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Joined: Aug 2001
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This isn't electrical, but nevertheless provides a good illustration of why some people should not attempt any DIY! Tony Leeming of Canvey Island in Sept 99 burned down not just his own home but nine others into the bargain.
He was trying to strip paint from his floorboards with a blowtorch.
With disarming frankness he explained: "I am not a DIY expert", after 60 firemen were called out to fight the blaze in the row of terraced houses.
"Somehow flames got under the boards and started a fire. I never meant to cause all this grief."
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Joined: Oct 2000
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WOW !!
Bill
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Joined: Aug 2002
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Uhh....don't most people use an electric HEAT GUN and a spatula for this sort of thing? I'm hoping nobody got killed...
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Joined: Jul 2002
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That's a good one Paul!. Lots of people have been caught out like that over here. What can happen is, birds build nests in the space between floors or up in the roof void and fill the place up with straw and it's normally this that starts the fire. 60 Firemen?, must have been a big blaze!. With disarming frankness he explained: "I am not a DIY expert", after 60 firemen were called out to fight the blaze in the row of terraced houses. The guy is not wrong there. Paul, I thought that terraced houses by law had to have a Fire Rated Party wall between them?.
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Joined: Jun 2003
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Hey theres plenty of them about.. a chap where i used to live had to have his house under-pinned,, but thought he would to it him self..
as far as i am aware you carry this out at a meter at a time..
he dug up the lenght of his gable wall, then went to bed..
you've gussed it,, the side of his house fell down.. LOL!!
i mean what gets in some ones head to do that??????
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Joined: Aug 2001
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That reminds me of an incident on one of the many (too many) DIY shows from a while back.
Some guy decided to dig out the ground under his floor to create extra living space in the form of a basement.
Yeah, you guessed it.... The supporting walls going down to the foundations just collapsed inward under the pressure and brought the whole house down, along with half of the adjoining one!
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Joined: Aug 2002
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Heat from a torch can build up in non-obvious ways.
In a nearby city here, there was a would-be DIY plumber who recently lost his house to fire. The heat from his blow-torch cooked some wood such that it smoldered overnight.
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Joined: Aug 2001
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Mike, Yes, I think there are building regulations about party fire walls, fire stops in the attics of semi-detached shared houses (duplexes), and so on.
It's possible these were very old row houses without any such firebreaks.
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Joined: Jul 2002
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Paul, How would you feel, knowing that you had burnt down most of the houses in your street?, and for the sake of a bit of paint. A local firefighter, that I know well, nearly lost his house to fire last year, for one of the dumbest, stupidest things. He had been sanding down his newly lined and stopped walls and had the vacuum cleaner hooked up to the sander to minimise the dust spread, anyhow, as we all know, v/cleaners get very hot after they've been run for a few hours, non-stop and he just put it back in the cupboard and went to bed, we had the fire under control by 0300, luckily the family escaped unhurt, but it wrecked the house (including the new walls). Silly boy!.
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Joined: Jul 2002
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NEWSFLASH!!. A guy over here had his house blown to smithereens after he decided to install his own LPG cooker. Luckily no-one was home at the time of the explosion, but I am told by one of the FF's that attended the ensuing fire, there are still bits of timber stuck in the rooves of the houses next door to the house!.
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