So I am sitting here thinking what would be the best way to quash an over fired stove problem happening or about to happen. How about a halon extinguisher??? Any thoughts....anyone use one already???
Dave
Dave
Halon extinguisher for overfired stove?
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Not familiar with Halon.
I read somewhere that chimfex is a good product to have on hand; manuf. claims it really works.
Any thoughts on that one?
I read somewhere that chimfex is a good product to have on hand; manuf. claims it really works.
Any thoughts on that one?
Can you even get these nowadays? I thought they were very limited in application.
Best thing to do is not panic and have a method for cutting off the air supply.
Best thing to do is not panic and have a method for cutting off the air supply.
I am pretty sure halon chews up the ozone, so its only allowed in the avation industry for jet engine fires.
You won't get halon. It is an ozone eater. I have some chimfex on hand which is essentially a dry chemical extinguisher. I believe it is outdated so thanks for reminding me. Good idea to keep some around. An assitant fire chief here in Maine gave a neighbor some chimfex when he had a fire. I don't know all the details but the stove installation was shoddy looking and it was an old guy who didn't want anyone in his "rental". I don't know if he lit the fire again as few hours later or it took off and it basically destroyed the place which had no insurance. The assistant was in hot water for not calling the fire department. Make sure the chimney is always checked out after a fire.
Were talking over fire not chimney fire right?
The first thing to do is turn the blower on high ( assuming you have one).
If you can plug the secondary air intake with some aluminum foil that will usually shut down the fire pretty quickly. I have tried this once and it worked well, temp started dropping almost immediately.
The first thing to do is turn the blower on high ( assuming you have one).
If you can plug the secondary air intake with some aluminum foil that will usually shut down the fire pretty quickly. I have tried this once and it worked well, temp started dropping almost immediately.
- Jun 12, 2006
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The best I've heard from those who've done it was to toss in a couple inch thick bag of soaked newspapers, or a modest sized bath towel that was wet but not dripping. The steam displaces the oxygen an things dwindle down.
I'd like to hear from anyone who has tried 'Purple K'.
I'd like to hear from anyone who has tried 'Purple K'.
DonNC
Member
I doubt Id be able to get close enough to the stove on an overfire in order to plug the secondary air
The best i could do is close the main air and the adapter/damper
The best i could do is close the main air and the adapter/damper
It depends on the stove. With some modern stoves the best way to stop an overfire is to open the door! The stoves are so well insulated with the baffle and fire brick that the intense heat in the firebox causes the wood to sort of vaporize only to be burned by the secondary air tubes at the top in a very efficient manner which keeps the chain reaction going, going to well in some rare cases. If you have a setup like this, opening the door cools the firebox and stops the secondary burn, let it get itself under control for a minute and burn like an old fireplace, then close the door w/ the air fully closed.
I prefer having an old school flue damper installed. I've used it 3 times in the past 2 years during very cold windy nights where my draft was too exceptional. My wife has used it a few other times to help whoa the stove when she has a brain fart and lets the stove get going too well.
pen
I prefer having an old school flue damper installed. I've used it 3 times in the past 2 years during very cold windy nights where my draft was too exceptional. My wife has used it a few other times to help whoa the stove when she has a brain fart and lets the stove get going too well.
pen
BeGreen said:
My stove shop got me a case of the new ones, Rutland sells'em now, at cost so I could send'em to forum members that are looking for them. Stores that have them are getting around thirty bucks apiece for them which is insane. Cheaper on ebay I see and the last three I sent out to forum members came to around $17 or $18 including postage.
One night we had loaded the old woodfurnace which was around 6 cu.ft of wood. About 2am I woke to the smell of burning paint. I realized quickly that power was out so I rushed downstairs to check the furnace. I opened the door and the thing was burning white inside. I then realized I had the ash container beside the furnace, So I shoveled a ton of ash on top of the fire and it quickly took care of things.
You can get Halon extinguishers but they are pricey. (broken link removed to http://sportys.com/PilotShop/product/12060) Also here is some good info on Halon:http://www.drivewerks.com/catalog/safety/H3R_FAQ.htm
Halon is about as good a way to extinguish you and your family as you can find. You would not believe how fast that stuff will take every bit of oxygen out of a space.
laynes69 said:
I like that approach since the ash has already seen high temperatures and so is unlikely to react in any way or release dangerous gases.
If one doesn't have enough ash on hand, I think that many of us would be able to grab a bag of (dry) cement instead and pour that over the fire. The limestone in the cement would at most release a bit of CO2 when contacting very hot coals or walls.
Any solution involving water; e.g. wet newspapers or towels, gets quite a bit more tricky since water vapor (aka steam) will react with hot coals by releasing significant amounts of carbon monoxide via the so-called "steam gasification reaction": C + H2O—> CO + H2 (carbon plus water vapor produces carbon monoxide plus hydrogen gas). The hydrogen gas molecules instantly react further to form H2O, as long as there is some oxygen left and should be of no great concern but carbon monoxide is the last thing you want to add to the mix of risk factors in what is already a crisis situation.
Of course, Halon would be great to have but I just can't see many of us shelling out such big bucks for a situation most of us may never have to deal with.
Henk
Good God Bartski I think I was refering to a couple of squirts out of an extinguisher not a total room dump system...........
BrotherBart said:
Midalake said:
Bart is right! Halon is NOT a "squirt it on" deal. It's a gas (actually a combination of gasses) and is designed for confined spaces and excludes oxygen thus killing the fire . . . and anything that relies on oxygen for life. It works by instantaneously expanding into the space (including your lungs) and excluding all air. It is heavier than air. There are a number of customizable formulations for this system, depending on what you anticipate being burned in the fire. That's why you'll see several tanks strapped to the wall with the lines running to the ceiling area. That stuff will kill you faster than H2S. We got thorough training on it when I was environmental officer at the IBM in Austin. I knew nothing about it going in, but gained high respect for it coming out. It is an industrial application product and under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should anyone use it in a home setting, assuming you can get it, which I doubt!
Other than that, if you're looking for a very quick way to exit this ol' world, that's it.
Actually Halon is a chemical distrupter to a fire and not and oxygen displacement gas such as CO2 (which by the way, has killed numerous people in my profession). It has low toxicity and is not corrosive which is why is is recommended for fire fighting in aircraft. I believe 1211 was somewhat more toxic than 1301 but I am not sure. I would say any gas in large concentrations is bad news when it displaces O2 but halon toxicity is minimal since you only need a small concentration of about 8% to be effective. However it is probably the best thing out there except for one fact: Halon, since it is a CFC, was banned from production back in the mid-nineties and only existing stocks can be used. Halotron 1 is a replacement for 1211 which is supposed to be a safe effective replacement.
CWILL had a good link. Here's another: (broken link removed to http://www.h3rcleanagents.com/support_faq_2.htm)
CWILL had a good link. Here's another: (broken link removed to http://www.h3rcleanagents.com/support_faq_2.htm)
Texas boy said:
Aww c'mon guys; that is a bit over the top, I believe!
As someone already said, Halon itself is no longer being manufactured and has been replaced with other heavier-than-air fluorocarbons such as FE-241 or HFC-227 (because of environmental considerations, not because of toxicity). These are today still widely used on boats, even small cruising boats, as automatic engine room fire extinguishing installations and, though pricey, are making millions of sailors feel safer rather than threatened with instant extinction.
While it is true, of course, that on the ocean you just don't have the luxury of stepping outside and letting your living quarters burn down until the firefighters arive, it is also true that you don't have many places to go if a really dangerous gas was being released, particularly a heavier-than-air gas that will fill the boat up almost like water.
BrotherBart is right that it replaces air. pretty much like a CO2 fire extinguisher. In fact, fluorocarbon type fire extinguishers are, in and by themselves, no more dangerous than CO2 fire extinguishers. The type of fluorocarbons used have very low toxicity, if at all. Anyone remember the movie "The Abyss"? Although filling your lungs with (super-oxygenated) fluorocarbon liquid in order to dive extremely deep is still science fiction, it is based on a mountain of successful data in animal experiments. So Texas Boy's comparison with hydrogen sulfide (H2S), indeed a very potent poison that can kill at the same sub-ppm levels as hydrogen cyanide (HCN) is a bit over the top, I believe.
When exposed to very hot flames or surfaces, however, most fluorocarbons can release some hydrogen fluoride (HF), as anyone who accidentally overheated/burned some teflon tape (a solid fluorocarbon) and ruined a good pair of glasses because they became etched by HF, should be able to confirm. This is also why refrigeration system installers are being told not to smoke around freon (or its environment-friendly modern replacements), as these are also fluorocarbon gases. No need to worry, however, that a sudden leak in your refrigerator might kill off granny and her cat (although pets as well as people sleeping with their head on the lower rung of a barstool are indeed at somewhat higher risk because of the heavier-than-air nature of fluorocarbon gas, as well as CO2 leaking from the stove
).Henk
edit: The previous poster is right about the chemical disrupter function of fluorocarbons. This activity follows from the chemical reactivity with flames and very hot surfaces described in my last paragraph. However, it also replaces air, of course.
Yeah I did some looking around this morning. Looks like more info is available than what we were told for twenty years in the building and tearing down data center business. All of the experts in the field were in lock step on the O2 displacement thing. It appears not to be the case.
But I still wouldn't want my kid to accidentally release a large bottle of it in my living room.
But I still wouldn't want my kid to accidentally release a large bottle of it in my living room.
PyMS said:Texas boy said:
Aww c'mon guys; that is a bit over the top, I believe!
As someone already said, Halon itself is no longer being manufactured and has been replaced with other heavier-than-air fluorocarbons such as FE-241 or HFC-227 (because of environmental considerations, not because of toxicity). These are today still widely used on boats, even small cruising boats, as automatic engine room fire extinguishing installations and, though pricey, are making millions of sailors feel safer rather than threatened with instant extinction.
While it is true, of course, that on the ocean you just don't have the luxury of stepping outside and letting your living quarters burn down until the firefighters arive, it is also true that you don't have many places to go if a really dangerous gas was being released, particularly a heavier-than-air gas that will fill the boat up almost like water.
BrotherBart is right that it replaces air. pretty much like a CO2 fire extinguisher. In fact, fluorocarbon type fire extinguishers are, in and by themselves, no more dangerous than CO2 fire extinguishers. The type of fluorocarbons used have very low toxicity, if at all. Anyone remember the movie "The Abyss"? Although filling your lungs with (super-oxygenated) fluorocarbon liquid in order to dive extremely deep is still science fiction, it is based on a mountain of successful data in animal experiments. So Texas Boy's comparison with hydrogen sulfide (H2S), indeed a very potent poison that can kill at the same sub-ppm levels as hydrogen cyanide (HCN) is a bit over the top, I believe.
When exposed to very hot flames or surfaces, however, most fluorocarbons can release some hydrogen fluoride (HF), as anyone who accidentally overheated/burned some teflon tape (a solid fluorocarbon) and ruined a good pair of glasses because they became etched by HF, should be able to confirm. This is also why refrigeration system installers are being told not to smoke around freon (or its environment-friendly modern replacements), as these are also fluorocarbon gases. No need to worry, however, that a sudden leak in your refrigerator might kill off granny and her cat (although pets as well as people sleeping with their head on the lower rung of a barstool are indeed at somewhat higher risk because of the heavier-than-air nature of fluorocarbon gas, as well as CO2 leaking from the stove
Henk
edit: The previous poster is right about the chemical disrupter function of fluorocarbons. This activity follows from the chemical reactivity with flames and very hot surfaces described in my last paragraph. However, it also replaces air, of course.
The statements made in my post came directly from the info given (and statements made) by the Halon technical trainers when they came to train on our new installations. If the data has been updated or superseded by later data, that info is not in the manuals they provided (which I still have), since there's qute a time lag between then and now! They also showed us real time mortality sequences of mice exposed to the Halon, H2S and interestingly HCN. We watched 'em die (THAT was fun!) to determine the "winner"! The trainer told us that, at the same concentratios, the Halon was faster at extinguishing the mice than either of the other two, not due to toxicity, like HCN and H2S, but from simple air exclusion/suffocation. At the time, I probably did not appreciate such fine points--I just made a note to myself to stay th' heck away from that stuff!! Whether they were correct or not, I have no way on knowing. Maybe they were trying to scare us into extreme caution, since we had so many systems in dozens of confined space areas on the site. Don't know, BUT, in the absence of personal testing experience--any time I see anything that looks like a fire suppression system that uses tanks that remind me of Halon systems, I'm outta there--"over the top" or not! :gulp:
Texas boy said:
Well, I don't blame you; I also wouldn't like to be in a closed environment with big fluorocarbon (or any other) gas tanks with their discharge lines rigged all the way up to the ceiling, clearly meant to displace all the air in the room.
In fact, if the label on the tanks said "100 % oxygen", I might even run faster!!
Henk
Random thoughts . . . although not much to add to this thread . . . mostly confirming or disproving a few things. . . .
SteamMan and PyMS are pretty much on the mark . . . about the misconception of the toxicity, usage, oxygen depletion, etc.
Toxicity . . . I wouldn't stand around inhaling any chemicals -- even the commonly used chemicals in the ABC fire extinguisher . . . however one reason halon fire extinguishers may have as bad a rep as they do is that halon's "grand dad" if you would -- carbon tetracholride -- found in the extinguishers that kind of look like the old insectide sprayers and "grenades" was pretty toxic.
Oxygen depletion . . . a bit of a concern if used in enclosed spaces . . . but then again . . . as mentioned CO2 extinguishing systems would also present a similar hazard as they would displace oxygen.
Usage . . . still in use today . . . in fact there is a booming industry in reclaiming and recycling halon as these extinguishers are still widely used in the military, airline and tech-like uses (i.e. computer rooms, switching gear, 911 dispatch centers in Bangor, ME, etc.) . . . although there are several halon substitutes that have come along in recent years. No more new halon can be produced however . .. only recycled halon . . . and both halon and the halon subsitutes are pretty expensive.
So to answer the OP . . . best idea . . . buy an ABC fire extinguisher . . . check that . . . best idea . . . burn well seasoned wood, burn at the proper temps, maintain the stove and chimney properly and dispose of your ashes properly and don't worry about having to use a fire extinguisher on your stove.
SteamMan and PyMS are pretty much on the mark . . . about the misconception of the toxicity, usage, oxygen depletion, etc.
Toxicity . . . I wouldn't stand around inhaling any chemicals -- even the commonly used chemicals in the ABC fire extinguisher . . . however one reason halon fire extinguishers may have as bad a rep as they do is that halon's "grand dad" if you would -- carbon tetracholride -- found in the extinguishers that kind of look like the old insectide sprayers and "grenades" was pretty toxic.
Oxygen depletion . . . a bit of a concern if used in enclosed spaces . . . but then again . . . as mentioned CO2 extinguishing systems would also present a similar hazard as they would displace oxygen.
Usage . . . still in use today . . . in fact there is a booming industry in reclaiming and recycling halon as these extinguishers are still widely used in the military, airline and tech-like uses (i.e. computer rooms, switching gear, 911 dispatch centers in Bangor, ME
, etc.) . . . although there are several halon substitutes that have come along in recent years. No more new halon can be produced however . .. only recycled halon . . . and both halon and the halon subsitutes are pretty expensive.So to answer the OP . . . best idea . . . buy an ABC fire extinguisher . . . check that . . . best idea . . . burn well seasoned wood, burn at the proper temps, maintain the stove and chimney properly and dispose of your ashes properly and don't worry about having to use a fire extinguisher on your stove.
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