Been on a random meander through Youtube for the last 30 minutes and come across a reminder of how quickly your day can go from eating a pack of crisps after servicing the car to running out of the door with a fairly major fire in the garage.

Just thinking about my garage, its got mains power, the usual flammable aerosols, petrol, power tools, soldering iron, washing machine, flammable resins for stuff like fibreglassing, engine oil, and loads of combustibles like dry rags, wooden shelving etc. In the drive I’ve got my camper with an LPG tank, and my woodstore that holds 5 cubic metres and the fence. The garage is attached to the house, the camper alongside, and the woodstore within 3 metres of the house.

So, a fire happens. 999 first unless it can be patted out with a few rags. Then, I can run around the house, plug in the hose, drag it back round into the garage, run back to remove kinks etc then use that. Not suitable for a lot of fire types that occur in the garage. Or I can run into the house, hunt through the drawer/pockets for my van keys, and drag out the silly little extinguisher and fire blanket and try and use them. Assuming its not the van on fire…

So you can guess at my next purchases ahead of any more tools/bike bits…

First two are the most effective and cheap, bucket of dry sand and a fire blanket. I think to cover all bases, a dry powder fire extinguisher as a final backup before making a retreat to enjoy the bonfire…

So hands up, who hasn’t (or has) got some fire fighting stuff in their garage? Put your hand down if its overdue for test/replacement, or you don’t know if its overdue. (A few years ago I tried to discharge a six year old powder extinguisher from the car before throwing it away, it was a complete flop. Shaking it upside down it made a good imitation of a salt shaker!)

Edit: I’ll retract my comment about a fire bucket being cheap, a prelabelled job and a bag of ‘fire sand’ will cost £35 from Screwfix! I’m sure I can do better than that…

Prevention better than cure.

I don’t have any firefighting media at all.

If you must get a foam not a dry powder, the mess a DP creates is incredible.

No half measures

What put me off Foam is generally its not for electrical fires (although a quick google says they can be used up to 35Kv, most of the charts seem to say not suitable for electrical?

How do you prevent, Bruneep? I’m thinking along the lines of forgetting the soldering iron or spilling flammable resin etc over something electrical, or grinding sparks getting somewhere unsuitable.

Don’t do any of the above then 🙄

Well I’ve managed to not do any of the above for 35 years so a good track record. I suppose its more of a workshop than a garage so you cannot remove all potential risk (unless I spend the rest of my days doing something safe like watching telly) 🙄

My garage is damp with a roof made of asbestos. No way that’s burning down!

Well thats done…

£52 delivered for a 4kg powder extinguisher, fire blanket and flamezorb fire sand substitute stuff. Cheap bucket and thats sorted.

I nearly didn’t bother with the £27 extinguisher, but a bucket of sand is fairly limited if I managed to set fire to my van whilst converting it to a camper during the next year. With gas plumbing, heating and extra electrical system the risk is certainly there.

Spooky, tidy up flammable materials before you do any grinding. Keep flammable closed in secure containers and inside closed cupboards where sparks can’t get to.

Use a stand for your soldering iron. If you are still worried then perhaps put it on some sort of timer.

Not sure what you are doing with resin around live electrics but change your practice, put containers in a tray, turn off electrical stuff that is not in use, or move heaters etc off the floor so they aren’t in “drip” zone.

You are probably familiar with the fire triangle, extinguishers are basically based on removing the oxygen – removing the source of ignition and or the fuel is just as effective.

I do all that Poly, I don’t combine resin and electrics, but the risk is still there.

The electrical system on my old van is 170ahr of batteries and 80 amp fuses on cables capable of carrying 200 amps, one absent minded mistake and I could have a problem on my hands, I will be doing the same with the new one.

I don’t even grind inside the garage but I’d still like to have something to hand if a fire does start.

I set myself on fire once while grinding some 20mm steel box section… thankfully I wad wearing cotton and some helpful friends of mine put me out with the whole of a 2kg foam extinguisher. Thankfully before the days of YouTube and camera phones!

2Kg CO2 & fire blanket, smoke detector above the door & CO alarm too.
As its a log cabin workshop I’m guessing it would burn quite well 🙁

Good luck with the Halon Mike unless its a matter of national security its banned under the Montreal Protocol of 1987 and extended in scope at Kyoto 10 years later.

I take it you never discharged a DP in an enclosed place.

bruneep – Member

I take it you never discharged a DP in an enclosed place.

Yes on an 800A switch fuse in an LV switch room, not a happy bunny as I asked to be passed a CO2 but since they stupidly made them all red with a silly little colour panel I didn’t notice.
Ruined a nice set of Nomex overlls & took ages to clean up.

I’m in awe of how tidy MrOvershoot’s garage is.

I have enough cans/chemicals to scare off that alien Predator with the dreadlocks.

Think I better reorganise and buy an extinguisher too.

http://www.safelincs.co.uk/large-automatic-powder-fire-extinguisher/

Or just fit one of these near the point where you think a fire will develop, along with a smoke alarm and remote sounder in the house.

I haven’t discharged one in a confined space, but I have in a ventilated space when I got to have a jolly at the fire brigade training place 😆

I’ve also seen the effects when someone breathes in the powder after a minor car fire at work, they went to hospital in an ambulance and apparently would be feeling rather unwell for a couple of days.

So why buy a DP? A foam would’ve served you better. You do know the powder is corrosive once you spray it around your garage you will have to be meticulous in your clean up.

I’ve got 25yrs experience avoiding the use of DP.

Had to clean a DP which had been let off in a Kitchen.

That stuff just doesn’t come off anything – made it 10x harder to clean up than youthink.

Then hangover didn’t help either.

Seen a DP set off in a kitchen, cleaned up eventually. One thing to note is that you need to bang the base off the ground first to loosen the powder with the other end pointing away from anybody (heard of someone nearly getting their head taken off when they found out the bottom was rotten the hard way).

As said prevention is better than cure however that’s not really an excuse not to have an extinguisher. For the garage it would be foam for me every time as you can easily service it at home and its better at dealing with the kinds of fires you are likely to find. Same with powder but as said it makes a hell of a mess if you do need it (though under the circumstances its a small price to pay).

You would do well to know where to quickly shut power off whilst you are at it ir at least have a small CO2 extinguisher if that’s not an option.

I have Foam and CO2 extinguishers in the workshop along with a fire blanket. Foam extinguisher in the house as well.

problem is youre not always there to spot or deal with a fire.

had a near miss once, moved portable halogen lamp to close to radio, and the heat melted the casing, giving off a horrible smell and lots of smoke.

a good kick soon seperated them

linked smoke alarms work well, we have NEST Protect and they all blare out “Smoke in the kitchen”, plus I get txt alerts on my phone…

I went for DP as it covers almost all fires, including electrical. Lets be honest, if I choose/need to use it over the bucket of sand/fire blanket, things are pretty bad so the cleanup isn’t really an issue.

And if I didn’t have an easy way out to get away from breathing in the powder, I wouldn’t be trying to put out the fire anyway.

The place I bought from had safety packs, nearly all were foam, water or CO2…but they had powder for garages/workshops.

My mum once let off a DP in the car as we were driving along! Quite a mess, even though it was only a small one.
It was under the seat and her handbag steam got tangled around it.

Was there not one a few years ago when someone working on their petrol system on their classic the garage went bang when the boiler kicked in due to the fumes.