You should have seen me when we had a chimney fire, that was a panic and a half! 40mins before dinner guests arrived! sit back and think...could have been worse, could have burnt the dinner!
A bit off topic, but you started it Steve
A few winters ago we had a power cut, no lights, no gas central heating. (I've bought a generator since!) It was -15 at the time so we lit a fire in the fireplace. About 5 hours after getting a good roarer going with wood, my missus complained of "some smoke in the bedroom". Well of course I said the chimney isn't drawing too well so there's bound to be some smoke up there...
Think you should come and look, said she and I saw thick wood smoke billowing up between the floor-boards. It's a wooden house.
Jeez, I've never moved so fast in all my life. The fireplace backs on to the hall, so standing in the hall looking at the timber paneled wall, suddenly a hole appeared before my eyes, and the wood there is 25mm thick.
I grabbed a crowbar and tore off all the paneling. It was well on fire at the back and even 8"x8" beams were burning! I ripped out everything I could. I needed water. All the water in the house is pumped from a basement storage tank. The power was off (see intro).
There was 3 of us running in a human chain to the garden tap 100m from the house! By using plastic cola bottles, I managed to spray water upwards to the burning joists and succeeded in dousing the fire out. My heart was at about 160 bpm but we'd cracked it.
I stayed there for 2 hours spraying with the bottles till I was satisfied there was no embers left. I could only imagine if we'd left to go back to the city leaving the fire to burn out. We'd have come home to a pile of ashes the next weekend. We had no insurance because it was unavailable here at the time and the fire brigade would have been 2 hours from our place.
We now have insurance.
So Steve, fire panic I know, first hand. No shame in that mate, it's terrifying
Thread-jack over...
thinking about it, twas a daft idea - nothing to center the wheel studs too! Ebay me thinks is the best bet.....
I will get to grips with home mechanics one day!!!!
Factor 11/10 
