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A Close Call

June 11th, 2007 at 02:18 pm


We almost had a house fire on Saturday. I was in the living room watching TV and sleeping since I'm still not feeling well. I thought I smelled something odd, but no one else said anything so I figured it was just my sinuses being so messed up.

The dryer went off so I went in and folded the clothes and put the last load in the dryer. I thought the smell was even stronger in there but, since I wasn't feeling well, I didn't investigate.

About a half hour later the light next to my chair in the living room flashed bright and made a weird sound. At the same time I heard a pop coming from the kitchen area. I went out and looked around but didn't see anything. I went upstairs and DS#3 said that the surge protector on his computer had beeped. I could smell a really strong electrical smell in the upstairs hallway. I checked around upstairs and didn't find anything.

Back downstairs I went and finally found the problem in the downstairs bathroom. The outlet for the dryer was melted and there was black soot all over the wall around it! I tried to yell for DH, but since I have laryngitis that didn't work very well. He finally heard me and rushed in with a fire extinguisher. There was no fire, thank goodness, just that awful smell.

We have no idea why the outlet overheated. The outlet itself was really hot and so was the dryer plug, but not the cord. We think the dryer is probably okay. I hope so, it's only a year old.

9 Responses to “A Close Call”

  1. Lux Living Frugalis Says:
    1181569075

    Thank goodness you all are okay!

  2. tinapbeana Says:
    1181570109

    Electrical fires are really scary! I had a space heater do this same thing, and the smell was horrid... From what we could tell it was caused by a short in the wiring of the outlet, so perhaps you should have some of the wiring inspected. Glad to hear everything is OK and no one/nothing was hurt!!!

  3. daylily Says:
    1181570374

    Glad you are okay.
    This is the reason that I never leave the house when the dryer is running!

  4. fern Says:
    1181571151

    Please have that outlet checked out by an electrician. It could have been wired wrong, causing it to short out. If the outlet cover was hot to the touch, that's a giveaway. Gad you're ok.

  5. HouseHopeful Says:
    1181571240

    I'm so glad you guys are ok! Sounds like you were really lucky!

  6. Ima saver Says:
    1181571480

    I am so happy that you guys are all right and nothing serious happened!!

  7. scfr Says:
    1181576221

    Oh my goodness ... I am so glad you all are okay! Yes, please get things checked out by a qualified electrician. Sounds to me like a good use for the EF.

  8. homebody Says:
    1181577598

    Me too Daylily, mostly because something similar happened to us... smell smoked and went out to the garage and the top was filled with smoke. It was the dryer, burning lint!! We have since bought a new dryer and DH cleaned out the tubing to the outside really well. I have been tempted to buy those long lint cleaner brushes you see advertised on TV!

  9. Frugal Momma Says:
    1183412307

    Our dryer caught on fire 3.5 years ago at 2am in the morning. Hubby decided to do some laundry and luckily he was still up and smelled the smoked.

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