Last night was quite interesting.
I was watching a programme about plane crashes and became aware of a distant beeping sound. It must have been going on for some time and I suppose I must have thought it was an incidental noise, but after the programme cut back to a talking head and the beeping persisted, I thought I had better investigate.
I live in an old building, converted into flats and maisonettes. It was hard to tell where the sound was coming from, but was definitely louder upstairs and you could hear it quite loudly outside. The Mrs and I are the freeholders for the entire building and many of the leaseholders have given us keys, "just in case". One of the upstairs tenants has just moved out. We had heard her in the flat earlier on in the day, so we wondered if she might have possibly done something to set it off. We gave her a call and she asked us to let ourselves in to have a look.
Having checked the door handle for any signs of heat, we opened the door and were confronted with thick, acrid smoke. I had taken a fire extinguisher with me, just in case, but there was no way I was going in there! We closed the door, alerted the other upstairs neighbour who hadn't heard a thing, as he had taken his hearing aid out, called 999 and legged it.
The fire brigade were there within minutes and it would seem that when the lady upstairs had left, she had given the cooker hob one last clean and had inadvertently turned on one of the rings. This had been on for hours and had got so hot, the element burnt through the housing and landed on something flammable. When the fire brigade arrived it had just started to flame.
Luckily the damage was only minimal and no one was hurt, but if we had gone out for the evening, as we had planned, we may have come home to no house and a dead neighbour.
So, as the title says, if you hear anything that sounds remotely like a smoke alarm, don't ignore it!
My wife asked me to stop singing Wonderwall.
I said maybe.....
Comments
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Ringleader of the Cambridge cartel, pedal champ and king of the dirt boxes (down to 21)
Offset "(Emp) - a little heavy on the hyperbole."
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
This'll be because there are rules now about installing enough smoke alarms if you're have significant wiring work done. (At least there are in NI, suspect England will be the same.)
lasermonkey, glad everyone's okay!