After a fire destroyed their building last month, O’Neil Tire and Battery is moving down the road on a temporary basis.
Kim O’Neil, owner of the business, told the Sydenham Current they are setting up shop in the former Mufflerman building, located at 60 McNaughton Avenue in Wallaceburg.
“We’re getting the new tire machines, tire balancers, compressors… we have nothing, so all new hoists, everything has got to come in,” he said.
“So we’re just waiting for all of the product to come in and be set up. Then we’re ready to go… probably about a week and a half to two weeks we’ll be set up.”
O’Neil said their former building at 69 McNaughton Ave. was written off after the January blaze, which fire officials estimated caused $400,000 damage.
“It was a complete write-off,” O’Neil said.
“The building down there has got to all come down. There wasn’t much we could salvage down there, it was pretty well all wrote off.”
O’Neil said he plans on rebuilding on his original site, but he’ll be operating out of the former Mufflerman location in the meantime.
“Bad for Mufflerman, but good for us,” he said.
“It was the first option for me, I knew the building was empty. I just needed to find out who to contact to get into it. It gets us up and running in about four or five weeks (after the fire), because right now we’ve already been closed for three weeks. So, another couple of weeks we should be back up and servicing the public again.”
Mufflerman became vacant back on December 1 when the business closed permanently. Read more about this story, here.
O’Neil said they’ll be operating at the new location for about eight to 10 months.
“Or whenever they finish down at the other place,” he said.
O’Neil said they will be offering the same services at their new location.
“It’s pretty good, it’s as big as the other place really… it might not be as big for storage, but as far as bays, we’ve got five bays compared to three bays, but we used to put two vehicles per bay over there. Now we just have five bays to drive cars in,” he said.
“Full mechanical, oil changes, tires, farm and truck tires we’ll have to go down to our own yard and do them in the lot itself… but other than that, we’ll be full service for car, passenger, light truck, full mechanical.”
O’Neil said they’ve gotten great community support since the fire and ever since they’ve been in business.
“We’ve been here 25 years in Wallaceburg, so hopefully everybody will back us and come back and support us again for the next 25 years, and we’ll go from there,” he said.
“I hope we get good support from the public, that’s all we can ask. We’re trying our best to get back up and running and we’ll do our best to help them.”
O’Neil said they’re hoping to have the same phone number (519-627-9666) switched down to the new spot.
An exact opening date is still in the works.
Fire ruled accidental
Chatham-Kent Fire & Emergency Services officials say $400,000 damage was caused after a blaze at O’Neil’s on Saturday, January 13.
Fire officials say the cause of the fire was deemed accidental and no injuries were reported.
“Firefighters from stations #3 responded to reports of smoke coming from O’Neil Tire and Battery on McNaughton Ave. in Wallaceburg just after 10:30 a.m. on Saturday morning,” Chatham-Kent Fire & Emergency Services officials said in a press release.
“Upon arrival crews found heavy black smoke barreling from the structure. Station #3 volunteer firefighters and stations #1 & #2 were called to the scene for assistance.”
Fire officials say firefighters entered the building and quickly knocked down the blaze before it grew in size.
“Buildings such as these present significant challenges and hazards to firefighters,” stated Chris Case, assistant fire chief.
“By virtue of the fact that the fire broke out during the day and was noticed during its early stages, crews were able to get on scene, make entry and quickly extinguish before the whole building took hold.”
