New risks this winter?

[Oldgreybeard]

Just had the fire service turn out to a fire in the village. Spoken to a couple of people and it turns out that the tenants of the cottage had opened up an old, blanked off, fireplace and tried to use it. Seems they didn't check anything before doing this and didn't realise that the chimney breast in the loft had been removed, along with the external chimney stack (how they didn't notice there was no chimney remains a mystery).

The result was a fire in the loft that's taken out around a third of the roof structure by the look of it, along with a chunk of the roof of the cottage next door. I'm pretty sure that all the cottages in that row have storage heaters, I know for sure that the one two doors down from them does and they are all owned by the same landlord (used to be holiday lets at one time). The tenants are a young couple, probably trying to reduce their electricity bill by trying to get the fireplace working. Neither they nor their small son were hurt, thank goodness, but it got me thinking about the sort of risks that may become more common with the high electricity prices, the increase in the cost of living and the cost saving measures that some may try.

Luckily, the cottage at the end of the row has been vacant for some time, so they are moving in there whilst their place is repaired. Also very lucky for them that the fire happened during the day (in the middle of a torrential downpour) as we know that the volunteer fire crews that cover this area tend to have a faster response time during the day.

May well be that others will be less fortunate, and I've a horrible feeling that we may see an increase in fires as people seek to stay warm in the face of rising costs.

[NikoV6]

Already warning videos appearing about people bypassing their electric meters!

[Tinbum]

I can foresee many problems with damp due to the property structures never getting up to a decent temperature.

[Oldgreybeard]

My wife's gone over there, along with half a dozen other volunteers, to help them sort out the mess and move their stuff into the end cottage. Most of the damage seems to be from the water used to put out the fire, together with the torrential rain we had this afternoon, rather than the fire itself. All the stuff that was in their son's bedroom is soaking wet, so is being distributed around for people to clean and try and dry out for them.

They seem to have been lucky, in that the fire looks to have been contained to the bit of the loft where the flue from the fireplace comes up, the roof timbers look OK from the ground (the fire crew have ripped a lot of the slates off though). The cottage next door looks OK, luckily there is a new looking concrete block dividing wall in the loft between the two, probably put in when the chimneys were taken down and the cottages re-roofed some years ago.

I think they were extremely fortunate to have tried to light the fire during the day. Could have been a hell of a lot worse if it hadn't been spotted as quickly as it was (a neighbour saw the smoke seeping out between the slates and called 999). I hate to think what may have happened if they'd first tried to light the fire in the evening. Chances are that the smoke may not have been spotted until the fire had got a hold in the roof timbers. My gut feeling from looking at it was that there was no real fire up in the loft itself, just a great deal of smoke that came from the fireplace itself.

Really heartening to see people that don't really know each other muck in and help sort things out, though.

[smegal]

Already warning videos appearing about people bypassing their electric meters!

There are also a lot of gas meter "secondaries" for sale on facebook market place.

[Oldgreybeard]

There are also a lot of gas meter "secondaries" for sale on facebook market place.

Excuse my ignorance, but what is a gas meter secondary? Presumably it's some sort of dodgy bypass device. If so, that sounds as risky as hell. Quite how dodgy stuff is allowed to be openly sold on sites like Facebook amazes me. The lack of responsibility shown by these big online marketplaces really needs to be stamped on, hard.

[smegal]

There are also a lot of gas meter "secondaries" for sale on facebook market place.

Excuse my ignorance, but what is a gas meter secondary? Presumably it's some sort of dodgy bypass device. If so, that sounds as risky as hell. Quite how dodgy stuff is allowed to be openly sold on sites like Facebook amazes me. The lack of responsibility shown by these big online marketplaces really needs to be stamped on, hard.

I don't know what it means, but it seems to be what they call them. I can see a few more gas explosions happening this winter. It looks like someone has cracked down on the sales, there were a few openly sold near to me, there weren't as many when I searched for this.

[Oldgreybeard]

There are also a lot of gas meter "secondaries" for sale on facebook market place.

Excuse my ignorance, but what is a gas meter secondary? Presumably it's some sort of dodgy bypass device. If so, that sounds as risky as hell. Quite how dodgy stuff is allowed to be openly sold on sites like Facebook amazes me. The lack of responsibility shown by these big online marketplaces really needs to be stamped on, hard.

I don't know what it means, but it seems to be what they call them. I can see a few more gas explosions happening this winter. It looks like someone has cracked down on the sales, there were a few openly sold near to me, there weren't as many when I searched for this.

Thanks.

£60 for a few pipe fittings and a bit of 22mm copper pipe seems a bit steep!

Looks like they are trying to skate around the law by making out this is only intended to bypass meters that aren't owned by suppliers (hence the "secondary" reference), although clearly even bypassing a landlord's own meter is both very dodgy as well as probably being illegal, I think.

The good news for the young family involved in yesterday's incident is that there isn't any structural damage. It seems that it was only smoke from the fireplace that had got up into the loft, as the old flue had just been left partially open to the loft space when the chimney stack was removed. There's scaffolding up there now, so with a bit of luck the roof should be fixed before the end of the week. No idea how long it will take the place to dry out, though. My wife says the downstairs carpet was literally floating on water used to put out the fire, plus the fair bit of rain we've had.

[Mr Gus]

Sounds like a village / county is in need of a decent video initiative on the basics to share skills & safety.

Checking a flue & chimney.
Acceptable materials which can be burnt.
Why you dont throw large pizza boxes on a fire.
pollutants from bad practise.
Wet wood handling & set aside.
End of season stove maintenance.
How to brush a chimney & size a brush.
Prep for problems,
Understanding draw & ventilation requirements.

Shame you have to scratch around youtube for varying quality material instruction.

[Oldgreybeard]

Shame you have to scratch around youtube for varying quality material instruction.

Not to mention the fact that there is an awful lot of false and misleading content on YouTube, with no easy way for many to determine what's real and what's fake. It's like a crocodile infested swamp when it comes to money and energy saving ideas (or "hacks" in social media parlance). Even TV channels are being suckered by plainly false information plucked from social media channels. I watched about a minute of a programme a day or two ago about saving energy/money and had to turn the TV off before I hurled something at it, as much of the content was complete crap. Seems no one bothers to verify anything now.

One great thing about this forum is that it is choc full of reliable and demonstrably true information, often backed by loads of experience from the members here. Makes it worth its weight in gold, IMHO. Certainly one of the very few places on the internet where I don't get stressed by plainly false information.