fire extinguishers

Halon is still available, but it's expensive. Basically whatever was manufactured up until the cutoff is all that there is.

There are some alternatives now, with similar properties.

A big dry-chem bottle is better than a big sh || ||We had a safety fair at work last week. ||Made me realize that I do not have a fire extinguiser in the shop. ||(But I do have one in the kitchen and garage.) || ||I really hate to think about discharging a dry-chem extinguisher ||in the work shop. That would be an increable mess. How about CO2? ||Is Halon still available? ||I don't turn exotic metals; just brass, steel, alum, etc. || ||chuck

Texas Parts Guy

This Cold-Fire stuff is pretty amazing:

I use the Fire-Block product on my welding gloves & coveralls... we also sprayed the cloth furniture at our hunting cabin (gas lights & fireplace sparks). David

I bought a bunch of 5 gallon water/air extinguishers. After they are 5 years old or something, NFPA requires they be replaced. You can get them on eBay for under $25. They work great, and hold the air charge for years without any loss of pressure. You can dump the water and refill, and recharge with a standard air chuck, like for a tire.

Jon

Over the years we have had countless little fires and they stayed little. Keep a bucket of water in key places. They are easy to use, cheap to refill and quick clean-up. Keep the ABC's around in abundance as second line.

When was the last time they were serviced? (I have them done every few years, there's no set "annual service" rule for residential.) And hydro-tested? (Due every 10 to 12 years - I take mine in as soon as I notice that the hydro has expired.)

If they're the disposable Kidde plastic head units, dispose of them

- the siphon tube clips can break inside and the tube drops to the bottom - it still holds pressure, but they may not work in a fire. And the ones with the little pop-out-pin pressure gauges are toys.

Buy the commercial duty all-metal units with a real gauge, they can be counted on to work when needed.

Halon is still available, you can buy them new (after you get over the sticker shock) and get them refilled. I'm staring at one right now, an Amerex #352 2.5-pound Halon 1211 mounted over my computer desk, in case a computer tries going out in a blaze of glory... :-0

There's a new rule - You need to take Halon extinguishers in for service every 6 years now, they change all the O-ring seals to prevent them from rotting out and leaking.

I keep an assortment around - my house and shop has at least one example of darned near every type extinguisher they make, except for AFFF Foam and Class D dry chemical. Scattered near their best uses, like an ABC and CO2 in the kitchen, ABC Water and CO2 in the shop.

You just have to take 2 seconds to think about what's burning and if electricity is involved before deciding which one to grab for the job.

And Class D extinguishers are VERY expensive and rather pointless. Per my service company: If you work with flammable metals, rather than waste money on the special extinguisher just get a 5-gallon bucket of Class D Refill Powder and a big aluminum scoop from Smart & Final, and store the scoop in the bucket by the equipment. If you ever have a magnesium fire on a machine, just pop the bucket lid and start scooping powder on it.

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I asked about CO2 recently when I bought some extinguishers for the same reason. CO2 isn't rated for all the fires you might have in a shop (I forget which of the ABC's it was missing).

Steve

Charles A. Sherwood wrote:

A

A- wood paper etc B- combustable liquids like oil C- Electrical

Dry chem are rated ABC. CO2 are rated BC.

I just bought a 10lb CO2. I was thinking about things like cutting oil catching on fire. I think I will add a dry chem in case the CO2 cannot put it out.

You should have at least one near every door, and more near any expected hazards (but not too near). It also helps to consider what hazards you have and how you can reduce them ahead of time. When in doubt, get a bigger extinguisher. You may bitch about the cost when buying it, but you'll bitch about the money you should have spent when you run short before the fire is out.

First off fire extinguisher use does take a bit of practice.

For example, I saw a scientist despertately trying to discharge one, she could not figure out what was wrong. Of course she forgot to pull the pin - she was flustered and of course knew in theory you had to pull the pin out but in the heat of the moment...

A friend of mine was a mate on an ocean-going tug, and he used to do fire drills where the crew had to actually use the extinguishers, and they would get the used ones re-filled.

At a former workplace, they had the october fire prevention week and would take the researchers out in the back field and have them use all the three kinds of extinguishers in the plant.

The water ones were used against a paper fire in a wastebasket, and often the novice user would have the stream of water knock over the basket and it would spread the burning paper all around.

Then they would tell somebody to use a water extinguisher on a gasoline fire burning in the bottom of a cut-off 50 gallon drum. Of course the flare up of fire was real impressive and scary.

Then they would have folks use CO2 bottles on the gas fire - and it was impressive how much of the large size bottle had to be used to put that small fire out. Also impressive were the electric shocks that I got through the soles of my shoes - from the charging effects of the gas flowing though the horn of the extinguisher.

Then the guys running the show slipped a sneaky one in - they gave a researcher a partially discharged CO2 bottle to put the fire out with.

He had it almost knocked down, and then ran out of steam. The fire was almost instantly back up to its former size.

Then they gave folks a smaller dry chemical extinguisher to use on the same fire. One shot *pfft* and it was out. They had about five folks use the same extinguisher to put the fire out, re-lighting it each time, and they would pass the used bottle on to the next person in line.

Impressive demonstration, one huge CO2 bottle could barely put out the fire that a smaller dry powerder bottle could put out about five times over. I would never have CO2 extinguishers in my home shop, dry powder only.

Jim

this link should help with information on halon.

CO2 doesn't have a whole lot of staying power - but there's no corrosive dry powder to clean up afterwards. If you are aiming at very expensive equipment that needs to be fixed after the fire goes out, CO2 is worth the trouble.

If the thermal shock of CO2 is liable to break the very expensive equipment, you want Halon.

And setting up a whole-room CO2 or Halon flood system is expensive, but when it's something rather critical - like the area telephone switchroom where the equipment replacement costs well north of $6 Million (installation not included) and it will destroy the city's economy if it burns down and is out of service for a few months - you gladly spend the money.

But they had to learn the lesson first: * Richmond Indiana 2/4/1965... * Manhattan NY 2/27/1975... * Chicago IL 5/8/1988 - For the last big fire that occurred, fixed building Halon flood systems were available and in common usage in switchrooms, but Illinois Bell hadn't bothered to spend the money installing them.

Of course, rather than call the local FD to go check it out, the Regional Network Center ignored the automatic fire alarm they were getting from an /un-manned building/ for an hour... By the time they told a Supervisor to drive over there to check it out, the fire was getting going good and the phones were already knocked out... Stupid.

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CO2 is also handy if you work with a lot of engines and get a runaway. It'll stop the engine without breaking it--unless, of course, you run out of CO2. (:

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I have both CO2 and water extinguishers, the CO2 isn't that great on a paper fire, tends to blow it around, although I used one to put out a small fire like that. They all need periodic servicing. Halon is overkill unless you've got expensive electronic or process equipment that would be permanently damaged by dry chemical extinguishers. Usually CO2 could be substituted, condensed moisture is the problem there with electronic gear. Cut the power first before applying the extinguisher.

I got these CO2 and water extinguishers ridiculously cheap from a guy that was junking out old school buildings and had them retested and refilled at the local service. Cost was about $20 for each one. For kitchen use(fat fires), I'd definitely go with dry chemical.

Water extinguishers you could probably refill yourself but your insurance company may have something to say about that. They make pretty good power flushers for shop use, too, if you can find a junk dealer like my guy. I bought several, some for one use, some for other uses. The CO2 can also be used in a pinch for doing shrink fits, just don't run the extinguisher down and then hang it back on the wall.

Stan

The water extinguisher also makes a great weapon when someone thinks their puny water pistol is a cannon.

We had a water extinguisher fight in our dorm in college. Used up all 4 floors extinguishers. Which is probably why they were water ones. Karl

Hey, those Halon extinguishers are GREAT. When I was a kid, my dad and I had a minor shop fire. (A welding spark took a leap from the MIG torch, rolled up the driveway and into some dust in the corner of the garage about 40' away.)

Anyway, one touch of a cheap Kidde Halon extinguisher burped out the flames pronto. It's what I use in my competition car - the rules call for a fire system so I use a SPA Techniques Halon kit.

In New Zealand, Halon has been illegal for 12 years or so. There are a number of better suppresant gas flood systems. The trouble with CO2 and halon is that the room atmosphere is untenable. Wormolds have Inergen, which is a Nitrogen/ Argon mix with a small amount of CO2. It will douese the flames by dropping the O2 concentration to below the flammablie limit, but you can still walk around and breath in the room (the CO2 increases the respiratory rate, increasing the o2 uptake). Not cheap though - one price I heard was around $US650/sq metre. Dry powder is the best bet for most people at home, and also the knowledge of when a fire is to big to handle with an extinguisher, and it is time to bail out Geoff

It wasn't a shop fire, but I was outside in winter splitting wood and had built a fire in an old charcoal barbeque grill to use up the small bits and pieces of wood. When I was around the corner of the house stacking wood, a spark popped out and set the dry, brown, zoysa grass on fire. I returned with the wheel barrow to see a 10 foot circle of flame being wind pushed towards the shed. No problem, I will fill a pail with water and put out the fire. Oh, forgot to mention it is winter. Out side hose fitting is frozen and no water comes out, inside and find the sink has a flow limiter and you get very little water. Back outside and the flame circle is bigger and closer to the shed, consider calling

911 and discard the notion for the moment. I see a 5 gallon plastic pail about 3/4 full of water and frozen solid. I smash the pail on the ground (frozen plastic=brittle) and proceed to push the resulting giant icecube into the grass fire while on my hands and knees. I succeed in putting out fire, and before my wife gets home it snows and covers up the black ash circle in the yard. Later I confess to SWMBO because she would have known anyway by ESP.

John H.