Allan Appel Photo
Von Roll is on a roll again. The Fair Haven manufacturer of electrical insulations that sustained a three-alarm fire but averted catastrophe a month ago is up and running. In fact it barely stopped.
The new rooftop chimneys, towers, and duct work of the River Street plant shined in the midday sun this week. The hum of machinery was also audible through open doors on Blatchley Avenue, although several windows remained boarded up.
Less than a month ago, on June 24, there was a starkly different scene. Flames were coursing through the rooftop ductwork and threatened to spread to the laquers and other chemicals stored nearer the Chapel Street side of the block-long plant.
The Swiss-owned plant manufactures insulation for items ranging from cables to helmets to engines; many of the materials stored in the plant are highly flammable.
Click here for the story of how prompt New Haven firefighters averted what might have been a disastrous chemical fire.
After three and a half weeks, the damaged duct and chimney sections have been replaced, inspected, and checked out, according to an employee on the site. They are now functioning.
These ducts and exhaust systems serve the machines that produce the coatings placed on the insulation and other products. Because of the fire, they had been knocked out for about three and a half weeks. But no longer.
Other machines in the plant had barely ceased running. The “kroenert” department, where the lamination takes place, was operating within a week after the fire.
None of the employees was laid off in the nearly month since the fire. Those not able to work the coating machines addressed other tasks and general maintenance issues during the down time.
The firm employs approximately 35 people, almost all local.
According to Fire Marshall Joe Capucci, the fire alarms, sprinklers, and other systems have been repaired and put back into service. “They have been working very diligently with us. We have no outstanding issues with them,” Capucci said.
That was as of last week.
While all the life, safety, and alarm systems are up and running, Capucci couldn’t speak to the status of the boiler room, where the fire began.
He said that the cause of the fire had been a breech in the elbow of a heat exchanger. It had cracked. “The temperature of the air released was between 1400 and 1600 degrees, and it ignited the wood above,” he said.
That was checked out Wednesday morning by Building Department inspector Jim Eggerts (pictured). His first stop was a look at the boiler room, where one of two boilers was operating, the other down. That made sense, if it had a breech, Eggerts said.
Also on the wall and dated June 30 was a demolition permit from the city building department allowing “interior/exterior exploratory work.” The idea is that you get things up and running, and then see what needs to be done or if there is an issue, you call in the inspectors.
“This takes you halfway,” he said. The next step would be to take out a building permit, for example, to fix the roof, where tarp still lay over holes made by the firefighters.
“It [the plant] appears they are starting to get underway. This seems normal so far,” he said.
The River Street plant has been in operation for approximately 20 years.
An email was sent to Von Roll’s press contact in Switzerland, Sven Ohligs, to confirm the information in this story. There was no response by press time.