DragBikeMike wrote on 05/20/24 at 03:43:40:


When I worked for Highland Heights - I was their Engineer/Building Inspector/Zoning Administrator.  We had a house fire that caused a significant amount of damage to a very nice, old 3 story brick home and the 2 car garage (and cars in the garage) that was located very near the porch.

The investigation resulted in them determining the fire was caused by their daughter who tried to shrink a T-shirt in the microwave.  When it didn't work she threw the hot shirt into the plastic trash can on the wood porch - and the shirt somehow started a fire.

The owners were not able to touch anything until the fire investigators and insurance companies released the home to them.  It took several months for the investigation to be completed, and several more months for the insurance company to settle on the structure damage.  The settlement for the "contents" of the house took nearly 18 months!

After about 2 years they were finally able to clean up the burned garage and cars and haul everything away.  The owners were not committed to fixing up this old house and sold it - the new owner cleaned up the outside damage to the house and boarded up the missing windows - the new owner is not in a hurry to do the renovation and 4 years later the house is still vacant.  The new owner does keep the grass mowed and the property is not unsightly.

I also had a house fire cleanup that went on for several years.  It was a big house and when the owner was in a serious car accident he had a long recovery and turned the big house into a rental.  After the fire the Fire Department Investigators tried to contact the owner - he took off and hid with relatives in a very rural area.  (A few months earlier the occupants had overheard him tell someone on his cellphone that he would be better off if the place were to burn down).  The Insurance Company would not settle the case until a cause for the fire was determined.  It took several years for the owner to finally come out of hiding and the cause of the fire was determined to be an AC unit on the back of the house.  I am not sure why the owner panicked and went into hiding - but it made enforcement for the issue very difficult for me as I had to "post" all correspondence to him on the property.  I had to erect a sign board on the property and post all notices on the board.  We were just about to hire a contractor to clean up the property and place a lien on the property for the cost - when the owner came out of hiding and agreed to clean it up.  After the property was cleaned up a neighbor bought the land to increase the size of their property.

Sorry for the long story......but settlements with insurance companies can go on for years!

DBM - you aren't kidding when you say insurance claims can take a long time.

Yesterday my contractor finally got the architect to come and inspect the foundation.  We got the stem wall completely cleared off, and ended up with a total of 6040 lbs. of building debris hauled to the landfill.  The good news is the foundation and floor survived the fire and is now certified to be rebuilt on.  The next step is to get my contractor to schedule the demolition.

It's been a couple months since I have been on here.  Just a bit of an update...

I am waiting for the insurance to settle on an amount for the structure.  It is in their ballpark.  I have a contractor lined up already, I just need the right check to get started.

I started to recycle the scrap steel equipment.  $130 per ton.  All told, building material and steel recycling, my wife and I have moved 10,340 pounds by ourselves.  To say a building makes a huge mess is an understatement.

My street tracker has not been disposed of yet.  I want to take off my rear set mounts, as they might be salvageable as patterns if nothing else.  Thoughts have started to creep in on maybe starting the project over again after shop 2.0 is complete.  Start with a good, running bike this time around.  The company that did my head porting is closing shop at the end of the year.  Too many small businesses are going down.  Sad to see.

It has been five months since the fire.  Time seems to be passing very slowly due to boredom (no room to work on much of anything), and the snail's pace the insurance works at.  But shop 2.0 will happen.  Not sure when, but it will  

This pile represents most of the aluminum parts that were in the shop. All of the aluminum components on the street tracker are in this pile.  Mostly unidentifiable blobs.  Rims, hubs, engine cases and covers, triple clamps, it's all right there.

:'(  

I guess all you can do is to move forward.  Is there a silver lining or excitement in the future?

And I am starting to have thoughts about doing another street tracker project!  

Huge news today.  AAA has agreed to my structure settlement in it's entirety (less my deductible).  I have a signed contract with a contractor, and waiting to be placed on the demolition schedule.  What a huge relief... Monday will be the 6th month anniversary of the fire.  Things are finally moving forward.

YaKnow,, since you're starting from scratch, IDK what it would cost to buy the parts and build it yourself, but a sprinkler system and alarms might be a thought...
I didn't know you'd suffered such a loss. I'm really sorry to hear about it.