house went on fire ? rewire everything?

[wireperson]

I was called to give a price on a house that went on fire , in my opinion not all the wire was damaged ,the walls and ceilings in the house are smoked black , the same all outlets and switches and lights , but I believe some of the wiring in the house is still in good condition , I know I have to to an upgrade to AFCI wich is gonna require me some wiring to separate neutrals , but , would you do a whole house rewiring or just what you think needs to be replaced.The walls are gonna be open next week so Ill be able to see inside the walls and ceilings to inspect wires condition

 

[petersonra]

I think if you can closely inspect all the wiring that might have been involved in the fire, then the wiring that was not damaged can be left in place.

Having said that, it may make more sense to just rip it all out and rewire it depending on what you find.

 

[masterinbama]

They are spending the money to take the house back to the framing and you want to save them a mere pittance on wiring?

 

[readydave8]

I repaired wiring in a basement that had small fire, thought I found everything and was being careful and conservative. Later when ductwork that had gotten burnt or wet was removed, found some more burned wiring in places that I had previously been sure were not affected.

 

[Ponchik]

Rewire the whole house. There is no reason not to. Unless only one room was damaged.

 

[Fulthrotl]

I was called to give a price on a house that went on fire , in my opinion not all the wire was damaged ,the walls and ceilings in the house are smoked black , the same all outlets and switches and lights , but I believe some of the wiring in the house is still in good condition , I know I have to to an upgrade to AFCI wich is gonna require me some wiring to separate neutrals , but , would you do a whole house rewiring or just what you think needs to be replaced.The walls are gonna be open next week so Ill be able to see inside the walls and ceilings to inspect wires condition

ok, they are gonna replace anything damaged, and insurance is covering it.

if you do a partial rewire, and certify "it's all good!" and there are subsequent
failures, making it right is no longer the insurance companies responsibility,
it's yours.

decide how much liability you wish to assume here, and act accordingly.

 

[norcal]

I have only done one fire job & it happened to be a house that I had rewired 14 years prior, the fire started in the kitchen due to grease, the insurance co. wanted all wiring replaced so it was the only thing reused was main panel outside that was untouched by the fire, in the 10 years since, the house has been trashed by tenants 3 times....:happysad: 99% of the wiring was in pretty good shape but the wiring exposed to to smoke & such in the subpanel needed to go just because of corrosive products deposited by the fire, so my vote is scrap it all and rewire.

 

[renosteinke]

As others have said, there are fires, and then there are FIRES.

IMO, any area that's getting stripped to the studs might need to be brought up to your current code. This means you may need to add circuits, distribute the circuits differently, increase the service size, add GFCI's and AFCI's, etc. It all depends on the intensity of the fire; a pretty mild fire can cover everything with greasy black soot, yet leave the drywall and electric otherwise undamaged.

Otherwise, as for the wire itself ... I would not 'automatically' replace any wire unless the outer jacket is actually damaged. A simple smoke stain is not 'damage,' IMO. Devices are another matter; you'll get corrosion within from the smoke, so all devices will want replacing.

The usual drywall and insulation we've been using for the past fifty years provides a pretty good fire barrier. It takes a pretty intense fire to actually damage stuff within the walls. Odds are, you had more damage caused by fire department operations (water, pike poles, etc.) than by the fire itself.

 

[brian john]

I would perform a visual on everything, megger everything that is stay.

 

[G._S._Ohm]

Romex insulation exposed to high temperatures but not showing visible evidence of this insult will still have a shorter lifetime.
There may be no electrical testing that will show this.

 

[PEDRO ESCOVILLA]

if the house is going to be guted, just rewire it. why take the risk or exposure for the potential liability in the event you "miss" something that should have been replaced?

 

[Teaspoon]

If the walls and ceilings are being opened up, I would definately completely rewire. Why patch when you can fix?

 

[G._S._Ohm]

in my opinion not all the wire was damaged
I believe some of the wiring in the house is still in good condition
The walls are gonna be open next week so Ill be able to see inside the walls and ceilings to inspect wires condition

It seems to come down to the cost and hassle of
replacing some of the wires with the walls open
vs.
replacing damaged wires over years with the walls closed.

Also in here is the likelihood of not replacing damaged wires along with the likelihood of replacing perfectly good wires.

 

[brian john]

Romex insulation exposed to high temperatures but not showing visible evidence of this insult will still have a shorter lifetime.
There may be no electrical testing that will show this.

Please supply the data to support this statement.

 

[G._S._Ohm]

Please supply the data to support this statement.

As someone pointed out, it's the Arrhenius formula, where the life of insulation halves for each 10C temp increase.


From this,
http://www.tcforensic.com.au/docs/article10.html
a house fire may reach 600C to 1000C.


If the life of Romex is 50 years at 30C it will only last 7 months at 100C and 5 days at 150C.

There is a way using analogies to figure the remaining life for an exposure of some high temperature for a very short time.
I'll work it up again. This came in handy for a recipe: my wife wanted to cook something that took 8 hours at some temperature, but she could only do two shorter intervals at different temps and the question was, When will this be done?

 

[G._S._Ohm]

Here it is:
let's say 50 years = 50 miles of distance


30 C = 1 mile per year
so it takes 50 years to go 50 miles.
40C = 2 miles/yr
50C = 4 miles/yr


20 years at
30 C gets you
1 mile/yr for
20 years equals
20 miles


0.0013 years is
0.4745 days at
175 C gets you
23170 miles/yr for
0.0013 years equals
30.1 miles


20 miles plus
30.1 miles equals
50.1 miles
so you have used up the life of the Romex in 20 years plus 1/2 a day.

If 175C for a half day leaves no visible marks, replace all the wires. What's for din-din?

 

[GUNNING]

CHa CHING$!

CHa CHING$!

If the house is more than a few years old I don't know how you will be able to come into compliance with the new requirements of number of circuits and where they go, dedicated circuits and types of wire for circuits to kitchen, laundry room, bathrooms, outside lighting protections, sizing of circuits, number of outlets on a circuit, box fill and wire bending, fire caulking, smoke and or carbon dioxide detectors and added extras from years gone by aka landmines,etc... The code is not the same from 1990 to 2011, it really changed big time in 99. I think that is when they went metric and worldly.
Rewire is the best way to ensure code compliance. Then you don't get the uh OH moment and have to pay for it out of your pocket. The more you do the more it costs the more you make. That is what the insurance company wants to pay for, that is what you do, it is their dollar.:happyyes:

 

[renosteinke]

"That is what the insurance company wants to pay for".......

THAT is the question.

I've had fire work run the gamut from "just make everything EXACTLY as it was before" to "replace everything." Then, there's the matter of payment arrangements.

It's no small matter, and it's essential that you have a direct line to the insurer.

This can be difficult, as several parties will try to block your access to the insurer. The GC will try to protect his 'special' arrangement with the insurer, and the customer will very often try to defraud the insurer. The insurance adjuster may have some wildly imaginative opinions about the fire.

Despite the blanket statements of the GC, insurers will often approve changes that are in their own interest. For example, replacing an obsolete panel is an easy sell.

It's also essential to have a clear understanding with the AHJ. Ultimately, it will be his call whether things need to be 'made current' or not.

 

[sfav8r]

We've done a fair amount of fire work. Despite some broad statments in this thread to the contrary, you simply cannot decide from the supplied information, whether or not all of the wiring needs to be replaced. However I will address two points made previously.

1) Any wire that remains should be meggered. When we do this, we actually record the findings and keep it in the job folder.
2) Paraphrasing - If there is a problem down the road you'll be sued. That's true whether there was a fire or not. The way we handle this is to put the responsibility back on the insurance company where it belongs. We ALWAYS provide an estimate to rewire the whole house. We also provide an estimate for the minimum amount of rewiring that we feel is safe and the megger testing. On that proposal we have a disclaimer that says (paraphrasing) We strongly recommend rewiring the entire house. If the insurance company feels it is willing to accept the risk of not rewiring the house, they can choose that option. This won't keep you out of a lawsuit, but it puts the insurance company on notice that they are making a decision. If you only provide the estime for partial work they can ply dumb and say they would have gladly paid to rewire the house if it was recommended.

 

[G._S._Ohm]

We've done a fair amount of fire work. Despite some broad statments in this thread to the contrary, you simply cannot decide from the supplied information, whether or not all of the wiring needs to be replaced. However I will address two points made previously.

1) Any wire that remains should be meggered. When we do this, we actually record the findings and keep it in the job folder.
2) Paraphrasing - If there is a problem down the road you'll be sued. That's true whether there was a fire or not. The way we handle this is to put the responsibility back on the insurance company where it belongs. We ALWAYS provide an estimate to rewire the whole house. We also provide an estimate for the minimum amount of rewiring that we feel is safe and the megger testing. On that proposal we have a disclaimer that says (paraphrasing) We strongly recommend rewiring the entire house. If the insurance company feels it is willing to accept the risk of not rewiring the house, they can choose that option. This won't keep you out of a lawsuit, but it puts the insurance company on notice that they are making a decision. If you only provide the estime for partial work they can ply dumb and say they would have gladly paid to rewire the house if it was recommended.

Have you found that wire that has been 'baked' has higher than normal insulation resistance?