House Flambe

My house tried to kill me yesterday by catching in fire. It failed miserably.
Everyone got out fine, we are ok and the house is in pretty good shape. Electrical fire in my crawl space from the 220V line running to the water heater. The smolder of doom started above the laundry room and we found it before it really caught. The fire department ripped down the ceiling in the laundry room and half the garage chasing the smolder through the insulation. We are crazy silly ridiculous lucky. Insurance adjuster has already been out with a contractor and electrician. They will be back this morning to run new house mains and replace the water heater which means a little demo work in my office to get to the back side of the breaker box to replace the breakers and run the line. After that the real fun begins (work permits from the city, replacing ALL the insulation, structural engineer to sign off on the scorched ceiling beams, etc. etc.)
We are staying in the house tonight even though we where offered hotel rooms. I will skip the hot water for the opportunity to keep an eye on the abode that tried to kill me. Might post pictures of the torched wires, rafters, and missing ceilings.. might not.

My wife and I had both just returned home to meet with some friends (waiting in our driveway) to head out for the day. Kristina was bringing back the dog from getting its nails trimmed and other doggy things and I was coming back from the dentist. Our friends where leaving there 2 dogs at our house as we where planning on being out well into the evening. Because my wife had the dog she went into the house through the garage, and thus the laundry room and thought it smelled like burnt marshmallows. We started checking the water heater and following the smell.. mostly out of curiosity. There was a warm spot near the door and since I am freakishly tall I was able to touch the ceiling and feel a hot spot. Got the ladder and poked my head through the crawl space hatch that is in the laundry room and saw small wisps of smoke and blackened insulation and beams around some wires. Told Kristina to call the fire dept and ran out to pop all the breakers in the house. Posted my friend on the ladder with a fire extinguisher to hit anything if it actually ignited (felt confident leaving him there.. anyone trained to fight ship board fires can fight them in my house). Fire Dept came and was able to take care of it before it actually caught and turned into a real fire. Plenty of damage though.. the thermal imager the captain used was registering over 500 degrees on the inside of the ceiling.

Not quite the eventful weekend I was hoping for. My wife did a pretty good write up of the events of the fire. You can find it HERE.