Just had a fire drill.

gooch · #1 10/04/2007, 12:45 AM

Sittin watchin TV. All of a sudden I smelled a strong smoke. If you know what elecrical fires smell like. That's what I smelled. Well 15 minutes of trouble shooting and I couldn't find the source. So got the kids out of the house, two parrots, a cat a dog and a guinny pig. Called the fire department. Figured they would send a couple of people. Four fire trucks and about 25 firemen later we were getting evacuated ourselves. Took about an hour or so and we finally found the problem. A failed GFI. The firemen did an awesome job and I hate to say I am a little embarrased that I did not notice the bad gfi myself.

Thankfully we found it, no one was hurt and nothing was lost. But if I hadn't of been home the wife and kids would have been sleeping and it could have been disastrous.

MSU Fan · #2 10/04/2007, 07:22 AM

Thank god everyone is ok!

BryanJ · #3 10/04/2007, 07:30 AM

Glad to hear everyone is ok and that it was only minimal damage.

gooch · #4 10/04/2007, 07:51 AM

It was scary. I will see if I can take a piture of the GFI. I might not have time for awhile.

Scott

Bri Guy · #5 10/04/2007, 10:55 AM

And I thought GFI's were to save lives, glad everybody is alright.

Was it one in the house, or one you installed for the fish tank?

gooch · #6 10/04/2007, 12:58 PM

Fish tank.

What I think happened was the heavy duty outdoor timer I had the lights hooked up to caused a surge as it was shutting off, I know that doesn't make sense but I have seen it hapen before. I always replace my timers about every two years and this one was ready to go. But I have ben so busy with other things that the tanks just don't get the time they deserve. With that I didn't notice anything. I didn't know it was the GFi until I pulled it out and the plastic was burnt right through. The fire dept suggested the circiut was overloaded but it wasn't. In fact I have two 20 amp circuits for this system and niether gets a heavy load. The GFI didn't do what it was suppose to and the timer was getting bad. Just glad I was there and we caught it before it caused any problems. I could have lost the whole house had we been gone.

Water was not an issue either as the outlets are well above the waterline. I took many precautions when I set this system up.

I strongly suggest people check the GFI's in the house. OH and even though it failed I would not set up a tank without one.

Scott

hahnmeister · #7 10/04/2007, 05:52 PM

Did you have an inductive load on that GFCI? Was it wired wrong.. or just 'defective'? Interesting.

gooch · #8 10/04/2007, 06:53 PM

It was not wired wrong. And I did not overload it. It did not get wet. I think it was a couple of things that led to it. biggest thing was a bad timer IMO. But I am electrically challenged if you know what I mean.

I just think the turning on and off of the timer led to the issues. But the GFI did not trip like it was suppose to.

siropa · #9 10/04/2007, 07:46 PM

like anything else, you can have defective stuff. when I built my home theater a few years ago, I had a defective gfci right out of the box. would constantly trip.