The Old Greenwich Gables fire yesterday is now out, with no injuries. That’s good news, but these paragraphs from Greenwich Time sum up what I think of how these units were built:
The fire was reported at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in a second floor apartment and raced through voids in the building fed by the lightweight materials used in the construction. It took firefighters at least five hours to squelch the blaze, Nixon said.
[snip]
A wooden truss system on the second floor collapsed within 15 to 20 minutes of the start of the blaze preventing firefighters from entering the apartment where the fire began, Nixon said.
I’m angered anew every time I visit this complex because Collins had a great location and a nice vision and screwed it all up by using cheap construction materials and techniques so that the place is a rotting, dangerous mess. Bah.
I lived there shortly after they were built. Utterly cheap construction. You could hear your neighbors as if they were in the room with you.
That’s so interesting Chris compared with what you said when I wrote months ago asking you about the Gables – oddly enough the post doesn’t seem to be on your blog anymore but I remember the gist of your response – good location and that they were fixing the problems they had. Absolutely nothing about cheap construction but now that there’s a fire apparently you knew all along.
Well, it wasn’t a coffee pot plugged into a timer.
“The construction and the remodeling and waterproofing operations gave the result [?] of the fire starting,” said Fire Marshal Joseph Benoit.
“Some of the work they were doing was using a torch,” said Fire Inspector James McDonald. “Something like that can smolder for hours before a fire starts.”
The construction crew had left for the day before the fire began.
http://www.greenwichtime.com/ci_13908313
Concerns over a fire starting in another unit is one of the main reasons that when my wife and I downsize, it will be to a smaller single-family house. I don’t want to end up homeless due to the carelessness of some idiot two doors down.
If my memory is correct that development went into recievership mid construction. Once it was taken over by creditor the construction got even cheaper. I believe the market had tanked before they were finished encouraging more cost savings. The fire still would not discourage me from living there.