Fire Extinguisher guage shows Zero

[SimonV]

It just shows how complacent we can become. I must look at me fire extinguishers every day, but I don't see them. It takes reminders like this to get the thought process moving and to attend to them. Well I just did. All four were in the green but the powder was an imoveable lump. A couple of good thumps with a rubber mallet and all is good. To remind myself to do this every 3 months I have put it in the smart phone calendar.

Sent from my GT-N7105T using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by GILow

One tip I was given by the bloke who comes to service our building fire extinguishers that people might find interesting. He told me to turn our powder extinguishers upside down every time we change the batteries in the smoke detectors, which we do every time we change to or from daylight savings time. So half the year the fire extinguisher sits upside down in the wall bracket, half the year right way up. The idea being that it stops the powder forming a solid lump at the bottom of the can.

Matt

I have heard this also. I suppose I should do it!

[nigel1]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

What about a test boat fire?

I wonder whose boat i could light up?

Thans for everyones thoughts and advice. I shall do a bit of turning and shaking of the other extinguishers tomorrow.


I wish Walmart had a superstore down here Lol



Mark

A UK boat magazine has done this quite recently.
The one thing of interest was that once the powder extinguisher was released inside a boat, the operator was virtually in fog, and not able to see anything. Something to bear in mind if you have to use one in a confined space.

On ship, we regularly shake the powder loose, about once per month, and fortunately we are able to recharge/re-pressurise the the extinguishers ourselves.
Most case's of lost pressure are down to 'O' rings or seals failing.

[HappyMdRSailor]

Mark....

(Sharpie pen)

[hellosailor]

"turn our powder extinguishers upside down "
Sounds like someone heard half of a telephone conversation. yes, by all means, turn them upside down but then turn them rightside up again! You invert them and shake them to stir up the powder and keep it loose. You don't leave them inverted after you've done that. Among other things, I don't think any "certified" extinguisher could be stowed in the necessary certified bracket, if the extinguisher was in the inverted position.
Or maybe the fellow who suggested this was just tired of sending apprentices out for left-handed paint brushes?

[perchance]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

OK, thanks everyone

It looks like a play toy and then the bin.

Like any cruiser I hate seeing a dollar go up in smoke

BTW I agree with the refill not being viable. The new one is twice the size for only $25. No value in recharging an old one.

Thanks for the advice.


Mark

Depending on the age of the extinguisher it could well be the O ring. Atmospheric Ozone will cause the O rings to break down over time.

[hellosailor]

"Atmospheric Ozone will cause the O rings to break down over time. "
Especially if the "rubber" was improperly cured or mixed from the cheapest possible source. Otherwise...buna-n is one of the rubbers often used for o-rings, and there are WW2 aircraft wrecks still being recovered, with buna-n TIRES that have not rotted after 60+ years of that ozone exposure.

When you hear hoofbeats on a horse ranch, there's no need to go looking for zebras. Defective parts are the norm these days.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"turn our powder extinguishers upside down "
Sounds like someone heard half of a telephone conversation. yes, by all means, turn them upside down but then turn them rightside up again! You invert them and shake them to stir up the powder and keep it loose. You don't leave them inverted after you've done that. Among other things, I don't think any "certified" extinguisher could be stowed in the necessary certified bracket, if the extinguisher was in the inverted position.
Or maybe the fellow who suggested this was just tired of sending apprentices out for left-handed paint brushes?

Yeah, gotta say that following the comment about compaction around the valve from outwest34au, I am a bit worried now. The guy who told me to do this seemed old enough to know what he was on about.... but I am no longer really comfortable about it after reading this.

Perhaps inverting them and giving them a tap with a rubber mallet as suggested above is a better idea.

Either way, I do recommend the daylight savings trick of doing the smoke detector batteries and extinguishers at the same time. I remember a campaign in Victoria (Australia) a few years back when the firefighters were getting frustrated by the dead batteries in smoke detectors. I think they spread the idea of replacing the batteries when you set your clocks to daylight savings time.

Matt

[hellosailor]

Matt-
Here in the US, there's a dirty little secret about smoke detectors. The common [cheap] ones are all ionizing detectors. And they ALL go bad in 5-7 years time and die as the ionization chambers clog with airborne dust particles.
So replacing the batteries is a nice concept, but the new trend is to go to sealed units with a 10 year battery, and just toss the whole thing when that expires because the whole detector is pretty certain to be dead. This is often cheaper than installing a new "9 volt transistor" battery every year, and even if you buy cheap batteries, those last well over a year each.
Dead detectors? Yeah, folks keep blaming the batteries. Meanwhile, the manufacturers and the fire associations have been failing to publicize the fact that the detectors themselves have a very short working life. And the ones that will last 'forever', the photocell ones, have other drawbacks such as taking at much longer to go off.
FWIW.