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Thread: Almost lost the shop last week... (long)

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Brush Prairie, WA
    Posts
    191

    Red face 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.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Albany, GA
    Posts
    379
    Quote Originally Posted by Nathan Conner View Post
    The moral, I think, is...never leave the shop. You never know what may happen while you're gone.
    First, I'm glad everything is OK. That could have been very expensive to say the least.

    Second, I'll have to have my wife read the moral of your story. Hopefully, she'll buy it

    Tom

  3. #3
    As my teenage daughter would say "OMG (Goodness)". That could have been a disaster and it wasn't too good the way it was.

    I think that's a strong argument for an electrical cutoff for all power tools to be used whenever you leave the shop. I'd been thinking about one of those foot switches for the router, but I wouldn't now unless there was a separate cutoff.
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  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Kingston, Ontario
    Posts
    390
    Nathan:

    My shop is down but not out. Didn't have bird problems but did have an electrical one. Had an electrician and the local utility neither could pinpoint the cause. They suspect the relay that controls the basebaod heaters. Insurance company figures $10 to $15 k to put it back.

    So no shop till the New Year, but still have a shop.

    Greg
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    Last edited by Greg Sznajdruk; 12-18-2007 at 12:31 PM. Reason: spelling

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Brush Prairie, WA
    Posts
    191
    Oh, man, Greg. That's just crap. I'm very sorry for you.

    I did take a couple of boxes of things back up to the house - family hand tools that mean a lot to me, some little projects I've left down there. It looks like you escaped a total loss, but I get to feeling sort of stabby when someone puts a bare hand on the TS top. I can't imagine what it must feel like to come in and see that.

    Good luck!

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Deep River, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    64
    This is one of the reasons why I have a separate sub panel for my shop. All outlets in the shop are de-energized when I close up for the day. This was done so that little fingers couldn't play with the switches but I guess it would work for birds too.

    The other, and more important, safety feature that I added to my shop was a TELEPHONE, preferably with 911 on speed dial.

    Regards,

    Paul Joynes

  7. #7

    What a story.

    Whew, what a story. Glad you saved the shop by not listening to your better half.

    [quote=Nathan Conner;722022] ...This will NEVER happen to anyone else. quote]

    Think again. I've had 2 of those big and beautiful, though enormously destructive, flicker's get trapped in the shop. Here in Central Oregon, they can grow as big as a pigeon or a chukar, and if we could put a leash on them we could use them for demolition work.

    I have the same foam barrier which is actually no barrier at all, and flicker's have decided to nest in the attic storage of my shop. When I've left the fold down ladder down the flickers are able to fly into the shop but they don't seem smart enough to fly back out.

    I've entered the shop twice to find a total mess. Evidently, when a flicker gets stressed they like to poop. I didn't know so much poop could fit in one bird. (I do know how much can come out of a two-year-old).

    Moral of the story? Heck, I don't know. I love the beauty of nature...

    ...But not when it craps on my table saw.
    Yes Dear, I could build that for you if I only had that new ...

  8. #8
    Nathan - that's a testament to the router's durability. It should be catalogued and sent to PC as a testament to their quality - maybe you could get an ad in FWW!

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    North Hempstead, TX
    Posts
    379
    Sounds like a good reason to have a motion sensor, remote camera and intercom system in the shop, if it's not attached or a distance away from the house.
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  11. #11
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Kingston, Ontario
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    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Joynes View Post
    This is one of the reasons why I have a separate sub panel for my shop. All outlets in the shop are de-energized when I close up for the day. This was done so that little fingers couldn't play with the switches but I guess it would work for birds too.

    The other, and more important, safety feature that I added to my shop was a TELEPHONE, preferably with 911 on speed dial.

    Regards,

    Paul Joynes
    Paul:

    Have a 100 amp panel in the shop, but can't turn it off since need to keep the heat on.

    Greg

    Picture of better days
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  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Clinton Township, MI, United States
    Posts
    1,554
    My shop is in my basement. No sub panel, but I ran three circuits, two 15amp, one 20 amp to the shop area through three master switches. One 15amp is for the shop lights (separate from the basement lights so a blown breaker does not leave me in the dark), one 15 and one 20 amp circuits for tools. When I shut the shop lights off for the evening, ALL the tools are shut off.
    Mike
    From the workshop under the staircase, Clinton Township, MI
    Semper Audere!

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Smithville Missouri
    Posts
    604
    Never almost had a fire from a bird, but had a hummer get trapped in the shop once. That little bird must have been blind cause he hit all sides of some projects that were finish drying. He was still alive the next morning, but definately appeared exhausted, and I still had a hard time shooing him out the door. Of course he must have had a pound of Target USL on him too.
    Been around power equipment all my life and can still count to twenty one nakey

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