Only YOU Can Prevent House Fires

Posted by irentnc on Apr 5, 2012 in Blog, Home Tips and Tricks | 0 comments

Hi Blog-land! With the nature of our business being Real Estate, we tend to look at monster sites/companies like Zillow® for helpful advice.  I was reading through my “Zillow Buzz” e-mail when I stumbled upon an article that hit close to home, too close. Please read on for my story… The Story One EARLY Monday morning my Husband and I woke up at 4:45am to get him ready for an important work function in the Bay Area.  I walked downstairs into the kitchen and smelled something strange, burnt, and eerie.  My 12 year old cat started to act funny as well with her posture upright and head pointed towards the kitchen.  Trying to ignore the strange smell I looked to my 300 gallon in-wall saltwater fish tank and saw my nocturnal shark swimming gracefully.  When I went to the front of the tank glass to check this out, the smell got really strong.  As I opened the large wood doors for access under the tank I saw water EVERYWHERE!  Getting a little closer I noticed the wall bracing the back of the tank was blackened (as in charred) and the surge protector controlling 75% of my tank was sparking. Needless to say my husband had to shut off the breaker and our morning got to be really long and tedious, to say the least. What We Learned Water and electricity do not mix!  We should have paid closer attention to the fact that condensation from the sump below the tank was accumulating on all electrical cords causing water to enter the electrical outlet.  See the picture above for a look at the burnt and melted the plastic outlet panel.  We now have a covered outlet and all cords are either covered or hanging vertically. The really scary thing is that we got lucky.  The whole house could have caught on fire while we were sleeping.  Ignorance is not bliss in this case so I urge you to read this...