A sad day on the farm

[ovrszd]

Its so sad that you can't purchase asbestos
1/2x4x8 sheets you can't burn it. I used it for
when I put in my wood stove in the corner I
would put one sheet on each wall and cut one
in half for the ceiling and floor and you can put
your wood stove just a few inches for the wall or
corner. No chance of a fire. All the idiots that
think that mining is terrible should not be allow
to have anything that comes from mining perhaps
they would wake up from their stupid ideas!

willy

In the case of my fire, and the OP's fire, asbestos wouldn't have done anything except maybe allow the interior temp to get a little higher before the building collapsed.

An example. If you lined the inside of a wood stove with asbestos would the wood still burn?

 

[mx842]

OK Guy's and Gal's just wanted to come back with an update. I got most all of the rubble and equipment out of the building foot print the only thing is that connex. I have called 3 people mostly friends who have heavy equipment to see if someone would come by and yank that thing outta there. Everybody seems to be too busy. I waited for a week for one guy to come by, he said he would do it when he could break away from jobs he's doing. He seemed willing,even worked out a price but I can't wait any longer so yesterday I went to my weld supply place and bought me a Oxy/fuel set up and some gas and oxy. I started to cut it up and made pretty good progress. I got one whole side cut out and started on the other before it got too dark.

With that moving along I have come up against another big problem. The insurance co wrote the check out to me and my mortgage co which is normal. I have had that happen before on another claim when a hurricane blew my roof off. That was with State Farm and all I had to do was call them and told them the situation, that my roof was in really bad shape and needed to be fixed quickly. I had already ordered the metal roof and had a guy that was going to do the work. They farted around for 2 weeks while I had water leaking all over the house. When it was over they not only had to replace the roof but most of the floor covering in the house.
Well these people are going to be a giant pain in the azz because they claim they have to dole out the money and inspect it every time they write a check that wouldn't be bad if the house was damaged and I had to get a contractor to do the work. They could work it out with the mortgage co to be sure they were going to be paid. My problem is I have to get the concrete pad and foundation that the building peaple they want and to do that I need almost $14,000.00 just for the concrete man. I can pay him out of my contence money and be on with it. The next problem is how the building people want to get paid. They want 70% down to start building the building and that will be done in a little over a week then they want the rest of the money when it is ready, before they can ship it out.
To make matters worst the people that I want to put it all together will need to get paid too. This whole process would take less than a month and I could be in the building. Doing it the way the mortgage company wants to do it it will take that long to for them get it approved by several different groups that handles this kind of thing. This is how they say it's going to work. I send in a request for funds and then it has to be sent to another department for approval which usually takes 11 days for them to even look at it and another 11 days for them to send it to another department to give final approval and lord only knows how long it will take for them to send a check. The kicker is they will only pay out $40,000.00 at a time then you have to start all over to get the next check. Before that will happen they will send out an inspector to be sure the work is going as planned. The real kicker is $40 g's wont even pay the get the building to the production mode. So just what are they going to look at when they come out to inspect?
I tried to explane to these people that the building was not there when I financed the property in the first place. I also told them that I built it over an almost 10 year period and all the money that was used is what I could scrap up from time before it was over I had over $175.000 in the thing. Then they told me that this insurance check was not going to be enough to rebuild and it would have to go before another board for review. They are telling me that the money has to come from somewhere so now the whole thing is stalled on the start line until this board looks at it.
I could go ahead and buy the building and have it put up out of my own money but to do that I would have to go into my 401K which wouldn't be a big deal because it ain't doing anything anyway and it might be better to just put that money to work and deal with these idiots later.
Well I guess that's enough to make all of your heads hurt so I'll end this rant now.

 

[riptides]

OK Guy's and Gal's just wanted to come back with an update. I got most all of the rubble and equipment out of the building foot print the only thing is that connex. I have called 3 people mostly friends who have heavy equipment to see if someone would come by and yank that thing outta there. Everybody seems to be too busy. I waited for a week for one guy to come by, he said he would do it when he could break away from jobs he's doing. He seemed willing,even worked out a price but I can't wait any longer so yesterday I went to my weld supply place and bought me a Oxy/fuel set up and some gas and oxy. I started to cut it up and made pretty good progress. I got one whole side cut out and started on the other before it got too dark.

With that moving along I have come up against another big problem. The insurance co wrote the check out to me and my mortgage co which is normal. I have had that happen before on another claim when a hurricane blew my roof off. That was with State Farm and all I had to do was call them and told them the situation, that my roof was in really bad shape and needed to be fixed quickly. I had already ordered the metal roof and had a guy that was going to do the work. They farted around for 2 weeks while I had water leaking all over the house. When it was over they not only had to replace the roof but most of the floor covering in the house.
Well these people are going to be a giant pain in the azz because they claim they have to dole out the money and inspect it every time they write a check that wouldn't be bad if the house was damaged and I had to get a contractor to do the work. They could work it out with the mortgage co to be sure they were going to be paid. My problem is I have to get the concrete pad and foundation that the building peaple they want and to do that I need almost $14,000.00 just for the concrete man. I can pay him out of my contence money and be on with it. The next problem is how the building people want to get paid. They want 70% down to start building the building and that will be done in a little over a week then they want the rest of the money when it is ready, before they can ship it out.
To make matters worst the people that I want to put it all together will need to get paid too. This whole process would take less than a month and I could be in the building. Doing it the way the mortgage company wants to do it it will take that long to for them get it approved by several different groups that handles this kind of thing. This is how they say it's going to work. I send in a request for funds and then it has to be sent to another department for approval which usually takes 11 days for them to even look at it and another 11 days for them to send it to another department to give final approval and lord only knows how long it will take for them to send a check. The kicker is they will only pay out $40,000.00 at a time then you have to start all over to get the next check. Before that will happen they will send out an inspector to be sure the work is going as planned. The real kicker is $40 g's wont even pay the get the building to the production mode. So just what are they going to look at when they come out to inspect?
I tried to explane to these people that the building was not there when I financed the property in the first place. I also told them that I built it over an almost 10 year period and all the money that was used is what I could scrap up from time before it was over I had over $175.000 in the thing. Then they told me that this insurance check was not going to be enough to rebuild and it would have to go before another board for review. They are telling me that the money has to come from somewhere so now the whole thing is stalled on the start line until this board looks at it.
I could go ahead and buy the building and have it put up out of my own money but to do that I would have to go into my 401K which wouldn't be a big deal because it ain't doing anything anyway and it might be better to just put that money to work and deal with these idiots later.
Well I guess that's enough to make all of your heads hurt so I'll end this rant now.

No rant apology needed. You have been through enough.

I feel for you having been through this insurance/mortgage/contractors processing claim/inspection/repair myself, just recently. It took over a year.

My insurance company actually got their lawyers involved in our claim process. That's how bad it got.

When the initial checks got written, my mortgage company lost them. Because they switched servicing locations internally AND switched our loan number. Guess what that did to the claim. LOL.

Hang in there, I am rooting for you. It will take time and patience.

And we too floated money for the contractors, they have to buy material. LOL.

Best of luck.

 

[ovrszd]

Sorry to hear of your problems. Wish I had some magic words to throw your way but I do not.

Thanks for taking time to update us. We're with you in spirit and thought.

 

[Williy]

I hope that your getting back to normal. Fires and what
th;ey can do is beyond words.!

You couldn't pay me to get state farm insurance! I was
stationed in Italy for approx 3 1/5 years came back to the
states to get insurance for our car. We had insurance for
our car over 3 years while driving in Italy. We went to state
farm insurance office and they told us we would have had
insurance for our car for 2 years and I said we had insurance
for over 3 years in Italy he said that didn't count! Needless to
say I have never had state farm insurance of any kind. My
co-worker had state farm insurance and when he went to
renew his policy they said that his policy was cancelled two
months ago but they never told him about it. About state farm
insurance you never know if you will be covered or whey wil
just drop you and you will know no idea until you try to renew!

willy

 

[ovrszd]

I hope that your getting back to normal. Fires and what
th;ey can do is beyond words.!

You couldn't pay me to get state farm insurance! I was
stationed in Italy for approx 3 1/5 years came back to the
states to get insurance for our car. We had insurance for
our car over 3 years while driving in Italy. We went to state
farm insurance office and they told us we would have had
insurance for our car for 2 years and I said we had insurance
for over 3 years in Italy he said that didn't count! Needless to
say I have never had state farm insurance of any kind. My
co-worker had state farm insurance and when he went to
renew his policy they said that his policy was cancelled two
months ago but they never told him about it. About state farm
insurance you never know if you will be covered or whey wil
just drop you and you will know no idea until you try to renew!

willy

I just moved my property insurance to State Farm. Now you give me pause. I'll approach this with more diligence. Any suggestions to the questions I should ask to verify validity of the company?

 

[Aussiebushman]

Sincere regrets for your loss. I understand very well - had a trimaran that I had built stripped and torched - no insurance

Chin up! you will recover in time

Alan

 

[mx842]

So far USAA has been very good in helping me deal with this fire claim. It has been a little slow over the past couple weeks because they are overwhelmed with frozen pipe claims from that last big cold snap. It didn't matter me much because I have been so busy with clean up. It's the dang mortgage co. that's the real pain. My wife calls them some times three times a day hoping this squeeky wheel will get greased a little quicker. so far all she has gotten is excuses and run around. Hopefully they will get tired of her in a little bit and send our check back.

I've spent the past few days with a oxy/acet torch cutting up large pieces making them small enough to throw in my tralier. Man, this new dump trailer I bought is reall nice, I have cut my scrap runs in half and that has helped a lot. I wanted to get a 14' trailer but that would have meant that I would have also bought a heavier truck. My F150 will pull it fairly well but it don't like it much when I load it up good. Anyway it a whole lot better that what I was using and I have wanted a dump trailer for some time now.

I spent the past 2 days working on that connex trying to get it cut up and out of the way. I have all the sides and roof cut up and all that is left is the floor. I have given up on the guys with the excavator to show up and decided to get it out myself. Once I get all the cut up pieces out of the way I'm going to try and pull the rest out of there with my pickup truck. I think if I can get it to move a little more I will be able to move it, I'll just have to wait a see what happens when I try again tomorrow. If I can get that out of the way then I can start getting ready to pour concrete.

I've been kicking around the idea of just pouring another 4" on top of what I already have in the ground. For the most part the concrete came out fairly well but there are a lot of places that were burned out and nothing but a big hole left. I could probably fix it but I have to add 6" all the way around any way. I wish now I had poured the pad first then built the barn on top of it rather than the way I did. It's going to cost a fair bit more but I will have a lot better floor when it's over.

 

[turbo36]

Some of you may remember what I went through building my pole barn that turned into my giant man cave. It was my place away from home that I spent many hours in playing with all my toys. I had all my most sacred things that I had gathered over my life time. All my machines, two lathes, my mill, all of the tooling, my Bickford 21" Super Service, 2 more drill presses. Three welders, Dynasty 300, millermatic 252 and an older miller AC/DC buzz box and all the stuff that went along with my welding shop. I never realized how much stuff I had in that building until I started going through the rubble. I never thought about how much in dollars I had laying around. In just different clamps and vices I have found over $7,000.00 in the rubble. It hasn't been too hard to find things because I had everything in there own spaces, plumbing, electrical, AC, hydraulic stuff, test equipment, welding equipment and consumables all had their own little spot in the shop.

One of the hardest things I have had to deal with was all my civil war relics, my native american artifact, bottle collection and my fossil collection. it's hard to lose stuff I have spent a lifetime collecting but all my books for the different habbits, my research papers and recording books that took more time to do than the actural collecting itself.

Everything was gone in less than 2 hours from the time it started to when there was nothing else to burn. In the end all that is left is the siding and roof metal and what's few 6x6 post that are still standing. One of the firemen that was here told me that in 20 years of fire fighting this was the hottest fire he had ever been to. That huge trolly beam system I built and was so proud of now looks like a big pertzel still hanging from it's upright support beams. Anything aluminum or copper was turned to liquid, every where you look there are piles of melted lead, aluminum and cooper parts that were once motors, tools or anything else that was made of these metals.

After a little over a month I have finally gotten the go ahead from the insurance co to start clean up and that will be a giant under taking in itself. I have enough insurance to cover most of the contence except my historical items but The way insurance work it you only get a certain percent of the amount of what it would cost to bebuild the the house itself. I already know there is not enough in that part to cover the cost of what I had so I'll have to do all the clean up just like I built it to begin with by myself. It probably will take the better part of a couple months to get it all cleaned up so I can start over.

Wow, you have a tough road ahead of you. I wish you well.

You comments about your insurance experience should be a wake up call to anyone that is reading this. Basically, if you do not have an auxiliary building on a separate schedule, as well as your high cost items on a separate schedule then a loss value becomes a percentage of the insured house value.
I have a number of properties that I insure, including a commercial building, and I drive my agent crazy every year with a “ hypothetical scenario” loss question list. Since I learned that there are so many exceptions, I started to carry a rider that covers any loss ( to the amount I determined) not covered by the basic policy. Pretty expensive, but I think it’s worth it in my opinion.

 

[Williy]

I can only tell you what I know about state farm.
I can tell you this much you couldn't pay me to get
state farm insurance for any thing! But that's MHO
I am with Texas Farm Bureau can't ask for any better
company. If you have damage to your if you can't
make it into the office they will come to your home.
The best thing to do before you purchase insurance is
to ask your neighbors

willy