EXCITING.
I was baking a pan of mud, no joke, for the five year old to see if you can make a mud brick with a 'fossil' in it (you can). When I turned on the oven I noticed a brighter spot on the heating element but really thought nothing of it. After 20 minutes a funny hissing buzzing sound filled our house. It took about 2 seconds to figure out it wasn't my sewing machine and it was the oven.
I leaped into action. I jumped up and down. I shouted to my son to get out of the house. I shut the oven off. Meanwhile a glow like a welding arc was filling the oven. I panicked and ran in circles grabbing my hair debating what to do. I heard a loud poof and the entire oven was filled with fire. I ran for the fire extinguisher but came back to see how the fire was doing before using it. The fire rapidly died out and black smoke filled the oven and leaked into the house.
Not one fire alarm went off.
Not one person in the house at the time knew what to do for an electrical fire. I will be changing that. And all the batteries in the fire alarms too, I want them to go off.
This leaves me in the same conundrum I was in last fall: buy a killer new range that we can barely afford and wont fit in the kitchen as it is or buy a used range that may or may not short out and try to scare the bejeesus out of me again. Thoughts?
Peace and Love--
5 comments, thoughts, ideas, random words or haikus:
Crazy! Similar thing happened years ago to us on NYEve. Heating elements are scary things and in our case, on back order bc our oven was sooooo old. Good luck with your decision. : ) katie
I say stick with something you can afford and take along someone mechanical to check it out first. Sorry you're going through this!
I had this happen to me when my parents were out of town and I was either in high school or undergrad. Its actually not that bad to replace the heating element. If you have this kind of fire, dump flour on it. That puts it out pretty quickly. I took what I was baking over to grandma's house. If memory serve correctly, my dad was able to replace the element pretty easily. Aged elements can go out though. Its not a fun kind of excitement. I'm glad everything worked out ok.
My thought is I am really glad no one was injured, that must have been pretty freakin' scary!
Good on you that you have decided everyone needs to know what to do in case it happens again. Hopefully you can get it fixed easily, sending magical thoughts in that vein.
Your kind of exciting life I do not need. After 5 months without a refigerator I bought a used one for $200 out of someone's garage. I love it, but am terrified it will only last a short time.
My previous fridge, which came with the house also went "poof" and belched out black smoke. (Condenser shorting out.)
If one can afford it I say for something new is the way to go.
I often beg for things from relatives when they upgrade.
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