Posted on 02/09/2011 2:54:05 AM PST by crosslink
Edited on 02/09/2011 6:51:12 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
BTW, read this report ~ this sounds more like what happened in the garage than anything else I’ve seen: http://www.koverholt.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/California-explosion-report.pdf
Even if a house didn't have a basement they dug one.
It became exceedingly popular in the 1920s to dig basements and upgrade the home to CENTRAL HEATING since you could remove the more dangerous pot belly stoves from the interior living quarters.
The garage in the back was not earlier a "stable" ~ folks kept their horses at the livery down the street somewhere (since they were rich and didn't need to take care of a personal horse).
This structure was built for use as a coal receiving dock because one of the upgrades to the new basement for the coal furnace was to keep a good supply of UNFROZEN coal on hand. This structure protected the coal lumps from freezing AND kept the thieves out.
Think of it as having more the nature of an oil or gas tank than as a garage.
As home heating systems have changed, the coal bin has been converted now to use as a garage.
The "chute" is still there somewhere ~ and all you need to do to make that access useful is put a stairway on top.
BTW, I almost bought a house designed by Frank Loyd Wright (located on top of a hill in Martinsville, IN). Even had the custom kitchen cabinets ~ and a really nifty coal bin chute which was accessed from the large, capacious garage on the side of the house away from the main and side entrances. Alas, the former "estate type" front lawn was now a public park with a noisy swimming pool.
The electrical system was 1920s circa ~ typical of numerous old homes in small towns throughout Indiana ~ one of the first places in the country to have totally wired city living.
Check my post at 484 ~ this house is dated to 1908 ~ a decade before central heating became all the rage and instead of buying your coal daily or weekly from the coal “Arab” for use in your pot belly stoves you kept it on site to be shoveled into your “furnace” later.
" Interesting report. Both explosions described were from large amounts of antifreeze and water being sprayed from above by an automatic sprinkler system onto an open flame. The mist ignites instantly causing a massive explosion. In the first example it said the system contained 262 gallons of glycerine, and in the second, a large amount of p-glycol.
Trukee, in the winter had about 0% humidity. Interesting.
This house was built in 1908. The "garage" may have been built later in the 1920s when the house was upgraded to CENTRAL coal fired heating. That required a greater use of coal than the older pot belly stove systems. People began getting large deliveries and needed a place for the coal ~ so they dug basements, put in the heating systems and took delivery in a covered, enclosed shelter in the back.
The coal chute has to be somewhere ~ may have been covered over but with certainty it exists ~ they are difficult to REMOVE so folks just left them in place.
The lightbulb theory may not be as strongly held to as earlier stories suggest ~ but, of course, they'll have been reading the FR threads (since their data mining software continues to throw them up as newer comments come in).
Let's say she had the garage door open, and had been sitting there warming her car for a few minutes. Then, she backs out, cuts sharp right to wiggle around another car in the drive, and whacks the workbench which breaks up in some way and her radiator gets punched.
That heating coil around the catalytic converter has got to be toked up to working temperature of 1300 degrees F ~ so, the spray goes all over the place, but particularly UNDER THE CAR, and BANG ~ a ball of flame envelopes the car, and some spray has entered through the door vents so that goes off too, and her car comes to a halt as the engine dies.
In the meantime the garage catches fire (lots of old drystuff there).
Interesting. Thanks for the info.
Thanks for your post. It looks like the physics of your antifreeze explosion is probably more similar to that of of a grain dust explosion than that of gasoline which exists as a vapor. The small particles from the mist have lots of surface area and can become quickly oxidized. I am not convinced that such a scenario existed in the garage. The vapor pressure of antifreeze at 20 degrees is likely quite low and not sufficient to cause an explosion. The pressure in a cold radiator would likely not be sufficient to make a mist of leaking fluid.
I guess I’m not convinced that the car lights and cooling fluid started the fire. However, once the fire got going enough and burned through the hoses it may have added to the flames.
It continues to stretch my imagination. This would be a very low speed incident. Cutting the wheel would likely make the front quarter panel make contact with the garage (not the front of the vehicle). They said she was “stricken and unconscious” when the fire started. I still can't find an example of a coolant spray leak in a car causing a fire, much less an explosion.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080118204643AAVoWfb
The only examples I have read about is when the water boils out of the system as in the case of the radiator cap being left off, and vapors building up under the hood.
I still think there was something other than coolant that was the trigger for the fire.
I have not seen the articles you mention. Any links would be appreciated.
I put some coolant in my Roundup sprayer, pumped it 25 times and sprayed it on a lit candle. It put the candle out every time and that was at 100% concentration. Granted the coolant was not at 220 degrees.
Just look up the lady’s name ~ the articles are there.
Lady starts backing, zig zags car, hits a workbench just so and she gets the requisite pinhole punctures.
The rest is on auto and she dies in a sudden flashfire right inside the passenger compartment!
“Fire experts say antifreeze is rarely the ignition source in auto fires. “It’s usually the last fluid to catch fire, in a fully engulfed fire,” according to a local fire department spokesman.”
http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=25&sid=2263531
Keyless start could have been added, but it doesn’t appear to be standard. Converters for that 2008 BMW X5 model appear to be the regular garden variety.
Whenever someone who has worked with the sorts she has, then dies in a curious way.............
If added later you need to open up the interior of the doors to do stuff ~ which might explained how all that antifreeze spray could end up INSIDE the passenger compartment.
A simple little thing about not being properly resealed? Who knows. I'm sure somebody's lawyer is going to find out.
I researched to see what BMW had to say about it ~ like does it have a special part number ~ and didn't find any information about that sort of thing.
I had a Chevy Van. My starter went out. I had it changed.
It didn't work. Had it shimmed. Didn't work. Finally, looked at my parts book and it said "FOOTNOTE X ~ for Corvette Engines use starter model specific for that engine"
GM, which had only two sizes of starters (ask any mechanic in the mid-70s) actually had a third size of starter for its V-8 engines ~ for the Corvettes!
It was lower profile so it wouldn't drag the ground.
My van had a Corvette engine.
Last thing in the world any mechanic expected at that time was a van would have a Corvette engine ~ maybe a light truck engine, but not that one ~ but that's what mine had.
Suppose there was a 37 old living in a million dollar home and driving a BMW who used to work for Nancy Pelosi, arranged for Rahm Emmanual to live in a rent-free apartment, and had a husband that was a close adviser to President Obama. Suppose this 37 year old was in the inner circle of a merger that was creating the nation's largest publicly traded utility company, a company that had received hundreds of millions of Obama stimulus funds. Suppose it was widely known she liked to drink wine out of coffee cups and trade juicy gossip over lunch. Suppose she was very close to a brother who was having his insurance benefits maxed out due to requiring permanent care due to a brain injury from a motorcycle accident.
Suppose she had 1) a very high need for money and 2) information that was very sensitive to some very powerful people.
In a town where information is power, this can be a volatile mix.
Yeah I read up about that electric converter dealio. It started a few years back on one specific model, by now it could be standard issue. I looked up replacements for her model, and there was no additional connection for anything electric. But as you point out, sometimes you need to dig a bit deeper for the right part. And yes that keyless starter -if her car had one- could have been added by just about anybody.
Here's the deal. I'm an old farm boy so I learned motors early. I've worked as a mechanic on high end German cars, and owned many exotics.
This story -as it's being told so far- just plain doesn't pass the sniff test.
Looks like we’ve read the same material......
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