Heat tape causes fire
The part of Oregon I live in has a lot of people living in rural atmosphere. they have private wells and they use heat tape to keep these wells from freezing up during these cold spells like we are h...
Forum Discussion
One December, I walked into the cottage that we had purchased the previous spring - to discover the ceiling on the floor and everything drenched and ruined. What the heck???????
As our builder tore things apart to do a rebuild, he discovered a water pipe that went through the attic and was wrapped in heat tape. It was laying under a layer of fiberglass insulation, so explains why we weren't aware of it. It seems the heat tape shorted out and started a fire; the fire melted the solder at a pipe joint, so the pipe came apart and flooded the house (putting out the fire). Eventually, the water shorted out the pump circuit breaker, shutting it off.
I have no idea how old that heat tape was - it could have been correctly installed and just shorted out due to old age and brittleness?
As our builder tore things apart to do a rebuild, he discovered a water pipe that went through the attic and was wrapped in heat tape. It was laying under a layer of fiberglass insulation, so explains why we weren't aware of it. It seems the heat tape shorted out and started a fire; the fire melted the solder at a pipe joint, so the pipe came apart and flooded the house (putting out the fire). Eventually, the water shorted out the pump circuit breaker, shutting it off.
I have no idea how old that heat tape was - it could have been correctly installed and just shorted out due to old age and brittleness?
