Following the fire, life became overwhelming – insurance companies, more construction delays, additional specialty contractors, kids back to school, temporary housing, etc., etc., etc.  So, updating the blog dropped off the priority list.

However, the project is now pretty much complete, and at BuildGreen we are still committed to sharing the lessons learned from the One Planet Reno.   So, we are going to continue pushing out information about the project.

The flooring sub-contractors caused the fire in the house.  We used an excellent all natural oil and wax finish on the hardwood floors, which is comprised mainly of Linseed Oil.  The sub-contactor applied the finish with rags.  Despite the very clear warning on the can to the contrary, they left two large piles of oil soaked rags on the stair landings and left the house for the day.  The rags at the 3^rd floor landing spontaneously combusted about 4 hours later.  Luckily, a neighbour saw the 6-foot high flames and the smoke billowing out of the house before the fire had a chance to spread to other combustible finishes in the house.

Linseed oil soaked rags combust on stair landing

The fire department arrived and smashed their way into the house through front and side doors.  They used an extinguisher to put out the fire instead of water hoses, which limited the damage to the house.    The fire burned the rags, the landing, the drywall around the fire location, and had just started to burn the temporary guardrail.  The main damage was smoke and soot – which was everywhere above the second floor.  The firefighters also walked all through the house, over the wet Linseed Oil floor finish, to open the windows, grinding in glass, dirt and soot over the newly finished floors.

Smoke and soot on walls at top of stairwell

The fire restoration company – Wisnea – did an excellent job for us.   Replacing drywall, cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning, followed by some funky fogging machines, sealing and painting.  Our door supplier – Thermotech Windows – was able to get a rush order on our replacement doors from Portatec as well.

At the end of the day, we count ourselves very lucky.  Had our neighbour not called when he did, the fire would have soon spread to the wet Linseed Oil on the floors and we probably would have lost the entire house.