Smoke/Fire alarm for shop?

Blaze

Blaze

The Jeeper Reaper
Joined
Aug 9, 2005
Location
Wake Forest, NC
Anyone have anything like this? I almost had a fire in my shop yesterday due to an electrical outlet going into full meltdown mode. It melted the box and charred the stud but somehow didn't catch anything on fire. Unbelievably lucky.

My wife was wondering if there was any way to do a fire or smoke alarm in there, but I wasn't sure if there was anything that would work with grinding and general smoke that would happen in a shop. I don't want to be setting it off all the time.

My shop is about 100-125ft behind the house so if it caught on fire it would be too late before I realized any issue. BTW, the stud was burned up behind the wall and the insulation was charred. Crazy.

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An industrial type heat alarm may be an option. Or get it sprinklered with a flow alarm, which is a win win but probably overkill.

Here is a heat detector. Uses rate of rise to sense a rapid rise in heat, they dont care about smoke.

Amazon product ASIN B000Q6LXW2
 
Try a nest alarm then you can turn it off from your phone, and it will alert your phone if it goes off (assuming you have wifi there).
 
Dumb question, but would even a normal smoke alarm have went off with the issue you just had? Did it "melt down" and/or smoke enough to even do anything inside a room? Otherwise, by the time it was actually going off, I feel the fire would have been pretty far along and the alarm would be a mute point. I feel like a smoke alarm is more of if you're sleeping to wake you up so you can get out of a house... Pretty sure you would notice your shop is on fire if you were in there before the buzzer went off. 🤷‍♂️

My question would be "why didn't my breaker trip?"
 
Two different types of smoke detectors - ionization and photoelectric. I think photoelectric would probably work better in this case, but that's just a guess. If you had one, would you hear it going off? What was the deal with the receptacle? It looks like it was decent quality. Was it wired correctly? Backstabbed? Was anything plugged in when it failed? Switching to arc fault breakers is an option, but expensive.
 
DSM Turbos said:
Try a nest alarm then you can turn it off from your phone, and it will alert your phone if it goes off (assuming you have wifi there).
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That was my thought, something with wifi so it'll connect to my phone to alert me. Unless it was REALLY FUCKING LOUD I wouldn't hear it from the house. I have a Ring camera in there, but like my wife said, by the time it was triggered by movement the fire would already be pretty intense.
Silverado_Express said:
Dumb question, but would even a normal smoke alarm have went off with the issue you just had? Did it "melt down" and/or smoke enough to even do anything inside a room? Otherwise, by the time it was actually going off, I feel the fire would have been pretty far along and the alarm would be a mute point. I feel like a smoke alarm is more of if you're sleeping to wake you up so you can get out of a house... Pretty sure you would notice your shop is on fire if you were in there before the buzzer went off. 🤷‍♂️

My question would be "why didn't my breaker trip?"
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I'm not sure, but judging by the charred stud and the black soot up the outside of the wall I assume it made some smoke. Not sure enough to set off an alarm though.
shawn said:
Two different types of smoke detectors - ionization and photoelectric. I think photoelectric would probably work better in this case, but that's just a guess. If you had one, would you hear it going off? What was the deal with the receptacle? It looks like it was decent quality. Was it wired correctly? Backstabbed? Was anything plugged in when it failed? Switching to arc fault breakers is an option, but expensive.
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The receptacle was broken and someone shoved it back in the wall. I'm assuming that had something to do with it. I had a small space heater plugged in to it, but it is one that I've run for years in there without any issues, just not on this circuit. I've thought about arc fault stuff but yeah, very expensive to convert it all.
 
Blaze said:
The receptacle was broken and someone shoved it back in the wall. I'm assuming that had something to do with it. I had a small space heater plugged in to it, but it is one that I've run for years in there without any issues, just not on this circuit. I've thought about arc fault stuff but yeah, very expensive to convert it all.
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So it was probably the combo of the high current from the heater and the broken receptacle, probably arced.

It looks like your wallboard is just painted OSB? Is that right? If so that could have ben a lot worse. Hanging gypsum drywall is a PITA but it's a great fire retardant.
 
Are the receptacles wired under the screw terminals w/good contact, tight screws, etc? If any of them are backstabbed into the spring terminal holes, I'd rewire that shit ASAP.

The cover plate is obv missing, but keep in mind that the terminals in 20A receptacles are a lot stronger than regular 15A recepts. It puts more load on the cover plate when you plug/unplug and makes it more likely the recept moves around, cover plate breaks, recept body breaks, etc. Important to make sure there are spacers under the recept body screws (to the box) and that you have a good quality (metal) cover plate.

Blaze said:
I'm not sure, but judging by the charred stud and the black soot up the outside of the wall I assume it made some smoke. Not sure enough to set off an alarm though.
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Photoelectric detector *should* detect a smoldering fire. Whether you'll get nuisance alarms from it I can't say.
 
RatLabGuy said:
So it was probably the combo of the high current from the heater and the broken receptacle, probably arced.

It looks like your wallboard is just painted OSB? Is that right? If so that could have ben a lot worse. Hanging gypsum drywall is a PITA but it's a great fire retardant.
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Yeah, it's all painted OSB. I'd like to replace it all with GWB but 1200 sqft shop wouldn't be cheap. It had the OSB when I moved in.
shawn said:
Are the receptacles wired under the screw terminals w/good contact, tight screws, etc? If any of them are backstabbed into the spring terminal holes, I'd rewire that shit ASAP.

The cover plate is obv missing, but keep in mind that the terminals in 20A receptacles are a lot stronger than regular 15A recepts. It puts more load on the cover plate when you plug/unplug and makes it more likely the recept moves around, cover plate breaks, recept body breaks, etc. Important to make sure there are spacers under the recept body screws (to the box) and that you have a good quality (metal) cover plate.



Photoelectric detector *should* detect a smoldering fire. Whether you'll get nuisance alarms from it I can't say.
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All the ones that I've looked at so far are on the screw terminals. I always do it that way anyway.
 
From what I see, and the testing I've seen performed, I highly doubt that it would have set off a detector. Photoelectric detectors are a bit better, but still rely on a percentage of change gradient to activate meaning slow fire, slow reaction. Ionization detectors work best on rapidly developing fires. Best bet, have both types. Keep in mind that most detectors off the shelf are only good for 40-100 degrees F. You can get the detectors that are all tied together and put them in the house and barn. Heat detectors are not a bad choice, and aren't fooled by dust or slow fires.

Either way, replace whatever you have every ten years.
 
Blaze said:
arc fault
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I had to pick up a new GFCI the other day and noticed they have AFCI receptacles for about $25/ea. You could probably retrofit a few receptacle circuits pretty inexpensively that way.
 
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