Something’s Burning in the Kitchen

denouement.refurber.com

Well we have pretty much recovered from the shower leak yesterday and the rest of the day was grueling but went pretty smoothly considering how much was going on around here. With regards to the leak from the second floor, luckily it turned out to be the drain, as opposed to the shower body. The shower body is hidden under sheets of stainless so getting to that would have been a bitch. Tim's guys took apart the whole shower pan and drain and re-sealed everything. Then we ran their shower for a good 10 minutes or so with not a trickle downstairs. Whew!

Awesomely enough, our bathroom ceiling wasn't damaged--it just took us a pretty much all day to clean everything up, taking apart the light fixture and drying it, plus cleaning up all the yellow-ish/brown water that got on pretty much everything in the bathroom: towels, rugs, etc all needed heavy duty washing and I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed every surface until it was all clean again. Sigh.

Tim's guys took the rest of the afternoon to start putting up our stainless kitchen backsplash. Unfortunately, they cut the area on the right a bit too much so there are visible seams. I'm sure Tim will come up with a good overlap detail and make it all look great and like it was done on purpose. We're still in need of a piece on top of the vent and a second piece behind the stove to cover the ducts—all in good time.

Just as things started to settle down for us around midnight, we went into the kitchen to open a bottle of wine. As Eric turned the lights above the island on, we heard a loud bang, not unlike a gun going off, followed immediately by pitch black darkness. After locating a flashlight and seeing the kitchen light fuse blown and reset, neither of the island lights would come back on.

This is what it looked like, only much less illuminated, much foggier and dramatically more depressing.

I also smelled the distinct odor of smoke. Eric had previously rewired the near light but this time the far light seemed to be the culprit. After close examination the wire of the pendant was charred a black-ish brown. When Eric took the dimmer off it was also burnt, as was the switch plate. Damn that is some serious lighting related fire! Once the far light was disconnected the near one came back on, and the wiring still works. We swapped out the dimmer and Eric will try to get some replacement parts for the manufacturer—otherwise we will just need to buy another one. Also, I think these lights need a fancy, expensive magnetic dimmer even though our electrician said otherwise. At this point we've got no idea if it was a manufacturing issue, installation issue or what. But we love the lights so we need to try to make it work.

Eric models charred light innards!

Alex also stopped by on Saturday and finished the wiring on the stairs down to the cellar. Now all that is left is cap rails and he can get paid!

Comments

[JP]

I am scared to death of fire in my house. Especially wire related electrical fire.

[~dana]

Yeah no kidding. Fortunately the electrical setup seems to have done exactly what it was supposed to do--trip the fuse before there could have been more damage. It's just another headache we don't need.