Quite the Scare

On Friday the 24th we were awakened at 6:30 in the morning by cries of help from our daughter.  We didn't take it all too seriously, as she tends to holler for minor little things... but then she said "Fire".

We dashed to her bedroom and some hay from her pet rabbit's cage was on fire.  Fortunately at this point it was very small and we were easily able to put it out before there was any damage.

The electrical outlet on the wall behind the cage had shorted and sparked, triggering the fire.  Its a good thing that our daughter was awake at that point and saw it, or it could have been a lot worse.  The outlet was still live and shorting as we attempted to clean up around it.  And the lights in our bathroom, adjacent to the bedroom, were out.  Surprisingly the breaker did not trip.

Our house was built in the late 1960's and we are at least the third owners.  The previous owners never marked any of the breakers properly.  Over the years I have been able to figure out some of them, but not all.  

By coincidence we were scheduled to go for lunch that afternoon with my electrician friend Rob.  He and his wife were visiting Edmonton for the weekend.  I explained everything to him, and he told me what to do.  But, by the time we got back home and I had time to pick up a few electrical supplies and get started, it was late in the afternoon and starting to get dark.  This meant I had to work by flashlight.

I eventually figured out which breaker the bedroom was on and confirmed that the power was off.  This became very obvious because when I plugged anything in to the outlet with the breaker on, sparks came shooting out, but with the breaker off there was nothing.

The receptacle was not loose in the box and was not shorting against it as Rob suspected might have been the case.  It was the receptacle itself that was the problem.  The two hot wires were burnt right off of it.  So, I rewired a new receptacle.  This part of it I was very clear about as I had been installing new wiring in the guest cottage in recent months.  I properly wired in the new outlet and then flipped the breaker back on.  The outlet was energized and the everything worked properly and safely, including the lights in the adjacent bathroom.

But this whole process just wore me down and I was stressed out and exhausted by the time it was all done.  I just went to bed early and made a fresh start the next day.

This could have been a whole lot worse but fortunately no one was hurt and there was no damage.  It only cost me my time, and $1.79 for a new receptacle... plus some other supplies that I already had.