We will now hold one minute of silence for a fallen Deckel FP3NC....

[M.B. Naegle]

All very sobering... makes me want to switch off the main breaker to my home when I leave... or sleep.... or blink. Not to mention the sprinkler heads piped over every birthday candle.

I've ended up with some neat old porcelain and slate insulated knife switches, fuse blocks, switches, ect. and I always thought it would be cool to set up some antique machinery with it. Now, behind the scenes, everything would be properly fused and overload protected where it connects to the wall but.... this kinda stuff makes me smack myself up the head -"whacha think'n bout?!"

Sean S..... hang in there. Sometimes that's all you can do, so it pays to excel at it.

 

[Miguels244]

Yep

We escaped a major hosue fire a few years ago, fire station is 3 minutes away, they stopped a minor fire before it could get out of control. But the smoke and damage from that incident were impressive enough.

A minor one sucks, big time. Really not keen on finding out how real big fire works out.

Don't have one.

Don't do dodgy electric stuff. Old connections are bad enough, don't wire up stuff that has bad connections from the beginning....
Seen some real stunners in that category as of late.

I had an electrical fire at a rental property.
Fortunately the damage only cost around 30k and 3 months lost rent.
And no one got hurt.

 

[wrench]

My wife's aunt lost a house to Camille many years ago. Later, Katrina came ashore just to the left of their city in LA (apparently just to the right of the eye is the worst place to be). Their son in law is an EPA guy that had a helicopter tasked to him and he took a quick detour over the area. He said that even if the house were standing (and it was built on 8 foot stilts after Camille), the water level at that point was about 3 feet above the apex of the house. Anyhow, when the family finally got back in there, the only part of the house that was left was the front doorstep. As for contents? They found a single (small) chest of silverware. When the aunt told her children they gave a nervous laugh and said, "well, mom.... To tell you the truth, none of us ever liked that silverware!"

When I moved into my house, I learned quickly how poor the wiring was. I ended up nicknaming the previous owner "the machete king." He worked as a facilities guy and apparently thought he knew wiring. I'd find blobs of electrical tape around romex in the attic where he "spliced" (I use that term liberally) into the cable.... no boxes, barely wire-nuts, and *always* 1 inch away from where the original wire went down into a wall.... Grrrrr. One day I was doing some work in the garage and I noticed that the wire in the outlet box for the washer was wrong. It looked like SO cable... So I ripped out the wall. I found two splices of wires in series. It went from Romex, to zip wire (the stuff light fixtures use) to SO cable. Needless to say, the insulation was brittle from heating up so much. When I touched the stuff bare wires were exposed immediately. WTF. Shortly after that, I rewired the entire house. And, yes, I *do* know how to wire a house! And, it was all done with permits so that I have insurance coverage, etc. Scary stuff though... Talk about a major fire risk (and washers take a fair amount of load).

Setting up a wired smoke alarm is not a bad idea. Of course, this has some limitations due to smoke generated from cutting so you may need to install an override switch or have a good evacuation system (not a bad idea anyhow).

 

[Gregg K]

Sean,

I am so saddened to see this. I don't even have words to express the loss you have endured.

I'm the guy who had the farm down the road, and called you to see your Deckel collection back around 2005. I was so inspired by not only your tools, but the "house" you lived in.

If I still lived there, you'd have a place to stay. I even had a spare house. Oh man.

All I can say is I just finished reading Viktor Frankl's book- Man's Search For Meaning. He made it through the German prison camps to live another day. If you can find a purpose for what happened, it may help in terms of using it to build upon, versus being a source of misery.

I honestly feel a great loss from this. I shouldn't be philosophical at a time like this, but I find it hard to face the loss of such amazing works of engineering and skill without trying to find some meaning.

I wish the best for you.

Gregg

 

[Sean S]

Sean,

I am so saddened to see this. I don't even have words to express the loss you have endured.

I'm the guy who had the farm down the road, and called you to see your Deckel collection back around 2005. I was so inspired by not only your tools, but the "house" you lived in.

If I still lived there, you'd have a place to stay. I even had a spare house. Oh man.

All I can say is I just finished reading Viktor Frankl's book- Man's Search For Meaning. He made it through the German prison camps to live another day. If you can find a purpose for what happened, it may help in terms of using it to build upon, versus being a source of misery.

I honestly feel a great loss from this. I shouldn't be philosophical at a time like this, but I find it hard to face the loss of such amazing works of engineering and skill without trying to find some meaning.

I wish the best for you.

Gregg

Thank you for the kind words Gregg. A good portion of the machinery survived... some did not, but the really rare stuff did so I'm blessed.

Some really hard things to replace are my personal items...some inherited, and the shop itself. It was a cool shop and pretty much my dream home being able to dedicate 8000sqft just to "man cave". It will be hard to find a replacement for that.

Sometimes you just get notification from the universe that it's time to move on. I guess that was it.