Community Forums

davecampbell · 12-19-2010, 03:26 PM

My wife brings home this safety tid-bit from one of her nuke engineering safety topics:

The little red fire extinguishers that use dry chemical powder under pressure must be shaken regularly else the powder will stick together and either not discharge, or not discharge completely when the lever is pressed, regardless of the dial pressure.

The powder can be heard sliding back and forth when the extinguisher is tilted from horizontal, if its free to move inside.

This should be done (best she recalls) once a month.

JoeT · 12-19-2010, 03:47 PM

From what I have read they're not much good anyway.

powerboatr · 12-19-2010, 03:55 PM

dry powder works fine......its just the mess that is less than desirable.

mikron · 12-19-2010, 03:58 PM

The small kitchen style are ok for a very small flame. You need to catch it fast. The larger extingushers with the hand held hose work for much larger fires. I can't understand about the shaking requirements, not something NFPA would stamp with that type maintenance for home owners.

Jimmy F · 12-19-2010, 04:32 PM

I've heard of shaking the fire extinguisher. When I drove truck, the company safety person told us we had to do this every couple of months to the extinguishers in our units. It seems that because of the vibration caused by rolling down the road, the powder will settle and compact in the bottom of the fire extinguisher.

Turning it upside down and shaking the fire extinguisher loosens the powder again, not something a person in a stick & brick house would necessarily have to do...unless of course their house vibrated all the time.

Jimmy

Luv2go · 12-19-2010, 04:48 PM

After learning about this at the 2009 iRV2.com National Rally from Mac the Fire Guy, we returned home and tested our extinguishers. We found that the extinguishers at home had compacted over the ten years we owned them. A couple of inverts and light raps (as he showed us) and they were loosened up again

.

Mac said to do it monthly as well.