Almost Had a Fire Last Night

[phillyg]

Our dog woke my DW last night (I wasn't home), to a haze of smoke and strong electrical smell. The smoke detectors did not activate! She got our 5yr old granddaughter out, along with the dog. DW pulled out the 50a shore power.

DW saw smoke coming up behind the stove and she called the fire dept., which arrived before I did. They found "light" smoke and determined a breaker had tripped. That breaker services the TV and the fridge.

I noticed a strong electrical and plastic smell when I arrived after midnight. The FD couldn't find any active burning and suspected a bad electrical connection, and suggested not connecting back to shore power, with which I wholeheartedly agreed, until we could get to a repair shop.

This morning, we found light soot in the drawers next to the stove so I pulled them and the one under the stove and found a melted 120v connector. It joins the sheaved flexible wire to the solid Romex cable inside the kitchen slideout . The connector was screwed to the floor, along with two other similar ones. I have no idea why it failed, but thankfully, the breaker tripped before it started a fire on the floor or the wall 2" away. Also, the gas line runs right next to the wires. There is a lot of soot within an 8" radius.

I've never seen this type of connector before, and I suspect it's only used in the RV industry. I'm familiar with residential steel or plastic junction boxes; I used a steel box to make the repair. I'll likely get a bigger junction box and eliminate the other two connectors, too. BTW, the FD checked the smoke detectors and they worked. I find it strange that sometimes cooking on the stove trips one of the detectors but last night's smoke did not.

Bottom line: We love our fire safety dog Blu, and are thankful no one was hurt, or worse.

[K0LCB]

Wow! That's scary

[DQDick]

Glad everyone is safe! Not sure, but that looks like the type of connector they use to connect the two sides of double wide mobile homes or modular homes when they shove the two parts together.

[Loneoak]

Electrical problems can be scary! I hope you gave the dog an extra treat!

[jeff_banning]

Give the dog two treats, glad to hear everyone is ok.

I note some rust on the screws down there in the picture? Moisture issue, condensation, leak or other? Could have caused corrosion that caused poor connection that led to heat and finally destruction? Just speculating and observing but replacing them all as you said will fix that.

[Denny and Angie Miller]

Glad no one was hurt, and your coach didn't go up in flames. I'm glad you shared this, I will check my connections, and likely cut them off and use wire nuts to join the wires. Is that how you made your repair?

[kozzy]

get a new smoke detector too.....its possible the electrical smoke was not enough to set it off. See it all the time, I am a fireman. usually, when we go to calls dealing with bad electrical, its people smelling it that triggers the call, vs the smoke detector. but we get called all the time for "food on the stove" smoke.
Food smoke is thicker, and that is prob why the smoke detectors go off more often for that vs. electrical.

[phillyg]

Originally Posted by jeff_banning

......I note some rust on the screws down there in the picture? Moisture issue, condensation, leak or other? Could have caused corrosion that caused poor connection that led to heat and finally destruction?.....

Good eyes, Jeff. I'm watching the area closely, because I noticed the rusty screws and my first thought was that could have lead to the connector failure.

When I pulled in the slide a couple of days ago, after a moderate rain, I noticed some water dripping from the opposite corner of the slide from where the connectors are. But, there's no water inside the slide that I can see. It might have been from the slide top. Another project to evaluate further when we get home.

[phillyg]

Small update. DW just informed me a "couple of times" when she was boiling water in a pot on the stove some water "may have" gone thru the rear stove grill. Just so happens said water would drip right on top of those pesky electrical connectors. Still, I think it would take a lot of water to affect them. OTOH, my DW is a wild woman in the kitchen.