[Emergency lighting for 110V with central battery]

Hi Fred

These units are slave luminaires or slave emergency lights and come with a choice of voltages, including 110V (AC or DC)

Harry

[Do extinguishers have to be in holiday lets?]

Hi John

If you are concerned about the suitability of extinguishers for visitors that are not trained, I would suggest that you install dry water mist extinguishers. They discharge with low pressure, cause the bare minimum on collateral damage, can be used on all domestic style fire risks and do not really require any training.

Harry

[Is a heat detector ok near the cooker?]

The rings on your cooker will not set off your heat detector if the heat detector is correctly located. We never had any false alarms reported to us for any of our Kidde and Ei heat alarms.

 

To get the earliest possible warning make sure, though, that the path of the hot air is not obstructed by beams or light fittings.

 

There is also a new device installed directly underneath the cooker hood to detect if the rings are left on after cooking or if a pan has boiled dry, which is helpful if you find yourself forgetting to switch off the cooker.

 

Harry

[Are portable water mist extinguishers safe on gas fires?]

Thanks, Tom, I think you are right, it really needs testing. We might give it a try ourselves before taking it any further. If we do, I will post a video.

Harry

[Are portable water mist extinguishers safe on gas fires?]

I heard an interesting discussion today where the small 1 litre dry water mist extinguisher was considered as a replacement for halon riot police extinguishers. Anybody any views?

Harry

[Co alarm going off]

Hi Peter

You have to assume that carbon monoxide is present if you have a ppm (part per million) reading on your CO detector. You can double check by taking the CO detector outside for more than half an hour. If reading disappears then you have CO present in your house.

Harry

[CO2 extinguisher feels empty]

Hi Peter

As the CO2 extinguisher does not contain liquefied CO2 but highly pressuried CO2 gas, you will not hear any liquid moving in the CO2 extinguisher. Since CO2 extinguishers have no pressure gauges, the only way to check that the extinguisher is still correctly filled is by weighing the total weight and comparing it against the weight at manufacture. The gross weight is stamped on the extinguisher body.

Harry

[How to replace battery in Kidde Firex smoke alarms?]

hi Paul, you are lucky we are in the office :)

There is a range of simple videos to see how the Kidde Firex smoke alarms can be taken of the wall and how the battery is changed.

How to replace the backup battery in a Kidde 4973 optical smoke alarm

Replacing the backup battery in a Kidde ionisation smoke alarm 4870

How to replace the backup battery in a Kidde 4899 heat alarm

I hope this helps

Harry

[Are portable water mist extinguishers safe on gas fires?]

The water mist extinguishers, while so far only being certified for A and F ratings are capable of fighting B and C ratings as well. So far there is no relevant approval process that would allow a water based extinguisher to be tested for B and C ratings. The manufacturer is currently trying to get this changed, though.

I attended a demonstration of the water mist extinguisher recently and you can see the B and C demos following this link.

Harry

[Cartridge extinguisher servicing]

There is now a guide about servicing of cartridge operated extinguishers versus stored pressure extinguishers

[extinguishers expiry date]

We have now created a guide to help you find out the age of a fire extinguisher. It also gives guidance at which point your extended extinguisher service needs to happen

[Do we need a new extinguisher]

Hi

at a nursery you will probably need to have extinguishers and you will have to have them maintained. Your fire risk assessment should identify the risks present at your nursery and the type of extinguishers needed. If in doubt you should request an extinguisher site survey.

Just make sure you are in the driving seat. No engineer should just turn up and try to sell you something. It is quite feasible, though, that water might be right (if there is no kitchen, gas or electrical appliances). Much broader (in the sense of what risks can be covered) fire extinguishers and even more child friendly are dry water mist extinguishers. These are certified for A and F ratings but also cover B and C risks and are safe near electrical risks.

By the way, after the initial installation and certification there will be yearly maintenance visits necessary and after 5 years the extinguishers (if they are water, powder or foam) will have to be refilled.

Harry

[How much energy is actually saved with LED emergency lights?]

Hi

The power consumption of the actual LED is in the case above about 3.5 watts whilst the rest of the power goes into recharging the battery and the circuit. This part of the consumption would be identical to fluorescent tube emergency lights. Fluorescent tubes are of course already quite economic, so the energy saving of LED versus fluorescent tubes is only in the range of 2-10 watts. However, the real saving from LED emergency lights comes from not having to replace the tubes on a half yearly or yearly basis. The LEDs will last a lot longer, hence saving costs for maintenance call-outs and replacement tubes. The actual energy saving depends also from whether an emergency light is maintained or non-maintained.

A particular cost efficient combination is self-testing LED emergency lighting which minimises any maintenance costs and inspection effort to a minimum.

Harry

[Linking wireless alarms to existing non-wireless alarms]

Hi Paul

You will need to fit a radiolink base (Ei168) to one of your existing Ei160 smoke alarms. You then can fit new Ei160 series radio-interlinked alarms (consisting of head and the base) in your extension. These units will need to be powered from the nearest light fitting each.

Harry

[extinguishers expiry date]

Hi Paul

you are right. The first extended extinguisher service for powders, foam and water extinguishers needs to be carried out 5 years from the date of initial commissioning or 6 years from the date of manufacture. The manufacturing year is either stamped onto the cylinder or printed on the extinguisher/label.

Harry

[Fire extinguisher servicing?]

Hi

There have been one or two isolated cases where fire brigades and councils have removed extinguishers based on the understanding that the tenants would be unable to use the extinguishers correctly and would be safer to evacuate rather than fight a fire. I am unsure that this reasoning would free you of your liability in court if a small fire breaks out in one of your HMOs that could be handled easily by portable extinguishers and people get injured or killed. Having removed extinguishers would suddenly appear quite unreasonable.

If you are concerned about your tenants using fire extinguishers correctly you should consider portable water mist extinguishers. They can be used on pretty much all risks in a residential building and you will struggle to harm yourself or others with this extinguisher.

Harry

[Do we need a new extinguisher]

Tom is right. And the cost for a 6kg powder extinguisher is pretty excessive. A new extinguisher with proper onsite installation and commissioning with certification should only cost around £40-50

Harry

[Ei 151 Beeping]

When the Ei151 was orginally produced in mass production there were several models (alkaline battery, lithium battery with/without hush). You can replace all of them with the easichange replacement model. Please keep in mind this is a job for an electrician. The new units will communicate correctly with any remaining EI150 alarms in your system.

Harry

[CO2 fire extinguisher pressure]

Hi Tom

Sorry, here we are (the first chart disappeared)

http://www.doomlabs.com/science/co2pv.gif

and

http://www.eng.ox.ac.uk/InvensysUTC/app2/CO2phasediagram.png/image_large

Harry

[CO2 fire extinguisher pressure]

Hi Tom

I used the CO2 phase chart

http://www.network54.com/Realm/pneuguy/co2.gif

which shows CO2 at room temperature and 55 bar to be in the gas state.

Harry

[CO2 fire extinguisher pressure]

Hi

To my knowledge the CO2 extinguisher pressure at room temperature is about 55 bar, which is not enough to liquify the CO2.

But the gas has clearly got enough compression to do all the things Tom is describing with regards to cooling during expansion

Harry

[Can I give my old bed and mattress to charity without fire safety label?]

You can not reasonably be expected to fireproof the mattress retrospectively, however, the Regulations state that the simple distribution of second-hand upholstered furniture and furnishings by a charity in pursuance of its charitable objectives to needy persons, either free of charge or at a nominal amount only, is not considered to constitute a supply in the course of business and hence is exempt from compliance to the Regulations. So the charity should not have an issue accepting the bed.

[Smoke alarms and disco smoke machines]

We are not aware that there are any detrimental effects from switching off smoke detector heads.

I would take particular care to ensure that the loops are re-activated after temporary switch-off. How about leaving your car keys near the fire alarm panel?

Harry

[pre-commissioned extinguishers???]

I would agree with the above contributor. Having extinguishers pre-commissioned is dangerous and falls foul of BSI recommendations. It can be dangerous if extinguishers get damaged in transit and they might not operate correctly as a result (eg if the extinguisher pin has been bent when the handle was knocked in transit). We recommend that all businesses and organisations order their extinguishers with proper onsite commissioning or commissioning and installation. Onsite commissioning makes sense where existing extinguishers are simply replaced and no additional brackets are required.

Harry

[Escape ladder for window/roof in the US]

Hi Tom

I can understand your disappointment. The only solution is to buy through a third party who is not based in North America and who will accept the liability of selling a product into the USA.

Harry