Fire Extinguisher & Smoke Detector Reminder

[nicktodd]

Last January, I had a small fire in my shop. I had just brought a finished piece into the house and I decide to send an email. After a few minutes, I smelled smoke and returned to the shop to investigate. I opened the door to see smoke down to the five foot level throughout my shop. At that time I didn’t have smoke detectors in the shop. I kept two fire extinguishers at either end of my shop. The handle on the fire extinguisher failed(it was commercial grade). The other fire extinguisher was behind the fire. I was regulated to the garden hose. The fire was start by a heat gun that either shorted out or I kick on the heat gun on. In the latter case, I am assuming it did not hear the heat gun because of fan noise from a space heater.

In my outlook calendar I have a January reminder to inspect & replace fire extinguishers & smoke detector battery’s in my house & shop.

Lessons learned:
It took less than 30 minutes & $25 to install two smoke detectors. I had always planned on installing smoke detectors, it just never happened.
If I had inspected my fire extinguishers more often, the damages would have been far less.

My shop is in my attached garage. When I started to buy equipment for my shop, I put in a sub-panel to provide protection to my lathes & compressor. That protection worked. Because I had my shop lights on a separate circuit, the lights stayed on when the outlet breakers were tripped. It would not have been fun to put the fire out in the dark.

 

[MichaelMouse]

May we presume the shop detector is a remote alarm? If so, MIGHTY fine price. If not, spend the money to get one that'll alert you in the house.

 

[Scott Miller]

I also highly recommend a carbon monoxide detector especially if you heat by gas (nature or propane) or kero.

 

[Gynia]

The fine sanding dust might trip the smoke detector. The traditional time of year to check smoke detectors and fire extinguishers is the end of daylight savings time. If January works for you all the better.

 

[nicktodd]

In my case I can hear the alarm in my house. My shop is a attached garage.

May we presume the shop detector is a remote alarm? If so, MIGHTY fine price. If not, spend the money to get one that'll alert you in the house.

 

[Dick Sowa]

My shop is some distance from the house, but if the alarm goes off, it can easily be heard. I have both a carbon monoxide and smoke detector combo kind. Annually, I have to take it down and blow the dust out. Otherwise, it will trigger nuisance alarms.

 

[MichaelMouse]

Ever ask your friends who have electric heat why they have a CO detector? Or the ones who have an outdoor boiler as we do? The power of advertising!

My greenhouse sounds a low temp alarm inside the house, because I usually have the windows closed when we're heating, and fainter things sometimes get lost in the background.

 

[Scott Miller]

Ever ask your friends who have electric heat why they have a CO detector? Or the ones who have an outdoor boiler as we do? The power of advertising!

My greenhouse sounds a low temp alarm inside the house, because I usually have the windows closed when we're heating, and fainter things sometimes get lost in the background.

Do you have a garage attached to your house and park your car in? Perfect source of CO.

 

[egsiegel]

Ever ask your friends who have electric heat why they have a CO detector? Or the ones who have an outdoor boiler as we do? The power of advertising!

In NY State all homes are not required ot have CO2 detectors on all habitable floors as of Feb 2010. (Amanda's Law )

 

[Scott Miller]

In NY State all homes are not required ot have CO2 detectors on all habitable floors as of Feb 2010. (Amanda's Law )

not or now?

 

[MichaelMouse]

Do you have a garage attached to your house and park your car in? Perfect source of CO.

It takes a LOT of CO to put someone down. BTDT, got 25 years EMS. Not that it couldn't happen, but the garage door would have to leak less than the house....

 

[Gynia]

Only for houses which have an appliance (such as a heater) which uses a combustible fuel or houses which have an attached garage.

Modern cars with emission controls have a 99% reduction in Carbon Monoxide output. It would be almost impossible for exhaust from a car to generate enough CO to kill you. The other fumes would give you a headache but the CO would not kill you. The legislature of NY has been watching to many old movies.

 

[johnkelsey]

another close call with flames

I live in central PA where the winter can get a mite chilly, some of you might have seen my photo in the AW Journal last year wearing an ankle-length down coat while turning. Well last week I was wearing the coat while warming the building with a propane heater. I was sharpening and had my back to the heater, when I felt a leetle warm. I thought I was too close to the heater, so I shoved it away with my foot and went back to sharpening.

I felt even warmer. Then I smelled burning hair - not my own because I don't have any, but as it turned out, the down feathers from inside the coat. The darn thing was on fire.

Well I got it off and stomped it out, and swept the whole shop in case of any lingering embers. Then I went and bought what I should have had in the first place: a good fire extinguisher (always mount near the exit door so you can't get trapped on the wrong side of the fire), and a couple of smoke detectors. And following this thread, now I'm gonna add a carbon monoxide detector as well.

 

[MichaelMouse]

TWO extinguishers would be a good choice. First a nice ABC dry chemical, second, a bucket of sand. The dry chemical is corrosive, and might well ruin what you were trying to save from the fire, and a CO2 type is worse than worthless for dust and shavings. So smother a small wood or rag fire with the sand, then guard it with the ABC while getting the shovel and metal container. Hit the liquid kind with the dry chem bad boy right away!

On the subject of CO and cars, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalytic_converter Generators DO NOT have converters, so run them outside and wire the electricity in.

OTOH, any place you sleep which has a combustion heater in the same shell needs a LOUD CO alarm. Only fatalities I've picked up were heating hunting or snowmobile camps/trailers with space heaters of some sort. Booze played a definite role in four of them as well.

 

[ray hampton]

Only for houses which have an appliance (such as a heater) which uses a combustible fuel or houses which have an attached garage.

Modern cars with emission controls have a 99% reduction in Carbon Monoxide output. It would be almost impossible for exhaust from a car to generate enough CO to kill you. The other fumes would give you a headache but the CO would not kill you. The legislature of NY has been watching to many old movies.

What if your exhaust pipes are leaking before the converter

 

[Nate Hawkes]

TWO extinguishers would be a good choice. First a nice ABC dry chemical, second, a bucket of sand. The dry chemical is corrosive, and might well ruin what you were trying to save from the fire, and a CO2 type is worse than worthless for dust and shavings. So smother a small wood or rag fire with the sand, then guard it with the ABC while getting the shovel and metal container. Hit the liquid kind with the dry chem bad boy right away!

On the subject of CO and cars, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalytic_converter Generators DO NOT have converters, so run them outside and wire the electricity in.

OTOH, any place you sleep which has a combustion heater in the same shell needs a LOUD CO alarm. Only fatalities I've picked up were heating hunting or snowmobile camps/trailers with space heaters of some sort. Booze played a definite role in four of them as well.

This is very sound advice. In my converted shed which I call my turning shop, I have a dry chemical extinguisher at the door, as well as a bucket of dirt/sand next to the stove. I also keep a 7gallon campsite water bucket in the shop mostly as a source for the wetstone and for a little container I keep full to cool off the tools when rough grinding, but it can also double as fire protection for anything that might happen AWAY from electrical sockets. Otherwise its a liability. My smoke detector is mainly to alert me of anything I don't immediately notice. I put it in a couple years ago when my flue pipe got partially clogged at the spark arrestor, and I didn't notice the small smoke leak from the stove due to my full face respirator. When I took it off, the shop was FULL of smoke. Getting up on a ladder in the dark to remove a creosote-coated spark arrestor screen from a stovepipe is not my idea of fun. (it gets checked very regularly now).

 

[Sarah S Elkind]

The fine sanding dust might trip the smoke detector. The traditional time of year to check smoke detectors and fire extinguishers is the end of daylight savings time. If January works for you all the better.

I know there are two technologies for smoke detectors. Anyone know if they are equally likely to misread sawdust as smoke?

 

[Dan Stromberg]

I got a heat alarm instead of smoke for that reason:

Amazon.com

I don't know if ultimately it's any better (and I hope I will never need to find out), but that was why I did it. Supposedly it triggers off of both absolute temperature and also rate of temperature rise.

 

[Sarah S Elkind]

I got a heat alarm instead of smoke for that reason:

Amazon.com

I don't know if ultimately it's any better (and I hope I will never need to find out), but that was why I did it. Supposedly it triggers off of both absolute temperature and also rate of temperature rise.

Thanks, Dan! I didn't know about this option.

 

[Darryl Fective]

A few years ago, there was a recall on fire extinguishers. I checked our 3 and they were all included. They sent me 3 new ones and I sent ours back. A few days later, they sent 3 more. Then a week later, 3 more came. I have a couple in my shop, a couple in the garage, a couple in the basement, and the 3 on the main floor.

Our smoke detectors were 20 years old and started chirping. (despite having new batteries) I bought and installed new ones. Just went and replaced them all for my 90 year old neighbor too. (they had their house built the same year I built ours)

 

[Bill Blasic]

Same here with the fire extinguishers, 3 sent and 3 new ones returned. Also have the shop protected with heat alarms. When we have hands on in my shop the sanding would always set off the smoke alarms. I too hope to never find out if the heat alarms work.