Lahinch holiday house 'fuse box' fire incident

Antenna

Readers may have seen this case regarding a fuse box fire incident in Co. Clare from 2018 in the news as below recently:

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/mother-rescued-two-young-daughters-from-burning-holiday-home-court-hears-41763411.html

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-40897937.html 

but is it known why this electrical fire happened? neither report above has technical details of the cause of the fire

kirk.

What probably happened is they arrived and switched on everything and and the main switchfuse or something else overheated at the board

This issue of holiday homes and overheating was specifically mentioned to me by my inspector going back 25 yrs

Back in the day storage heating (8kw) and panel heating was all on a 63 amp main switchfuse, this was later changed .

There was also the issue of faulty main switchfuses which could be a factor here, not sure on the age there

macvin

Compo culture.

kirk.

The holiday homes will all need to be inspected now and remedial/upgrade work undertaken

The potential fire hazard will exist in all of them probably

kirk.

There would likely be a pre-existing condition for the overheating to occur so quickly

There would already be some heat damage at the board before they arrived

colm_mcm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119278926#Comment_119278926

What do you mean?

magicbastarder

it's probably a reference to the incident being back in the news due to the people involved suing for distress. the incident happened in 2018, court case was this week.

anyway, myself and my wife used a second home belonging to a colleague, in connemara about five or ten years ago. we were the first people back in the house after the winter, and the power had been knocked out by a storm; the ESB refused to connect the house back up unless there was someone present and IIRC i turned on the immersion and left it on for five minutes before the chap doing so was satisfied and packed up.

colm_mcm

Thanks, I missed the second article.

kirk.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119279456#Comment_119279456

Ya I doubt they'll re-energize any property without householder present

Before the isolator at the cabinet came in they used to mostly turn off the main switch when connecting new work, wasn't a great arrangement

For basic re-energizing they don't want to be switching on any loads or anything hazardous like instantaneous shower

magicbastarder

yep, can you imagine they reinstated power but someone had left a cooker on inside, with no one present to check.

kirk.

The original electric homes designed by ESBN were 8kw of night storage heating on nightsaver

There was problems then with burnout at the main switchfuses and of course there was faulty units at that time

They came up with a workaround then which was a double pole neozed switchfuse with the supply looped across the bottom and GD and NSH on each fuse .This removed overcurrent protection on the tails and wouldn't be considered safe now.

Not quite sure what's happening now with NSH load on new work.I think the move has been away from night storage in apartments anyhow to 'eco' heaters.

asdfg87

I do not know the full detail but i was told recently that there is new regs coming later this year where there will be a substantial fee for a re-connection.

kirk.

I'm actually not sure what happens when you switch on and the overheating starts, I've mostly seen the aftermath

I presume you would notice the lights dimming if it's all on the one pole

Maybe bruthal or someone knows the answer to that question ?