"Fire is nasty"

Agreed. (Being a smoke eater myself)

As far as restoration goes, many folks have no idea exactly what heat and smoke (not to mention water from us hose jockeys) can do to a building.

The auto insurance industry has almost gotten to the point of "totalling" a car if there's any sort of fire in it due to the circuit boards and other electronic devices being damaged beyond repair from smoke and carbon residue. Wonder if they'll get to that point with houses sooner or later?

[This message has been edited by DougW (edited 06-18-2006).]

Wow yet again!
Amazing how though when you look at those pictures, how the heat smoke and flames never did penetrate the wall, or it does not look like it did with the relatively undamaged Romex entering the panel, yet the panel is completely incinerated ( looks like it got warm enough to trip all the breakers in the panel too!!.. Also in the second picture it looks like the steel studs are soot free yet heat and flames made it past the plastic box and into the ceiling cavity...

It looks as though the panel cover was not on at the time of the fire.

Someone will no doubt try to blame this on faulty electrical wiring (as usual).

I was immeadiatly impressed with the condition of the romex outside the panel vs the interior of the panel. Seems like the panel box did a good job of preventing spread of fire into the cavity above it. Yet I don't see any extra layers of sheetrock, like I have to put when installing a panel into a fire rated wall. It looks to me like the panel itself provided good protection against fire spread. Makes one wonder about all the extra precautions work required when installing a panel into a fire wall, per various building codes. I wonder what the picture would look like if there was wood studs instead of metal ones. That might also have made the difference in containing the spread.

The panel cover was on at the time of the fire. All of the individual breakers in the panel tripped, but the main outside did not. The panel was still energized from the night of the fire, back in March.

Pardon me, but what is/was that in pic #2? A smoke detector?

Was!

I agree with DougW. If something has caught fire, it should be completely re-built. Regardless of cost.

As far as any house(wood) construction goes I would argue that rebuilding should take place for all but the smallest of fires.
Problem with wood is, when it reaches a given temperature (before it starts to burn), it will start to lose strength in a process called pyrolysis, this strength can never be replaced the wood could be structurally unsound as a result.
It looks like in the first picture, there must have been a good seal between the drywall and the front of the panel body.
Just as a little question, is that tape below the left of the panel serving as some sort of a bushing?.
Or do the wires go behind that stud?.

bumping this back up..


With the amount of damage inside this panel and the almost totally undamaged condition of the feeder and romexes ouside the panel can, I wondering what the heck happened to this panel?

One of two things comes to mind:

1: The COVER was on, but the door was open, allowing open flame to melt breakers and damage the interior; or:

2: Excessive heat caused multiple faults within the panel itself, causing all this damage. There was some arcing and fault current damage involved here, based on the pic.

I'm also very surprised that the main never tripped and that it was allowed to stay energized for so long.

Some time ago I posted the thought that I would like to start an "electrical forensics" type of service, where damage like this is explained in detail.

This whole scenario would be a good one to look at in depth.

edited to add:

HCE727: If that panel and breakers are still around, I'd be willing to pay shipping for you to send it to me so I can look at it in more detail. email me at my PM ...Thanks!!

[This message has been edited by mxslick (edited 07-22-2006).]

#2 The metal panel cover will conduct heat, while drywall will slow it down. Also it appears that the wall had fiberglass insulation in it which would also dampen the heat transfer from the room to the wires in the wall.
The panel failure would be from high heat in the room.
Until the buss bars fault, or the feeder insulation fails causing a fault, the main won't trip.
Alan--

I second MXSLICK's suggestion for an
Electrical Forensics section of the Forum.
This thread is a good example of the array of valuable information that is available from the forum users.
I often take away information to share at our Fire Dept prevention/investigation staff meetings. Whether new or review; the info, insights, questions, and experience are invaluable.
Perhaps a general format similar to the path this thread has taken.
Fire photos; fire cause; damage assessment; other factors that mitigated or could have mitigated damage; code required construction details that did or didn't work, and why they're in the code.

edited to add:

Alan:

Thanks for your post, that would make the most sense in this situation. But I still question why the main didn't trip, as if you look closely at the right hand phase wire, it appears that it faulted to the (12?)ga wires contacting it. But I guess the arcing didn't allow enough current flow to cause a trip.

*end edited part of post*


energy7:

That would be a great idea, but I think our moderators and Bill have enough work to do as it is now.

However, I would be interested in the idea or moderating such a thread or at least acting as a "clearinghouse" for the photos and information. That would be up to ECN, though.

It could play out one of two different ways, as I see it:

One, post the photo(s) and selected bits of whatever info was obtained, and let our membership have a go at figuring out what happened; or

Two, posting only those incidents where the cause/effect were already clearly determined, to use as an example for prevention/education.

Or maybe even some other path I hadn't thought of yet.

Oh, for the record, I wasn't necessarily suggesting a new forum, but pointing out that in a previous thread (I can't remember which one) I had brought up the idea/question wondering if such a company for electrical forensics already exists. I have always had a facination with electricity and the results/consequences of when it gets out of control.




[This message has been edited by mxslick (edited 07-25-2006).]

Electrical forensics? That would be a very neat job to have. I'm all for it.

Electrical Forensics? Too bad they don't offer that at the local tech school. So who wants to be a trainer? I'm for it!

Ian A.

A good part of my job could be described as electrical forensics. I work for a distributor of switchboards and related stuff, and I get to deal with all of the faulty things that get returned by the customers.

I get lots of RCDs (GFCIs if you are American)to test, many of which prove OK suggesting that many electricians don't understand how to test them properly.

The most perplexing thing that I have had for a while is a pair of capacitor switching contactors that were fried by what appears to be a moderate overload. The contacts were cooked but only just. The odd thing was that these contactors were part of a 7-step PFC system which uses the same size contactors and capacitors on all steps, and the rest have never missed a beat. Further, this was only one of several 100's of these PFC controllers that this manufacturer has put into service without any problems at all. The investigation is ongoing. We are focussing on the capacitors at the moment, but they do not appear to be much different to the others.

It is an interesting job at times, and I really do enjoy the challenges of working out how the latest fry-up could have happened.

Mark Monson