Gotcha.Originally Posted by TGS
https://elementfire.com/collections/allproducts
Element is the maker and they have a few mount types too.
Gotcha.
https://elementfire.com/collections/allproducts
Element is the maker and they have a few mount types too.
Last edited by RevolverRob; 09-16-2021 at 10:45 PM.
Oh, awesome! Thanks.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
My brother the fireman once informed me the best place for a fire extinguisher was near the threat (stove, whatever) in the direction of an exit.
1) There's a fire!
2) Get a fire extinguisher.
3) Choose between: That is way too much fire for this and keep running or extinguish the fire with an escape path already chosen.
My apologies to weasels.
It's amazing how many fires can be put out by physically smothering them. I don't know how fire resistant kitchen mitts are since I don't own any, but my welding gloves have put out hundreds of fires over the years. As mentioned somewhere above, if the fire just recently started, and assuming it's not electrical, you can save a lot of cleanup if you remain calm and smother it. I prefer directly beating it out with my gloves; they'll take a lot of heat before it begins to transfer. I mentioned above that I caught myself on fire last week -- all I had to do was grab the area that was on fire and hold it tight for about 15 seconds, and it was out. This will work with grease fires, and even if it doesn't, you can often pick the fire up and drop it somewhere else where it's less dangerous.
TL/DR: $25 or less buys you a nice set of welding gloves which can: A) Encourage you to start a new hobby one day, and B) be useful for putting out fires and generally handling hot stuff better than the somewhat cheesy and weak kitchen mitts I've seen.
Also and separately, especially on vehicle-borne extinguishers, it's good practice to remove them from the vehicle and shake them every month or two. There have been cases where the powder compacts over time and the extinguisher loses efficiency. I have my extinguishers on an annual rotation to be inspected and recharged if needed. Some of mine are nearing the end of their useful lifespans; they age out by date built even if they're perfectly sound.
Our fire extinguisher guy, was the one that recommended to me, to whack the bottom of them with a rubber mallet.
While I agree wholeheartedly on the principle of smothering small fires, I would recommend getting an actual fire blanket for that purpose. The price is in the same ballpark (I honestly can't remember what I paid for any of mine, so they can't be very expensive), and they're actually meant for that use.
And I suppose our vehicles and the roads they travel on are a bit different, as the extinguishers in mine get a shaking any time I drive the cars.
When you say "fire blanket," my mind automatically goes to what my industry uses which is a "cheap" ($90?) 6'x8' woven fiberglass blanket which will fill whichever part of your hide is unfortunate enough to touch it with fiberglass splinters that are impossible to see and will stay in your skin for weeks. I've given fire blankets away to my worst enemies as Christmas gifts, if that's any sort of clue.While I agree wholeheartedly on the principle of smothering small fires, I would recommend getting an actual fire blanket for that purpose. The price is in the same ballpark (I honestly can't remember what I paid for any of mine, so they can't be very expensive), and they're actually meant for that use.
And I suppose our vehicles and the roads they travel on are a bit different, as the extinguishers in mine get a shaking any time I drive the cars.
Hopefully whatever the general public can buy for $25 isn't made of the same stuff.
Unless you're driving a paint shaker, your extinguishers are probably compacting. The rubber mallet trick mentioned above might be a good idea for you, too. 1/3 of my work is offroad, and I'm driving stiffly-sprung work trucks, and I told my fire guy the same thing you just told me about my trucks shaking my extinguishers enough that I was sure they'd be fine. He told me that I was the poster case for somebody who was likely to have compacted powder.
I would think the truck jostling then would be worse for compaction then them just sitting there.
This is an old thread, but I'm bringing it to the top today as a reminder for anyone (like me) who's gotten a little complacent with their fire extinguishers recently. Today was one of the first Sundays that was good weather for grilling, and so my whole family and I were out on the deck eating after we'd grilled some burgers. I think we'd forgotten to check the grill for whether it'd been cleaned out since last year, and I was sitting with my back to it when the girls started saying things like, "Fire!," and "The grill!"
So I turned around expecting to poo-poo their fears and instead was greated by great billowing clouds of black smoke and licks of flame coming out around the edges of the shut hood. My wife was wanting to open it and throw water in there (nope), so we had to let it burn while I ran to the shop for an extinguisher since I didn't have one in the house and I'd used up the one in the truck on a fire at work recently and hadn't gotten around to replacing it yet. Those little mistakes have since been rectified. So I at least was smart enough to grab a shop extinguisher that I knew was nearly out of date anyway and would need to be tossed soon, and was also smart enough to put the fire out from below after pulling the grease pan out of the way with some handy welding gloves (we have an 8' soffit-type ceiling on our deck and the fire did manage to slightly melt and discolor some of it even though the lid stayed shut). The grill needs a good cleaning and the girls, my wife, and I all learned a few valuable lessons, Number One of which is that complacency is a pretty dangerous enemy. I had like 5 extinguishers in the shop and zero in the house....what was I thinking?
Hoping that bringing this thread back from the dead might encourage someone else to fix any errors or misjudgments before their day comes.
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