Attic fire

[SineSwiper]

Happened at 5PM on Sat. Took out my ceiling, and the firefighters took out my floor (water damage). (Actually, the firefighters took out more of my ceiling than the actual fire, but they were surprising nice with moving stuff around and putting a tarp around our electronics.) Insurance already has everything covered, so I'm living it up in a Residence Inn with a nice kitchen, etc. Didn't really lose anything, except interior structure damage.

Pretty much getting a remodel into the deal, so it's not bad, but we're going to be in this hotel for at least two weeks. You should see the "lab" we have over here in the hotel: router, two PCs (desktop and file server), and the 360. Our two dogs are at my parent's place, so they have five dogs to deal with for a couple of weeks.

We'll post pictures of the mess later on.

[Tessian]

What caused the fire?

Glad to hear it's all covered and no one got hurt

[Oracle]

Why do I get a picture in my head of that whacked out scientist from UHF when I think of Sine's house starting on fire?

Joking aside, glad no one was hurt

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

Damn! Glad you're both okay and everything was insured.

(I wish I had an attic! Or a basement!)

[Shellie]

The exhaust fan in the attic locked up/shorted out/something, and sparked into the insulation, which apparently smoldered a while and then flamed up. We were in the basement when it happened and didn't notice it right away since the smoke was staying up in the attic.

We couldn't find the source of the smell and haze in the house for a couple of minutes, until I walked in the hallway and noticed it was strangely warmer in that area for some reason....then I looked up and saw the ceiling was scorched. He tried to snuff the fire out with the extinguisher while I called 911 but it wasn't working, so we got the dogs and got out of the house.

Three firetrucks, 20 firemen, 1 ambulance, a policeman, and a fire chief later, they got the fire out and tore out a lot of the ceiling in the process to make sure it was all covered...I really didn't think it was that bad till I got to go back in the house after they were done..which took about 2 hours I think. Most of the ceiling was in the backyard, and there was sooty water all over my floor and crap in my kitchen, soot running down the walls, etc. My first thought, was oh my god, I'll have to cancel our poker party this weekend, because I wont be able to clean this up in time!

Well, the insurance is covering everything...the only thing we seem to have to fight for is the hotel we're staying at, which we werent told where we could stay or what kind of limit or anything. Brendan specifically asked them what kind of limit we have and they said, as long as it wasnt like a 5 star place, it was ok.

So we're at the Residence Inn Mariott, which I thought was decently priced. But they want to stick us in an extended stay, which is cheaper but not near as comfortable.

We have the account manager of the hotel trying to call our agent to negotiate us staying here.

[Zeus]

Nice to hear you guys are OK.

Don't take no crap from the insurance companies. Those cheap motherfuckers will try to not pay any penny they can get away with. Make sure you get the most expensive materials when you're remodelling the house just to stick to them for all the people they fucked in the ass this month alone. They're soulless motherfuckers who's company deserves to be sodomized at every turn. They epitomize what's wrong with big companies regardless of what they appear to be like.

As you can tell, I like insurance companies about as much as banks :-)

[Shellie]

Here's some pics. Sorry for the large file sizes, dont have a photo editor on this pc.

http://tows.cc/firepics/

Ill be adding some more later.

[Blotus]

Nice pink Corona flip-flops, Sine.

[bovine]

ack! scary.... nice to see you guys are alright and in relatively good spirits.

[Ishamael]

Yikes, glad to hear you guys got out OK! Ugh, what a pain in the ass though. And why does this mean the poker game is cancelled?

[Eric]

Sorry to hear about that. o_o

Glad you made it out ok, as well as the doggies

[SineSwiper]

Don't take no crap from the insurance companies. Those cheap motherfuckers will try to not pay any penny they can get away with. Make sure you get the most expensive materials when you're remodelling the house just to stick to them for all the people they fucked in the ass this month alone. They're soulless motherfuckers who's company deserves to be sodomized at every turn. They epitomize what's wrong with big companies regardless of what they appear to be like.

They have been surprisingly nice about what to replace in the house. The contractor has agreed to put in some extra things that go beyond the "pre-event condition". We have to pay for the difference in materials, but the labor is the same. (We're getting the floor we want and some extra insulation.)

As far as the hotel, I'm not worried about it. If he starts shit with me about the room, I'll just politely point out the declaration for Living Expenses being in the 5-digit range, and the fact that our contract says nothing about a per-day limit.

[Flip]

I'm surprised two weeks for the work was the quote you received. Or, will you be living in renovation hell for a while?

[Shellie]

2 weeks until we can move back in they think. It wont be much longer after that before they're done. They contributed to the short time frame to the nice weather which is allowing the workers to be caught up on their jobs.

[SineSwiper]

Well, more like a drought. Storms are their biggest source of contractor calls.

[Imakeholesinu]

Wow, man all that water and plaster probably took a real toll on the hardwood floor. Glad you guys got out ok! So does the rehab help build a little equity in the house though now?

From one of those pictures it looks like the fire ate through a couple of the supports, glad the roof didn't cave in! Keep us posted!

[Kupek]

I don't have much to add other than the standard I'm glad you guys are okay, and that the aftermath is working out surprisingly well.

[Nev]

Sounds like my memory of thousands of gallons of water that collected on my mother's flat roof one night when the storm gutters got blocked! We had to call for help...water started coming down from the a/c vent in the kitchen and about three places in the roof and eventually we were hauling a fifty-gallon garbage tub of water outside every ten minutes (could hardly move the next day).

I eventually had the good sense to call the fire department (for a flood? who knew? sometimes I think the F.D. should really be called "disaster services"), and they said that there was a serious chance the roof would've come down on us that night if I hadn't called them up, thousands of gallons of water and all.

Hope things work out for ya.