fixing a burned house

[electricalperson]

i do a fair amount of work in houses that had fires. usually includes changing services and getting a few circuits turned on. i done a job today and im going to mention to my boss that the house should be meggered. the house was wired by a handyman and i found TONS of code violations not including melted wires.

what does everyone else do when it comes to jobs like this im curious:grin:

 

[ultramegabob]

if your not replacing the panel, at least replace all the breakers if the panel was in an area that was exposed to heat from the fire, the internal workings of the breakers could be compromised and may not function properly.

 

[C3PO]

The only severly burned building that I have worked on was a duplex. It was burnt pretty bad so the GC completly gutted it and we wired it like a new building.

 

[peter d]

what does everyone else do when it comes to jobs like this im curious:grin:

Beware of the refrigerator!!!!!

I worked on a fire job a bunch of years ago where the building was heavily damaged so they poco cut power to the house immediately after the fire.

By the time we started the rebuild, the refrigerator had been sitting in the house for 6 months...right through the dead of summer. The GC decided that the day we started the rewire was a good day to clean out the refrigerator.

 

[fireryan]

You plan on meggering every branch circuit?

 

[mdshunk]

First off, anything visually melted, or even brown, needs replaced. It's heat stressed already, and that's damage that is permanent and is enough to condemn that section of cable. Just try to strip the conductor in any of those browned sections, and you'll find that the insulation is cooked tight to the copper.

 

[nakulak]

wrecking ball, d9, hoe ram


build it over, gut it, make it better

what's more dangerous than half cooked wire ?

 

[elvis_931]

I have done quite a few burnt houses. What I do is pretty much what everyone else is saying: Go through the whole house and visually inspect all wiring and devices. Replace everything that looks even somewhat questionable. Some restoration companies will want to clean the devices that just suffered smoke damage. If you are doing the work for a GC, most likely they will gut all of the burnt rooms and go back with new everything. Restoration companies will want you to save everything. Replace everything you can with new material, not just for monetary gain reasons, but for safety and quality reasons as well.

 

[growler]

i do a fair amount of work in houses that had fires. usually includes changing services and getting a few circuits turned on. i done a job today and im going to mention to my boss that the house should be meggered. the house was wired by a handyman and i found TONS of code violations not including melted wires.

what does everyone else do when it comes to jobs like this im curious:grin:

Whatever it takes to make it safe for habitation. Most fires require a new certificate of occupancy. This allows the inspectors to go all over the place if they want to. Any pre-existing conditions may not be covered by insurance. You may have to repair fire damage on one job order and let the inspector write up the code violations as a seperate job.

If it's a bad fire I just remove old wiring and start from scratch. If there is a chance of fire or water damage why take chances.

 

[satcom]

You plan on meggering every branch circuit?

I would never do a fire job without taking a megger to all the circuits, most of the hidden damage can be rooms away from the actual fire, heat can stress cables far away from the fire damaged area.

 

[electricalperson]

this house was an electrical nightmare even before the fire handy man electric was there doing the work. i didnt liven up any cable that was darkened just the ones that didnt suffer any damage. but oddly enough the range cable (8/2 SEU cable with TW insulation) was bad. didnt have any visible damage on the outside of the jacket but there was a direct short to ground

 

[electricalperson]

that entire house smelled like burnt plastic. not sure if that stuff is alright to breathe. now i know why we have to install plenum rated cable in celings used as air spaces

 

[cowboyjwc]

I agree to check everything. Just because there was no fire in a certin area doesn't mean there wasn't heat damage. The gases in the smoke can be very hot.

Went to look at a fire job awhile back. Attic fire, so mostly the second floor ceiling and of course the damage the FD did. Went down stairs to the panel just to look and the plastic between the bus and the panel enclosure was melted. There was one open conduit going into the attic as an extra and it must have drawn the heat down through it. If we had reset the meter we would have had a big bang, but the EC kept claiming that only a few of the lights were damaged.