Electrical Short... LUCKY DAY!

So we were planning to head to church this morning for Mother's Day but my stepdaughter slept in. That was some very good fortune for our family. 

I got up early and started putting some smoked Scotch eggs together for my lovely wife for her Mother's Day breakfast. We were feeding our 16 month old in his highchair and I thought I started to smell something getting hot. I checked all around the house and couldn't find anything. My wife had sprayed the kitchen sink with a bleach based cleaner so I ruled that as the cause. The smell seemed to dissipate and a couple of hours went by. 

During this time, we ate breakfast and put the little one down for his morning nap. My wife was getting ready to take the kids on a bike ride and I was outside getting the eggs ready for the Mother's Day afternoon cook when I heard a very strange (and loud) buzzing sound from inside the house. I came in and found smoke rolling out around our dishwasher. I ran to the garage and flipped all the kitchen breakers while she called 911.

It turns out that the previous owners of our home had an "instant-hot" water heater mounted under the sink and it was connected with an extension cord! Not sure how that one got by me or the housing inspector when we bought the house. There was all kinds of SH*% under the kitchen sink and I started pulling it out and throwing it in the trash can to see if I could find the cause of the smoke while she got the kids out of the house. Luckily none of that stuff started on fire. My wife had a bunch of plant fertilizer for her gardening habit stored under there so things could have happened very fast. 

We got VERY lucky! Thankfully we were home and awake when this happened. The local FD checked everything out and said we are safe now. We have all the windows open to air out the house and the "instant-hot" is now removed and thrown in the trash. 

We are now ready to a few beers, a rack of pork, and a turkey breast WITH THE RIGHT KIND OF SMOKE!