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Lockdown activity - check those fire extinguishers!


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Like (hopefully!) many of us, I have fire extinguishers in the garage and one in the TR.  One of my lockdown activities has been clearing & painting the garage and during this I checked the dates on my extinguishers. Imagine my surprise when I found one was dated 1998 and another 2002!  Luckily, the car extinguisher was still in date. So, a quick trip to Screwfix and I now have 2 shiny new extinguishers.

So - go check those extinguisher dates! UK regulations recommend that companies replace their extinguishers every 5 years. I'm no expert, so others may be along with better advice and I can see there are a number of relevant threads on the forum, this post was just to remind people. Replacing 22 and 18 year old extinguishers was a no-brainer in my book.

The other piece of advice I've come across is to give any powder extinguisher a good shake every month or so to stop the content settling and solidifying.

I've also just seen that Lidl have a 1kg powder extinguisher on sale at a good price - too late for me though:

https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/p/car-essentials/anaf-powder-fire-extinguisher/p39401

 

Stay safe!

Steve

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1 kg fire extinguisher... suitable for a 1 match fire. I think 2 kg is barely capable, you don’t get many seconds of discharge in that !

Mick Richards

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When I started the rebuild on my car I bought a commercial sized co2 and foam extinguisher from a friendly local firm. Their advice was to check the gauges and condition myself and showed me how to and not go to the expense of a yearly contract if I didn’t want one. I am due to get them in for a proper service now they are a few years old. I also have an old fashioned fire bucket on the wall filled with water. I have been looking for something to add to the water to help its fire ability and I am told surfactant is the thing but can’t  find anything that seems right for the job. I also have a squeezy bottle of water above the bench for when I set light to small things I am welding. 
I put highly inflammable bulk items in the shed and put other risky inflammable items in a box I remove before welding. 
Hope this helps. 
Keith

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One thing with the foam ones, the internal rubber lining breaks down eventually which is why you have to replace every five years, I had one replaced last year and the service guy showed me the problem, little bits get into the nozzle and will stop it working..

Stuart.

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