Photos of my house fire...aquarium put it out.

[Lumberjack]

Tammy, Make sure you talk to your adjuster. Doubtful if manufacturer does anything (reimbursement) at this point. They will probably turn it over to their liability insurance carrier. If they do offer some sort of reimbursement, be careful about accepting it because your insurance carrier has a right of subrogation to recover the monies they pay you as well as your deductible from the negligent party. If they do offer reimbursement to you, I doubt if it would be for the damages in full. They would then ask you to probably sign a release and that could jeopardize your insurance carrier's right of recovery. It might be best for your insurance carrier to deal with the manufacturer. Also, most insurance policies do not pay for pets, birds, fish etc. Most will pay for the equipment. If you lost livestock, you might ask your carrier if you can join in their subrogation demand for items not covered under your policy.

 

[AqCons]

My insurance carrier has already advised me they are NOT subrogating because it would cost them a minimum of $35,000 just to bring suit and power strip lawsuits are very hard to win because there's always the "user error" defense that the power strip companies bring up which puts doubt on the table.

I knew they wouldn't pay for livestock but they are paying for the aquarium and equipment. Basically they won't pay for anything that was alive.

I figured if I did receive anything from ESU (which I highly doubt), then it would be mine because the insurance company has already said they are not going to subrogate. I'm not asking for reimbursement on the entire loss because I am not out that much. But I seriously doubt I will ever see anything.

 

[Lumberjack]

I wish you well! I am somewhat surprised that they are not following up with subro. I am a fire adjuster and I would be all over this. I believe someone else mentioned that this product was intended to be used with aquariums. Also, you advised that it was kept dry and free of salt. I am not sure if it was overloaded --which could be their argument, but if I were the insurance carrier for you, I would pursue it. Also appears that others have had same problems. Not sure where your carrier got 35,000. Most all carriers have attorneys that will take these cases for 1/3 contingency of the amount recovered plus court costs (filing fees, depositions,expert fees, etc.) And, if there is no recovery, there are no attorney fees paid--just the out of pocket expenses. Usually these costs are just a few thousand dollars and may not even be necessary if settled out of court. The negligent party would also have costs as well, and sometimes they settle out of court. It appears that by looking at your photos that you have tens of thousands of dollars in damage. If they do pursue and get some recovery, some states require your carrier to give your deductible back to you in full. Other states allow the carrier to give you back the same proportion of your deductible as the proportion that they get back of their payout to you. I do not know all of the facts and your adjuster may be right. That being said, I know a lot of adjusters that just "turn their head" when it comes to subro, because it takes a lot of extra work (investigation, documentation, etc. But if one fully feels that another party is negligent, then they should pursue subro (if economically feasible) and that will keep our premiums down. Good Luck.

 

[looser]

The sad thing is that its going to take an entire house burning down, and/or someone being killed, to make it "worth it" for someone to go after coralife. (should be named coraldeath). Its just a matter of time.

AqCons: I'm not sure what the ESU does, but you could also try CPSC. Consumer Products Safety Commission. Just go to their web page, it only takes about 5 minutes to lodge a complaint. Be sure to include your pics. They probably won't do anything either unless they have already gotten complaints about the product but at least you might help the next person that gets burned (literally).

 

[ohioreef]

If the strip was arcing, which caused the fire, I don't think there would necessarily be an imbalance that would trip the GFI. Any experts on this?

A mute point now, but that's where an arc fault interrupter would trip. (I think that's what they are called, besides how many of us actually have one of those?!? ) My brother is an electrician and apparently that's the latest thing being required on new homes now.

 

[conda]

I have that same powerstip and now will get rid of it. I don't know what's up with Coralife, but my RO unit from them just broke and flooded my finished basement. Ruined everything. The hose from chamber 1 to chamber two broke.

Has anyone had any problems with their lighting? I have one of the 48" 160W moonlight/actinics. This company scares me now.

 

[pws]

Please keep us updated on what ESU says. Might be worth while to send them a Intent to Sue letter and they may be willing to settle with you before you even have to get that far. Works for tons of things

 

[DanConnor]

If you don't use sumps anymore, what do you use for filtration?

I think this was intended for me, after I posted the pics of my burnt up tank.

I do use a sump, just not crammed into the cabinet with all the electrical equip. I have a big basement stock tank with the plugs on two dedicated circuits located in a high and dry location.

Mine was not on a GFCI, although now all my stuff is. I think the GFCI would help you if the fire was caused by dripping on a power strip, but not in some other situations. I never found out the real cause of our fire, but I suspect the GFCI would have prevented it.

Our insurance didn't really care what caused the fire or anything about it, they just wanted our list of replacement costs, and they pretty much covered everything.

 

[DanConnor]

And yes, it was a wicked bad shock. I had some premonotion as I became panicky when we were still about a mile from the house. When I saw through the window the lights were not on I knew there was a problem. The fire probably occurred days before we got home, and the air was all clear etc.

 

[AqCons]

I got the Origin and Cause Report. I will post a few excerpts from it because it is too lengthy to type the entire thing.

The aquarium and associated items with it was next examined. The electrical items of the air pump, light fixture and the power cords showed no evidence of arcing or overheating only damage from being attacked by fire. These damage patterns and physical conditions did not support these ignition sources as causing this fire, only being vicitms of this fire.

The electrical wall outlet and the wiring were next examined. The fire and damage patterns associated with this supported fire spreading from below and to the right side upward to this electrical wall outlet location and not from the outlet or wiring inside the wall.

The electrical power strip also exhibited the heaviest damage at the end of the strip where receptabcle plugs were located and to the bottom side rather than the upper side.

Examination of the electrical power strip was next conducted. This strip is an ESU Reptile and Coralife Power Center Day-Night or Wave Maker Timer. Relocatablepower tab, E192912, PS-803, 15 Amp-125 Volt, 60 Hz, made in China. Purchased January 29, 2004. Damage patterns associated with this power strip supported the heaviest damage being to the bottom and interior of the end of the strip associated with the various plug receptacles. This damage and physical conditions supported an overheating occurring within the inside of this power strip. Only two electrical power cords appeared to be plugged into this power strip at the time of this fire. Examination of both of these power cords found no arcing or evidence of failure. Taking into consideration all fire and damage patterns associated with this fire scene these patterns support this fires orign as being at the electrical power strip and within the interior of this electrical power strip and support this power strip as being the ignition source for this fire.


One of the photos they took showed the underside of the power strip. It was burned to the bare wires through 3/4 of the underside of the power strip.

My question: If there had been saltwater in the outlets, then why did the fire start on the underneath side of the powerstrip and not the top?

 

[NewMariner]

Im sorry for your loss....

I see one thing in that report that will potentially hurt you.

This strip is an ESU Reptile and Coralife Power Center Day-Night or Wave Maker Timer.

They stated it was a Reptile unit. Im sure ESU will see that and automatically disqualify you for any money due to you...as they will say it was supposed to be used for reptile tanks and not saltwater tanks....

 

[maxvan1]

whoa... I assume you lost all of your livestock... sorry to hear about that, and your house.

 

[ScubaRaven]

Wow... I'm so sorry to hear about your misfortune. You're posting is a definately eye opener for all of us.

 

[boycottsushi]

Here's the scoop on GFIs for anyone interested.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question117.htm

 

[Lumberjack]

Appears the origin was identified. Is the investigator still working on determining the cause? It is still hard for me to believe that your insurance carrier is not planning to subrogate back against the manufacturer especially since the product was so new and was able to be positively identified. If the investigator was not an engineer, perhaps your carrier will have an electrical engineer to look at it to determine the cause. If there was a design defect, manufacturing defect, etc., then changes need to be made before someone is hurt or killed. Hang in there!

 

[IchHater]

I agree about the product, but I am just curious as to how much of an inbalance there would be during the initial arching, and if it would be enough to flip the circuit. I am not sure how sensitive the GFCIs are. If it happen to trip during the first few archs maybe it would have prevented the actual fire. Just trying to get some answers myself.

a gfi trips when ther is an unbalanced load of 4-6 milliamps between the hot and NEUTRAL conductors. has nothing to do with the ground. someone here said the breaker was tripped, well the ground did its job. however it was too late. the powerstrip was already hot enough to catch fire. probably on fire before breaker tripped. sorry about your loss. i see home and business burns all the time and i often do rewires. i made my own electrical center but now that i think about it i am having doubts. i wonder if one could place a small fan near the outlets and have it blow away from it.

 

[NexDog]

Many thanks for this thread. I have always been worried about this and now I'm going to do something about it. I'm always scared when we go away overnight. All that saltwater and 6 or so plugs in a power strip. Shivers....

 

[AqCons]

If you look at the box for the power strip it is marketed for reptiles AND/OR aquariums/wavemakers.

The insurance company told the people working on our house that they weren't going to subrogate so they tossed the powerstrip and everything. So when the trash service takes the dumpster and dumps it, we have to dig through and find it. The fire investigator said he would like to take the power strip to a friend in Washington (an engineer) so he could find out what started the fire.

The fire investigator told the insurance company that these types of fires are hard to subrogate due to the "user error" defense the power strip company usually uses. And the fact that it would cost $35,000 just to bring suit.

 

[Lumberjack]

Not sure why they feel it would cost 35,000. As I stated earlier in this thread, most attorneys take these cases for 1/3 contingency(they get to keep 1/3 of what they recover) plus they charge for out of pocket expenses--court filing fee's, depositon costs etc. They do not charge for their time. These attorneys work for both the insurance companies and for people like you and me. What a lot of people forget is this----if you did NOT have insurance, you certainly would be retaining an attorney to try and collect especially if you were not at fault or even partly at fault. I am a fire adjuster and we go up against some pretty big Fortune 500 companies in trying to recover monies and the costs for the attorneys are sometimes under 1000. Since you paid the insurance premium, you merely transfered the risk of loss to them, and that is why I am not sure why your carrier doesn't pursue this. I often work very serious fires where there is not much left for evidence. Sometimes, power strips, extension cords are believed to be the area of origin. Exact cause may not be known do to so much destructive damage or the product manufacturer can't be identified or the item might be past the statute of limitations for prodect defects etc. or the "insured" homeowner may have been negligent. However, in your case it appears the orignin identified, other areas of origin and cause were ruled out, the product was identified, it appears that you were not negligent, and even more important this was a product to be used with aquariums. Perhaps the adjuster was just thinking that a lot of extension cord/power strip fires are not collectible, but in this case I believe he may have jumped the gun and more investigation should have been done. It is certainly not your responsiblity that they are not doing more but I would ask a few more qustions or show your adjuster this thread. Then again, I am not there and they probably know more than I about the facts.

 

[AqCons]

Thanks Lumberjack for the reply. I really didn't understand why they wouldn't subrogate either. I guess they felt it was too risky since they can't prove I didn't get saltwater in the power strip.

That's why I contacted ESU myself.

Thanks again.