan, and hit it with fire extinguisher #1.
Emptying #1 in to the box mostly stopped the fire there. It did not stop the burning wire. We watched as it burned from mast to over head wires, and dropped the burning wire on the roof. Fire extinguisher #2 saved the roof. We then watched as the wire burned all the way to the pole. At that point, the transformer down the street finally blew its “fuses”, and shut down the block.
Heres the meter pan, before the power company showed up and pulled the meter.
Old asbestos & concrete siding for the win. It has some scorch / smoke damage, but it didn’t burn.
Inside what’s left of the meter pan.
Inside the breaker panel.
Inside, there is melted Romex from the heat of the ground wire.
Electricians will be fixing this. Today, I had police, fire department, power company, electrical inspector, fire inspector, building inspector all here. The meter is gone, and the service is cut off at the pole. After electricians, and inspection, power company will reconnect. We need at least a new meter pan, mast, some wiring, and whatever else, plus new service lines and a meter.
Here is what didn’t happen. Two blocks over, a couple weeks ago, basically the same thing happened. But they didn’t catch it fast enough and the house is a total loss.
So, extinguishers work. Have several on hand, as one may not be enough. I just bought two new ones.
The initial opinion from the fire department is that salt air (beach cottage) and time caused corrosion in the wires at the meter panel, eventually leading to failure. One of the hots met the neutral, and (literally) Bang! The failure seems to be on the power company side, so not caused by anything in the house.
The electric was inspected post Sandy (2012) and the meter is new. They were all replaced after Sandy blew through. I don’t know how old the service wire is, probably is newer than 1990. A neighbor claims to be the first (1990) house to have to add a mast, previously the service wire ran to a fascia mounted bracket, and often was just laying on the roof.
From what I can see, there is a ground rod ~5’ from the panel, though I don’t know how deep it goes. It is tied to the neutral at the panel. Then there is a neutral / ground that runs across the house and is tied to the (copper) plumbing, going in to the ground. The in-house ground wire heated up to the point of melting its own sheath and the nearby Romex.
If the failure is, in fact, on the power company side of the meter, was something supposed to stop the in-house side of this from melting down? It seems like this shouldn’t have been this bad, with up to code wiring, grounding, and a modern breaker panel.
It seems that I am incredibly lucky. If this had cooked off 12 hours earlier, I would likely be filing an insurance claim for “destroyed house”. An hour later, I would have been food shopping, and it would have gone up. It picked exactly the time when I was there, quiet, and heard it go. The extinguishers worked, though they taste horrible.
I arrived at my beach cottage in NJ about 11pm Thursday night, basically just made the bed, turned on the baseboard heaters, and went to bed. This morning (Friday), I woke up about 7:15am, made a mug of tea (electric stove), and was contemplating life when about 7:45am there was a loud Bang! Bang! Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang! from outside the house. Sounded like somebody trying to start an unmuffled badly tuned lawnmower.
Except there are no lawns here. It’s all rocks and sand.
Opening the door and looking out to see what was going on, I found my meter pan actively throwing flames and sparks, and smoke pouring out of the mast. Sorry, no pictures or video, it was a bit hectic. Neighbor called 911 while I grabbed a set of pliers to remove the do-not-disturb tag, opened the meter pan, and hit it with fire extinguisher #1.
Emptying #1 in to the box mostly stopped the fire there. It did not stop the burning wire. We watched as it burned from mast to over head wires, and dropped the burning wire on the roof. Fire extinguisher #2 saved the roof. We then watched as the wire burned all the way to the pole. At that point, the transformer down the street finally blew its “fuses”, and shut down the block.
Heres the meter pan, before the power company showed up and pulled the meter.
Old asbestos & concrete siding for the win. It has some scorch / smoke damage, but it didn’t burn.
Inside what’s left of the meter pan.
Inside the breaker panel.
Inside, there is melted Romex from the heat of the ground wire.
Electricians will be fixing this. Today, I had police, fire department, power company, electrical inspector, fire inspector, building inspector all here. The meter is gone, and the service is cut off at the pole. After electricians, and inspection, power company will reconnect. We need at least a new meter pan, mast, some wiring, and whatever else, plus new service lines and a meter.
Here is what didn’t happen. Two blocks over, a couple weeks ago, basically the same thing happened. But they didn’t catch it fast enough and the house is a total loss.
So, extinguishers work. Have several on hand, as one may not be enough. I just bought two new ones.
The initial opinion from the fire department is that salt air (beach cottage) and time caused corrosion in the wires at the meter panel, eventually leading to failure. One of the hots met the neutral, and (literally) Bang! The failure seems to be on the power company side, so not caused by anything in the house.
The electric was inspected post Sandy (2012) and the meter is new. They were all replaced after Sandy blew through. I don’t know how old the service wire is, probably is newer than 1990. A neighbor claims to be the first (1990) house to have to add a mast, previously the service wire ran to a fascia mounted bracket, and often was just laying on the roof.
From what I can see, there is a ground rod ~5’ from the panel, though I don’t know how deep it goes. It is tied to the neutral at the panel. Then there is a neutral / ground that runs across the house and is tied to the (copper) plumbing, going in to the ground. The in-house ground wire heated up to the point of melting its own sheath and the nearby Romex.
If the failure is, in fact, on the power company side of the meter, was something supposed to stop the in-house side of this from melting down? It seems like this shouldn’t have been this bad, with up to code wiring, grounding, and a modern breaker panel.
It seems that I am incredibly lucky. If this had cooked off 12 hours earlier, I would likely be filing an insurance claim for “destroyed house”. An hour later, I would have been food shopping, and it would have gone up. It picked exactly the time when I was there, quiet, and heard it go. The extinguishers worked, though they taste horrible.
.