so I had a fire sunday morning...

[coppercone2]

at least plaster is easy to do unlike structural framing. You need like 50$ of tools to do a good job.

Get a bucket of compound, one of those wide 1 foot by 1 foot or bigger square metal trowels for holding compound, a wide compound trowel, paper tape and some sheetrock screws.

And you can upgrade to rockwool insulation while your at it to decrease heating and increase noise dampening. And its more fireproof. No reason not to have it between rooms actually if you get the acoustic grade. Two or three hours to watch all the youtube videos tutorials about it is all the training you need. Just remember many layers and paper tape to make it nice and easy without the skill. And lift it like 1/2 inch off the floor so its not noisy when the floor boards hit the sheetrock so you can put molding there with some caulk to act as a damper.

[Nusa]

He's a renter. How the house gets fixed is probably not up to him, unless he has the required licenses and the owner hires him for the job.

He may even find someplace else to live, since living there is clearly not an option for a while, and he probably has fewer possessions to move than he has had in a long time.

Sadness all around.

[coppercone2]

oh shit renting. I would never fix a property I did not own.

thats when you patch dart holes in the wall with tooth paste prior to moving out because the land lord is a dickhead

[aix]

I'm glad you're OK.

It obviously wouldn't help in a situation like yours, but this does make me think about what type of fire extinguisher I should be keeping in my electronics lab (I currently don't have any).

Anyone got any advice?

[james_s]

So much of what we buy has fire retardants in it. I remember reading somewhere recently that the retardants are starting to show up in our bodies.

Apparently there is growing evidence of flame retardants in carpet and upholstery causing thyroid cancer. We've had three cats develop thyroid tumors requiring I-131 treatment. I'm told it's increasingly common in cats since they groom themselves with their tongue and spend a lot of time laying around on carpet and sofas.

[Brumby]

my guess is the wel shorted somehow (1. ac mains short or 2. on/off heat control failed and iron came on and came on full throttle) and once the plastic housing got hot enough began to melt then flame. granted I don't know for 100% so it could have been something else but that is my guess

I really don't want to ask this - but the question is begging......

Did your Weller have a mains side fuse?

[helius]

this does make me think about what type of fire extinguisher I should be keeping in my electronics lab (I currently don't have any).

Since Halon-1211 ceased manufacture (it is still being recycled for aerospace) you can use Halotron I, which will be available for at least another year.
The alternative clean agents like FM-200 and Novec 1230 are made for specialized markets with higher prices.

[coppercone2]

ehhhhhhhhhh i dunno, if you have red hot semiconductors and hit them with freon you can make some nasty gases. they might be able to absorb into shit in your house and re-radiate.

CO2 ?

[TerraHertz]

CO2 or air-pressurized water (after you cut the power.) We had this discussion before, but I don't have the link handy.

[Ian.M]

CO2 if you are trying to salvage whatever caught on fire. A fire blanket for small flammable liquid fires.  Foam or water if you've got an isolating switch and the fire is too big for an easily portable CO2 extinguisher.  Keep 'wet' extinguishers on a bracket under the isolating switch, ideally next to the door.  Keep other types on a bracket next to the bench.

Avoid dry powder except as a last resort, as it gets everywhere and is highly corrosive so you'll have to scrap any nearby equipment that you cant tear down ASAP and wash the boards and vacuum out the chassis. 

[timelessbeing]

Did your Weller have a mains side fuse?

Yeah, can you jump in your time machine and look?
 

[coppercone2]

CO2 if you are trying to salvage whatever caught on fire. A fire blanket for small flammable liquid fires.  Foam or water if you've got an isolating switch and the fire is too big for an easily portable CO2 extinguisher.  Keep 'wet' extinguishers on a bracket under the isolating switch, ideally next to the door.  Keep other types on a bracket next to the bench.

Avoid dry powder except as a last resort, as it gets everywhere and is highly corrosive so you'll have to scrap any nearby equipment that you cant tear down ASAP and wash the boards and vacuum out the chassis.

throw that shit into the dishwasher ASAP on lowest settings

[james_s]

Did your Weller have a mains side fuse?

Yeah, can you jump in your time machine and look?
 

There's likely enough remaining that you could tell with careful investigation, or if you know the model number find another one just like it and check.

[Brumby]

Did your Weller have a mains side fuse?

Yeah, can you jump in your time machine and look?
 

There's likely enough remaining that you could tell with careful investigation, or if you know the model number find another one just like it and check.

@james_s - Thank you for exercising some common sense.

[timelessbeing]

the wel had a hard plastic case ... we couldn't find any part of the wel minus the iron holder (metal) and the metal shaft of the iron itself. 

[W2NAP]

I'm glad you're OK.

It obviously wouldn't help in a situation like yours, but this does make me think about what type of fire extinguisher I should be keeping in my electronics lab (I currently don't have any).

Anyone got any advice?

I had the normal powder fire ext. in the house.... but you have to be in the house at the time fire happens to use them....

[W2NAP]

Did your Weller have a mains side fuse?

Yeah, can you jump in your time machine and look?
 

There's likely enough remaining that you could tell with careful investigation, or if you know the model number find another one just like it and check.

@james_s - Thank you for exercising some common sense.

I have had the thing for years. hell I don't even remember exactly where i bought the thing at. just remember it was a weller. as for finding remains of it.... I don't know.

[MrMobodies]

Did you have any extension sockets especially surge protected ones in there?

I read some articles some years ago that some of them were found to spark and catch fire.

https://hackaday.com/2017/10/27/this-power-strip-is-a-fire-starter/
https://www.click2houston.com/consumer/surge-protector-sparks-fires-instead-of-preventing-them-homeowners-say

[james_s]

I've seen MOV based surge protectors burn up more than once. The MOVs failed such that they weren't shorted enough to blow the fuse, but they were drawing enough that they got hot and set the plastic on fire.

[coppercone2]

mm this has me feeling a bit paranoid about my surge protectors and MOVs. I want to replace em all. I figure adding a thermal link, fresh MOV and wrapping them in kapton should retrofit them good.

[Ian.M]

MOVs are *EVIL*!  They have a finite life in terms of the number of transient spikes and their total energy shunted, and  when they fail, typically go low resistance until they cant handle the resulting power and burn up or explode, spewing a coating of conductive particles over parts within a few inches of them.  They should ideally be installed after both a  conventional fuse and a thermal fuse in contact with the MOV, in a non-flammable enclosure, with a flame retardant heatshrink or glasscloth sleeve over them to limit the carnage when they fail  and the fuses should be located so that load power is cut if the MOV fails, except in high reliability applications which typically have the MOV safety fuses in series with the MOV, preferably with an alarm if they blow.

[VK3DRB]

Tragedy to see that electronics being burnt to death. Always use an RCD on your mains power line, and switch off power when you are not around. If you are a ham, it is highly unlikely Japanese stuff will have caught fire. Except for nuclear power plants, the Japanese are ahead of the game when it comes to safety.

There is a lot of dodgy stuff on eBay from China that finds its way into the West that has no safety compliance whatsoever. Many of the manufacturers have never heard of UL 94 V-0, or IEC-60950, or IEC-62368. Nor do they care, as long as they get rich and glorious. Unfortunately, the more of this non-compliant stuff around, the higher the risk of fire or electrocution in the average home.

I have a friend who got $20K worth of fire damage due to a non-approved ceiling fan in the bathroom where the plastics caught fire. Last year, I inadvertently bought a fake Samsung phone, loaded with malware, with a fake Apple charger in the sealed box that had a potentially lethal design, especially for kids with small fingers. I got a full refund, and then I reported the seller to eBay, the ACMA and the NSW Office of Fair Trading with the aim of putting the crooks out of business.

[W2NAP]

Tragedy to see that electronics being burnt to death. Always use an RCD on your mains power line, and switch off power when you are not around. If you are a ham, it is highly unlikely Japanese stuff will have caught fire. Except for nuclear power plants, the Japanese are ahead of the game when it comes to safety.

There is a lot of dodgy stuff on eBay from China that finds its way into the West that has no safety compliance whatsoever. Many of the manufacturers have never heard of UL 94 V-0, or IEC-60950, or IEC-62368. Nor do they care, as long as they get rich and glorious. Unfortunately, the more of this non-compliant stuff around, the higher the risk of fire or electrocution in the average home.

I have a friend who got $20K worth of fire damage due to a non-approved ceiling fan in the bathroom where the plastics caught fire. Last year, I inadvertently bought a fake Samsung phone, loaded with malware, with a fake Apple charger in the sealed box that had a potentially lethal design, especially for kids with small fingers. I got a full refund, and then I reported the seller to eBay, the ACMA and the NSW Office of Fair Trading with the aim of putting the crooks out of business.

sadly ebay or amazon isn't the only place where dodgy china stuff gets sold. you can bet any brick building store selling made in china has quite a bit dodgy stuff on the shelf.
I do my best to avoid made in china anything.

[james_s]

sadly ebay or amazon isn't the only place where dodgy china stuff gets sold. you can bet any brick building store selling made in china has quite a bit dodgy stuff on the shelf.
I do my best to avoid made in china anything.

I tried for a while years back but found it impossible and gave up. Virtually *everything* is made in China.

[rsjsouza]

I am sorry to hear about what happened to you; I think anybody that has a lab at home fears for that scenario.

Despite I have cutoff switches on the power strips to my gear, it is not uncommon that I leave the set on through the night while doing a long term test/evaluation. When the storm comes, though, I simply pull the main plugs of the power strips from the wall, as I have seen more than once a heavy transient spark fly over the small air gap inside a switch.