General > General Technical Chat
My apartment's bath fan caught on fire
Electro Fan:
--- Quote from: helius on June 11, 2020, 03:20:41 am ---If you do not expect that someone would shed a tear over your painful death, it is not wise to entrust your life to them.
--- End quote ---
Big +1 :-+
Some empathy could help build a path to trust.
aqarwaen:
do you stil got that fan?any clue what may have failed in there?maybe you can teardown it and post few pictures?
maginnovision:
Probably bearings or just too dirty to start up. Not a whole lot can go wrong with those.
pigrew:
--- Quote from: aqarwaen on June 12, 2020, 04:58:26 pm ---do you stil got that fan?any clue what may have failed in there?maybe you can teardown it and post few pictures?
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I would love to, but the apartment maintenance took it away. I looked for it in the dumpster, but didn't see it. I only got a brief glimpse, but it was mostly the fan blades that had melted.
The design is very similar to this YouTube video:
.
The video even shows a lot of rust and lint, just like mine had.
--- Quote from: maginnovision on June 12, 2020, 05:10:39 pm ---Probably bearings or just too dirty to start up. Not a whole lot can go wrong with those.
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Yes, the bearings were most certainly failed (or gummed up). Before catching fire, the fan was not turning. I didn't think that a shaded-pole motor would normally have any spark-source since there are no brushes. Perhaps metal-interference in the bearings created sparks, or arcing due to damaged magnet wire insulation?
--- Quote from: bill_c on June 11, 2020, 04:33:10 am ---Make sure you have smoke detectors properly installed and that the batteries are changed as needed. You can't smell smoke while you sleep. Without a functioning smoke detector, you will not wake up as the place fills with smoke. Without a functioning smoke detector, you will not wake up as the place fills with smoke. Yes, it is worth repeating as many times as needed.
I mean everyone, every house, not just pigrew.
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I agree, and have one smoke detector per floor in my house. This apartment has three detectors, one in each bedroom and one in the hall. All of our's are independent stations (no interconnection within the building). I've contemplated replacing mine with an interconnected system, but I'm not sure if it's worth the effort of running more 14/3 Romex through the walls (and my circuit breaker box is full after adding a SPD).
One of our neighbor's units upstairs has a low battery (I hear a the periodic chirp from the hallway)... nobody seems to care but me.
I also highly suggest having CO detectors on each floor if there are any gas-fueled appliances. I use low-sensitivity >10ppm models, though I wish that inexpensive more sensitive models are available. This building has one upstairs near the central boiler (no other combustion appliances). Iowa requires them, by law, for all residences (or maybe just ones with combustion appliances?).
As an update, we still have a square foot-size hole in our bathroom ceiling, exposing the upstairs subfloor. I doubt apartment management will fix it before we move out in 7 weeks. Yes, it's a small fire concern (needs fireproofing, to slow fires), but I don't think it needs immediate action. Our floor's fire extinguisher was replaced at 8 PM the day of the fire (I later got conflicting opinions on if they had 24 hours to replace it, or if it was due at 5PM). The management's insurance hired a flood/fire cleaning company to clean the bathroom. After that, it was cleaner than it had been when we moved in. There's still a latent smell of ABC extinguisher powder. Mixing the powder with laundry soap released an ammonia smell. I'm guessing that chlorine gas could be released if bleach solution were used. Reading more, it seems that baking soda slurry and isopropanol are the appropriate cleaning agents. Monoammonium phosphate is also corrosive to metals.
Larryc001:
Our new house has smoke and CO detectors in every area. The run on both AC and 9 volt batteries and are linked together so if one is triggered it triggers all the others. Quite exciting when the smoke from the barbecue blew in the other night and set them all off. Oh yea they all also have a voice warning. Certainly no way to sleep through that. I don’t know if this is code, I suspect it is.
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