Thread: Grandma's Garage Explosion Story

One of my customers email me this and I thought I would pass it on to the board.

This happened in Dallas yesterday.

Rick

My grandma's garage exploded..... I need a contractor

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Last night my grandma and a friend came back from eating and managed to leave her car running in the garage - for 4 hours. The exhaust gases eventually built up enough volume and concentration such that they were ignited, most likely by the water heater pilot light.

The resulting explosion blew the double garage doors outward, along with the center brick pillar between them. It was a flash explosion that lasted a split second. Burnt some stuff inside the garage, but only really flimsy stuff that was easily ignited.

Before I go looking in the phone book I thought I would ask if anyone here is a general contractor and can handle a little structural repair to the front of the garage area, replacing the pillar, etc., then I am sure we'll have to get a garage door company to fix the doors.

Her car is trapped in the garage right now, and I could break the door down to get it out, but once the door is removed, we need to get the garage fixed ASAP.

Let me know. I am working on uploading some pictures of the damage.

She is lucky the explosion happened or the CO would have killed her and her friend that was there. The fire chief was telling me the level throughout the house was off the chart !

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She got very lucky.

When first learned it, I was a bit surprised to discover that CO is a flammable gas:

OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH GUIDELINE FOR CARBON MONOXIDE

Since CO is a by-product of incomplete combustion, I guess Grandma found a way to complete it!

Hi to all,

Grandma was very very lucky, I sincerley hope that someone has enough sense to leave Grandma's car exactly where it is and to "loose" her keys!!

Regards

Gerry

How do we know Grandma wasn't cooking up some meth in the garage?

Grandma tried calling 911 but never got an answer she says.