I also would appreciate some other views on this subject...for 20 odd years we have all been telling everyone that AFFF is the way to go as it is better at dealing with Class A fires and is safer to the user in the event of inadvertant discharge onto live electrical equipment and now, all of a sudden, just as with Halon, it has become a monster. I understand that we cannot go polluting waterways with masses of toxic chemicals but how are we all now supposed to be able to carry out the servicing procedures correctly ie 5 yearly discharge testing? You cannot discharge a 6 litre foam successfully into a 25 litre container so what size container will we have to have on the service vehicles to dispose of the contents from 10/15/20 units that need testing?
Some companies I am aware of are telling customers that 5 year old foam extinguishers need to be replaced...not sure how this works if they are selling Amerex units with 10 year warranties!
Are there any truly environmentally friendly foam compounds in the pipeline that would solve this problem?(but then of course we will be refilling an extinguisher with a "non-approved" medium).
There seems to be little guidance from manufacturers and only threats of £20 000 fines from the water authorities.
Perhaps manufacturers could say that discharge testing is no longer required (it has always seemed a bit of a pointless excercise to me to say "yes, that extinguisher would have worked if you had needed it in the last 5 years" and it should work in the next 5 years!) Although the downside to this is that a lot of service companies make a lot of money out of discharge testing.
Any other thoughts???
