Almost lost the shop last week... (long)
So, in a totally unrelated story, thought I'd pass this on in case anyone...well, never mind. This will NEVER happen to anyone else.
I replaced the roof on the shop a few months ago. In doing so, I exposed the birdsmouth joint at the top of the wall to the outdoors, and plugged it all with solid foam insulation pieces. Worked fine - plan was to cut some vent holes in them come spring and cover with OSB & mesh panels.
A couple of weeks ago, I'm headed down the hill to the shop and notice what looks like snow all over the ground and down the side of the shop. After some examination (we'd had no snow yet this year) I found a 2" hole bored into the foam insulation up under the eaves from the outside. What?
I went into the shop and heard some flapping and scrabbling, and the little hole was suddenly blocked by the large body of something. I turned on the light to see a Flicker who'd been carousing around in the shop. Apparently he liked the heated shop and preferred it to the 40 degree rain.
Awwww. Isn't that cute? So, what the heck? I'll let him live in there for a little bit. I'm a friend to nature, and the flickers don't do any damage around here - they're pretty rare. Maybe come spring I'll build a little house for him from the inside so he can be out of the cold, but not IN the shop. In the meanwhile, though, he can share it. I already have some Northwestern Alligator lizards that live in and around it.
So, a week later, the flicker is in and out, sometimes watching me, sometimes freaking and taking off. I'm working on finishing some cabinets for my son's room, and wiping on a finish is killing me, but it's turning out ok. After spending the morning doing a coat, at 9 pm I told my wife, "Ok, gonna go check the finish." She ALMOST convinced me not to get bundled up, put boots on, and head down to the shop in the mud and dark, but I was excited to see if this was the last coat or not. (It wasn't)
It's dark, and cold, and I'm headed down to the shop, feeling my way down the stairs that need replacing, getting wet, thinking, "Why am I doing this in the dark, why don't I have a flashlight, and...what the heck is wrong with the heater?" I realize I can hear the heater from 30 yards away from the shop, and it's just SCREAMING. I just put in a big electric hangar-heater, and it makes a little noise, but nothing like this. (No, don't worry, it's NOT what you think.)
I step it up a bit and start moving more quickly down the stairs, and as I get closer, I realize it's the shop vac! WHY is the shop vac running? Something feels very wrong and then I can smell smoke. THAT gets me into gear, and I start running down the stairs. Muddy stairs. In the dark.
After picking myself up out of the mud and untangling my torn-up wrist/arm from the railing, I tried a SLOW limp the rest of the way down to the shop, smoke is smelling stronger the closer I get. I'm already picturing where the fire extinguisher is.
I open the door and white smoke billows out in my face, something is just SCREAMING. I kick on the light with panic, and realize the source of the sounds and smoke is...what? The ROUTER? My table-mounted router is running at 12k, and it's been letting all its smoke out for...hours? I kick it off and silence takes over. I think about touching it, but yank my hand away and touch my muddy, wet elbow to it instead. It sizzles.
Now, let's reconstruct this. When I trace down what in the world happened, I came to the following conclusions. The cover to my Infinity Studio Monitor speaker is laying on the ground near my router table. Also near the router table is a foot switch. I get up on the ladder and look at the speaker, mounted 10 feet in the air above a cabinet, and there, in the dust on the speaker, are hundreds of little FLICKER-SHAPED footprints and what could totally be beak-marks all over the edge of the speaker.
So, the flicker got in the shop, got up on the speaker. Obviously, it wanted IN the speaker, so it pried the cover off, which came crashing to the ground, hitting the foot switch and turning on the router. Funny...there was no flicker to be found in the ensuing smoke and noise.
The router, a PC 600-series, still works, amazingly. I'll probably replace the brushes, but...it works. I wonder how long it was on? Hours, maybe? It had been 8 hours since I was in the shop or within earshot. Needless to say, ALL power tools, including the PM-2000 with the bright, shiny "Push-here-all-birds-fascinated-with-green-lights-in-the-dark" power light have been unplugged, the holes in the insulation have been plugged and backed with 3/4" sheetgoods, and all scraps cleared away from blades and spinny, sharp things that could cause fires.
Who woulda thought?
The moral, I think, is...never leave the shop. You never know what may happen while you're gone.
