Peter O's Workshop

April 2, 2007 I was working from home in the morning, planning to go to the shop a little later. The phone rang and a voice said, “Peter? We live across the street from your shop. Your shop is on fire. I’m sorry.” The shop was completely destroyed, along with everything in it. Photos of the blazing fire made the front page of the local paper. Officially the cause of the fire was “unknown”, but we think it might have been a faulty air compressor.

I thought we had pretty good insurance coverage, but insurance covered less than a third the cost to rebuild and restart – and we still have a lot to buy before we are fully outfitted again. However, by the beginning of August I was beginning to turn out work for the clients whose jobs were lost in the fire. As of the beginning of October I’m working on jobs for new clients.

The old shop was about 10 miles away – the new shop is 40 paces from the kitchen door. We built a 24×36x12 “pole barn” and sheetrocked the interior. Right now, the new shop is just a big room with tools in it – mostly the basic tools needed for the work I do. As I rebuild the cabinets and work tables and tool stations, I look forward to posting photos of the shop here. I also plan to report my experiences with the fire and insurance on this site and hopefully can provide some information that can be useful to others.

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