Cosgrove Hall Fire

[MatthewC]

This is very sad:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-37591329
Another lovely old house gutted by fire

 

[plasticpigeon]

Disaster.

 

[Feltwell]

Where's Danger Mouse when you really need him eh?

(Extra anorak points to anyone that gets the reference. Even though it's not really anything to do with this hall).

Seriously, such a shame to see yet another fine building go. Not much left either, so will a rebuild be worth it? I'd imagine some of that masonry, the chimney stacks especially, will need to come down straight away for safety reasons. Only good news is that no one was hurt.

 

[Flyfisher]

Where's Danger Mouse when you really need him eh?

Or the Wyrd Sisters ? :wink:

Very sad, of course, and my first thought was also about the stability of the remains and whether they would have to be demolished, particularly those chimney stacks I guess a lot depends on the insurance position.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

These fires are becoming a regular thing--has anyone heard any more about how this one started? There does not seem to have been much about it.

 

[Feltwell]

Where's Danger Mouse when you really need him eh?

Or the Wyrd Sisters ? :wink:

Extra anorak points to FF! (Might have known you'd get them :wink: :lol: )

 

[malcolm]

Completely gutted (the hall). The fire must have taken a good hold and have been impossible to put out.

I don't know how to avoid that in my more meagre property. We have a superb fire alarm system which is great when we are here. We can pop downstairs at any time of night and put the fires out before they become inconvenient.

After the flood last week that happened while we were out a neighbour mentioned that water had been coming out of the wall for hours. I wonder whether we might one day come home to a shell of a building and complaints that the fire alarm has been going off for hours. I should add a phone dialling thing to the fire alarm.

 

[Feltwell]

I should add a phone dialling thing to the fire alarm.

If it's a similar process to a burglar alarm, I added one to mine myself - a simple enough job.

Only thing is, if we ever do set the alarm off accidentally (the kids have once or twice) as well as quickly shutting the alarm up I have to quickly remember how to stop the dialer - once it's tried ringing my mobile 3 times it then starts ringing around the wider family - and I can never remember how to turn it off! The plug to the BT socket has had to be quickly pulled more than once to disable it!

 

[Flyfisher]

Where's Danger Mouse when you really need him eh?

Or the Wyrd Sisters ? :wink:

Extra anorak points to FF! (Might have known you'd get them :wink: :lol: )

Bit of a fluke actually. I'm not a big Terry Pratchett fan and it's his only book I've read. It was also serialised on R4, but I digress (as usual).

 

[Flyfisher]

Completely gutted (the hall). The fire must have taken a good hold and have been impossible to put out.

I don't know how to avoid that in my more meagre property. We have a superb fire alarm system which is great when we are here. We can pop downstairs at any time of night and put the fires out before they become inconvenient.

I sometimes wonder why sprinkler systems are not more widely favoured in the UK? I appreciate the possibility of accidental triggering and consequent water damage, but this must be traded off against the often complete loss of a property. A fire could quickly take hold in the time it takes for the fire brigade to arrive and the first thing they'll do is pump the place full of water anyway.

 

[d49xc]

I believe the Welsh gov is en-route to mandating all new residential properties are to fitted with them.
Rather than accidental discharge the main issue is freezing of the water in the pipes in the ceiling and wall/underfloor cavities as it going to be just sitting there stationary 100% of the time.
Options seem to be
Dry pipe rather than wet pipe systems
Trace electrical heating on the pipes.
Anti-freeze added to the water - preferably ones that itself does not combust at high temperatures!
All of which have significant cost/difficulty etc implications.

The other problem for domestics is whether the property has a decent enough water supply flow rate from the mains which can be maintained at the furthest sprinkler: else you are looking at
1. New (much) larger incoming pipe from the main in the road
2. On site storage of water in tanks and associated pumps.

Then there will be the annual maintenance/certified inspection on all of this without which I'd guess insurance companies will be walking away from the property with very large steps.....

 

[Flyfisher]

I'm sure the (very reasonable) technical problems you mentioned could be overcome, but I hadn't thought about the insurance implications. I'd like to think that the inevitable annual inspections/certifications would cost less than the premium reductions for having a sprinkler system in the first place, though I wouldn't hold my breath.

Is fire the only real risk factor for the total loss of a property? (Flooding perhaps, but that's usually damage rather than total loss, and mostly contents at that). In which case buildings insurance premiums should surely be significantly less if a sprinkler system was installed.

Edit: a quick search found this ad for a water mist sprinkler system, which is claimed to have many advantages over traditional sprinkler systems: http://www.imist.net/water-mist-v-sprinkler-sysems/. I've also seen videos of hand held water mist extinguishers that are, apparently, safe and effective on electrical and flammable liquid fires.