Mark D. Zacharias wrote:
"William R. Walsh" wrote in
message news:meCFf.749378$x96.404278@attbi_s72...
Hi!

Fires are not great for electronics. That said, I think a lot of your
chances lie in how hot the devices got.

If they didn't get very hot, you might only need to clean them up.
Depending
upon the device, an exterior cleaning may be all you need to do. Devices
that handle tapes, or contain sensors of any type should be probably be
disassembled and have any sensing, tape path related or optical devices
inside cleaned.

For devices that were exposed to temperature extremes...you'll just have
to
try them and see. It really depends upon the quality of the device
and...to
a certain extent...luck. Some devices will shrug off even severe abuse.
Others will turn upside down and die if you just look at them wrong.

I'd expect that your refrigerator, dishwasher, speakers, stereo and phones
will be fine, depending upon how hot they got. At most I'd expect these
devices to need nothing more than a simple surface cleaning. Your TV and
computer stand a pretty good chance of being OK as well. (However, I'd
make
a backup of the important things on the computer.)

The cameras and DVD player may need to have their optics cleaned. For a
camera, cleaning the lens would probably do, depending upon how far the
smoke got. As for the DVD player, it should probably have the laser pickup
cleaned.

Ceiling fans and lights should be fine as long as they're intact. Your
outlets should be OK too. Any of these that have melted or deformed should
probably be replaced unless you can be absolutely sure the melting has
caused only cosmetic damage. Outlets are so cheap that if they're even
minorly deformed I'd still replace them.

William



Don't forget the smoke smell - sometimes they can't get that out - and the
DVD laser pickup gets contaminated inside, at the turning mirror, wnich
cannot be cleaned.


Mark Z.

My fire was caused by a malfunctioning window mounted AC/Heater unit;
and was confined to only that window. The plastic face, plastic blinds
above it, and a very small portion of the window sash were the only
source of actual flame. The smoke and soot from burning plastic left a
film of soot over every surface...with long streamers of soot--like
cobwebs--hanging everywhere.

The FD caused much more damage than the fire, breaking every window and
the door; spraying down that entire end of the building (where the bulk
of the electronics were set up). I'm not complaining.....

The soot and the fire retardant (not to mention water and axes) were far
more damaging than any temp extremes or flames.

The CD player which was within six ft. of the fire, and from which I
poured a quantity of water, operated (still operates) fine. The VCR
never worked again. A computer which was in the direct stream of water
booted as soon as the power came back on. I slammed off the power
switch as soon as I saw it. The one which died was maybe 15 ft. away.
A good vacuuming and a new p.s. fixed it.

None of the optical or floppy drives (in the three computers) in the
room suffered any malfunction...although one eventually ate the pulley
which operated the sled...might have been related.

jak