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Jeremy Gay FE article

PARAGUAY

PARAGUAY

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Joined
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Lancashire
Just read sobering article ,page 88 in the April PFK about the dangers of used second hand FE extinguishers ,the refill company refused to refill two of his extinguishers reffilled the third one last time saying it needing scrapping after,the cylinder exploded under the cabinet.All ended well but Jeremy does conclude care and caution.
 
The number of gas cylinders exploding in UK is virtually zero. It is a H&S reportable incident if it is. Most issues have been with old pub gas cylinders, way beyond their 10 year life being refilled in slightly dodgy circumstances (or lack of training during refill), leading to water getting in and cylinder rusting from inside.

Most gas venting incidents, including many on UKAPS, have been valve or regulator fault leading to cylinder discharge.
 
One is not likely to mistake an accidental cylinder discharge for a cylinder explosion :confused:
 
PARAGUAY said:
Just read sobering article ,page 88 in the April PFK about the dangers of used second hand FE extinguishers ,the refill company refused to refill two of his extinguishers reffilled the third one last time saying it needing scrapping after,the cylinder exploded under the cabinet.All ended well but Jeremy does conclude care and caution.
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April PFK 2017... Is it out yet given this is only 11th Feb?
The answer is quite simple.. buy a FE new or reconditioned from a reputable supplier and it will have a label showing refill and test dates.
I havent read the article but I hope it isn't yet another that goes overboard about the dangers of the bad bad fire extinguishers. Thousands of homes, shops, offices etc have FEs and they cause no problems unless you do something really stupid with them.
 
Mark Allen said:
April PFK 2017... Is it out yet given this is only 11th Feb?
The answer is quite simple.. buy a FE new or reconditioned from a reputable supplier and it will have a label showing refill and test dates.
I havent read the article but I hope it isn't yet another that goes overboard about the dangers of the bad bad fire extinguishers. Thousands of homes, shops, offices etc have FEs and they cause no problems unless you do something really stupid with them.[
the fire eqipment people put it down to the bottles age
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@stuart B,the magazine comes earlier on subscription,Jeremy Gay is a former editor of PFK,expert in many fields in Aquatics and colleague of George Farmer and others,a Aquatic buisness Development Manager just a cautionary article as he puts it about what happened .As I understand it FEs in shops and offices are routinely checked/replaced 12 monthly by suppliers.Jeremy does a aquascape with George and Stephen Rhodes (Aquascaping Experience Contest) also in the issue.So last person to do something stupid.
 
PARAGUAY said:
@stuart B,the magazine comes earlier on subscription,Jeremy Gay is a former editor of PFK,expert in many fields in Aquatics and colleague of George Farmer and others,a Aquatic buisness Development Manager just a cautionary article as he puts it about what happened .As I understand it FEs in shops and offices are routinely checked/replaced 12 monthly by suppliers.Jeremy does a aquascape with George and Stephen Rhodes (Aquascaping Experience Contest) also in the issue.So last person to do something stupid.
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"An OLD Bottle" ..well there is the answer ... along with what I said earlier and getting it checked as required and replaced at 10 years not annually although to avoid the business being without some or all of their extinguishers it might be convenient to get them swapped out to allow the existing ones to be serviced . I'd like to know the full story about this "exploding" Extinguisher . As for Jeremy Gay I didn't say he was stupid .
 
I had one fully discharge inside my cabinet, froze everything was quite scary and made a pop (like explosion sound), nothing major happened, just had to buy another second hand one! In all the years I have used second hand FE's (10 years) only ever had issues with that one!
 
Any well sorted liquor store has co2 bottles and beer barrels.. I know it's tempting, but leave the beer barrles and only get the co2. Than you pay a deposit for the bottle and it's contents. Bringing an empty bottle back and get a full one in return for content prise only, or leave the bottle and get the deposit refunded.. :) I know the deposit aint cheap, it's the price of a new bottle, but it's a one time deposite. And this way you always have a certified up to date bottle.. And a good excuse to take a few beers home allong the way.. :thumbup:
 
zozo said:
Any well sorted liquor store has co2 bottles and beer barrels.. I know it's tempting, but leave the beer barrles and only get the co2. Than you pay a deposit for the bottle and it's contents. Bringing an empty bottle back and get a full one in return for content prise only, or leave the bottle and get the deposit refunded.. :) I know the deposit aint cheap, it's the price of a new bottle, but it's a one time deposite. And this way you always have a certified up to date bottle.. And a good excuse to take a few beers home allong the way.. :thumbup:
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:lol:
 
zozo said:
I know the deposit aint cheap, it's the price of a new bottle, but it's a one time deposite. And this way you always have a certified up to date bottle..
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It's the best way if a small cylinder does it for you, because the larger ones are about 80cm tall and won't fit under most cabinets. Unless you can store it elsewhere.
 
'@stuart B ,I dont quite know why you show a slight hostility to what I thought was a ,see start of thread,a interesting article by a credible source of interest to members,maybe we should avoid each others posts as I for one want to keep UKAPS a friendly forum
 
I think people are taking issue to the word "exploded". If the CO2 cylinder had exploded, he would not have been around to write the article.

I suspect the FE just "vented" either via faulty regulator or faulty safety over pressure disk.

Below is the Mythbuster episode where they place various fire extinguishers in a fire. The myth is they explode and put the fire out, which if you watch the video, they don't. Normal CO2 FE, does nothing interesting as it just vents via its over pressure burst disk and doesn't put the fire out. However they do manage to obtain (it is legal ?) an FE with its burst disk blocked off. This does put the fire out in quite a spectacular way.

 
Using an out of date tank. Testing is even more important for these type cylinders that are emptied and refilled as internal rusting/corrosion due to water ingress is the major cause of failure.

Not normally an issue with fire extinguishers, as generally they are not refilled, if discharged, and usually scrapped after their ten year test date. Most of the FE places near me don't refill they just replace and scrap the old one.
 
ian_m said:
Not normally an issue with fire extinguishers, as generally they are not refilled, if discharged, and usually scrapped after their ten year test date. Most of the FE places near me don't refill they just replace and scrap the old one.
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Never refill mine, just use them and dispose of them and get another one!
 
Never the less these are just very isolated incidents i guess with the amount of co2 going around less then 1 in several million.. The chances of it happining are as high as the chance of the roof of the house falling on your head due to structural failure. Chances of dying in a car crash on the way to your LFS is a million to 1 higher.. :)
 
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