Near Disaster

[herfrds]

I hate heat lamps!

I was watering my cornish crosses that are in a different chicken house and I could smell smoke. Went into my new chicken house to get a bag of feed and found that one of the heat lamps had been untied and sitting on the wood floor. Unplugged the lamp immediately. I grabbed the waterer, luckily it was half full and dumped it on the charred spot.

It had burned through the 3/4" plywood and through the double lap floor under that and was starting to burn into the support beam underneath. I sprayed water from underneath up on the charred spot.

Now I get to listen to DH give me a "I told you so." Need to pick up some lumber tomorrow and dig out my skil saw and get it repaired.

So anybody else almost burn down their chicken house too?

 

[underground chickenman]

I almost burned down my house in a similar fashion.

As part of the process of moving my chicks from the porch to the coop, I set their heat lamp on a formica countertop on the porch. It was off, of course, but I had forgotten that it was on a timer so it came on only during the night when it was cooler (they didn't need it during the day). Well, about 10:00 that night, we started smelling an awful burning smell. After about 20 minutes looking all over the house, and just before calling the fire department thinking we had a hidden electrical fire, I checked the back porch and discovered the problem. The smell was so strong in the house, it never occurred to me that it was coming from the porch. I had already gone out the front door to see if it was something in the air and couldn't smell it from there. The countertop was charred to an inch deep over a six-inch area. Much longer and it would have burst into flames for sure. The porch shares a continuous roof with the rest of the house, so that could have been disastrous. I am glad your experience wasn't any worse.

UGCM