Portable clean agent fire extinguishers

[Tom Sutton]

Portable clean agent fire extinguishers. (A substitute Halon fire extinguisher). According to the write up they are ideal for computer suite’s and are on sale in America but I cannot find any UK company selling them. Is there any reasons why they are not available in the UK or are we just waiting for them to cross the pond?

http://www.bfpe.com/fireextinguishers.htm

[AnthonyB]

You can, but they are prohibitively expensive. We can supply a 2 kilo FE-36 clean agent extinguisher, but it would set you back around £200+.

Halotron won't be available as it is illegal in the EU who are stricter on HCFC derivatives than the US.

FE-36 is the main agent offered for portable extinguishers, but the cost has led to little uptake and despite it's claims it's not as versatile as halon 1211 was - the Met Police & Firemaster trialled several clean agents some years ago for public order use. FE-36 did not perform sufficiently well, the only one that did was even more expensive & as it included iodine had safety hazards and actually stained things!

it's only potential application therefore is electronics, but most customers are happy to leave the expensive stuff to the fixed system & settle for CO2 in portables. it's not an economically viable agent for selling in portables here

FM-200 & HFC227ea is available in small self contained automatic extinguishers.

[Tom Sutton]

Thanks AnthonyB for your reply just what I required

[wallace317]

FE-36's chemical formula is hexafluoropropane, according to the manufacturer's (DuPont)MSDS, so how exactly is it that it contains iodine? The only agent on the market I have ever heard of containing iodine is Triodide from Orion in Australia, which is a fluoriodocarbon replacement for Halon 1211.

Ansul makes a version of this entirely of stainless and other non-magnetic components, which is rated to 3 Teslas and is used widely in MRI rooms.

[Tom Sutton]

About the iodine AnthonyB will after answer that one.

But the problem with clean agent fire extinguishers this side of the pond are if they are ozone depleting agents or are greenhouse gasses then they are banned or controlled by strict legislation making them a logistical nightmare and its best to use other alternatives.

For more information go to http://www.firesafe.org.uk/html/fsequip/halon2.htm

[RePressure]

You can, but they are prohibitively expensive. We can supply a 2 kilo FE-36 clean agent extinguisher, but it would set you back around £200+.

Same price as a Chubb 6 litre Foam then

[AnthonyB]

If you read carefully I never said FE-36 contains Iodine. What I said was the Met trialled two agents:
--FE-36
--An Iodine compound (at the time I didn't have the name, but was probably Triodide as you suggest as there aren't too many iodine extinguishants about)

FE-36 had too poor a performance, the Iodine was better but cost prohibitive with toxicity & contamination problems.

The police can (& several still do) still use BCF and for the forseeable future are unlikely to change - we aren't having riots every ten seconds so the Halon bank is hardly dented by it's usage.

Although the clean agent extinguishers have B and sometimes even A ratings they are not a BCF in any shape or form performance wise and are mainly for high value electronics where CO2 thermal or static shock risks are too much or where CO2 portables are too bulky.

Since the last post a 2 kilo HCFC extinguisher ('Foxer') is now only around £100-£150 retail dependant on your markup (So only a Chubb 2 litre foam then lol!)

[wallace317]

I agree with you guys and the rest of the world-Halons are bad news and it seems every country except the United States has really restricted its use. Over here, if you want to pay for halon, you can use it for vitually any situation, though I do suggest removal to my customers if it's in a grossly inappropriate situation. The problems with replacement agents, as Mr. B said, is their high cost, poor fire performance, increased toxicity (especially Halotron) and most people see no incentive to buy something new when it has limited advantages.

CO2 is another option, but in the US these must be hydrostatically tested every 5 years, which can be bothersome for the customer and is an added expense. I like your approach of doing this every 10 years much better.

FM-200 is available in the US in portables from Sea-Fire, does anyone think this will be a viable option in the UK and elsewhere, or is it going to be restricted by Kyoto?

Thanks for the input-my apologies about the iodine thing, I guess I missed the part when you were talking about 2 different types. It's interesting to see how they do things in other parts of the world.

[kurnal]

I agree with you guys and the rest of the world-Halons are bad news and it seems every country except the United States has really restricted its use. Over here, if you want to pay for halon, you can use it for vitually any situation, though I do suggest removal to my customers if it's in a grossly inappropriate situation.

Hi Wallace

Is the halon expensive because its getting scarce or is there some environmental tax levied on its use?

Over here we seem to have many environmental based  taxes but it seems impossible to find out how much is being raised through green taxes and where all the money is actually going.

[Davo]

AnthonyB

You are wrong when you say the police stocks of Halon are hardly dented.
BCF extinguishers are set off by our lads and lasses every day in training when we set fire to the trainees!
Whether we can buy more is open to debate as I think we will get screwed for price

In regard to FM200, word is its next on the banned list for 2010/11, but I expect you are aware of this

davo

[kurnal]

AnthonyB

You are wrong when you say the police stocks of Halon are hardly dented.
BCF extinguishers are set off by our lads and lasses every day in training when we set fire to the trainees!
davo

I hope that you have a SSOW for setting trainees alight davo- wouldnt want you to burn your pinkies on your fag lighter in the course of your duties.

[Redone]

Davo, is FM200 def to be banned?

How long would be given to change to ... let's say Inergen?

Mitch

[Psuedonym]

I think you will find Express Fire sell the FE36 2Kg for a hell of a lot less than £200!! I bought half a dozen last year (Approx £45 each if memory serves). EN3 approved, manufactured by Esto Cheb Ltd, www.esto.cz . I have the tech spec from Esto if anyone wants it (Back in Web Land on Friday)

[wallace317]

Hello,
In response to your question, as far as I know, there is no environmental tax on Halon in the US, if so, it is incorporated into its wholesale price perhaps. Halon retails over here for about $30 per pound, plus whatever parts are needed to keep aging extinguishers in use, as there are no age limits on halon extinguishers here. To the best of my knowledge only Amerex and Pem-All manufacture new halon extinguishers (using recycled gas of course), and so did General until they went under in 2001.

The price for halon seems to be driven by the consumer, many people think it's the only option, afraid of having a huge mess to clean up. I read somewhere, I think on an Australian website that a 1.5 kilo extinguisher destroys about 50 tons of ozone. WOW. Feel free to dispute this, I'm not sure of its accuracy.

I like that you guys in the UK have taken a back to basics approach by using CO2 and foam, along with limited use of clean agents. I really think AFFF shows a lot of promise, but is of limited use over here since it does not get an approval for electrical fires, and many insurance companies require this. Water mist for class A and C fires is promising for many applications, and I sell them when I can, but they are expensive and unfortunately require an anuual recharge. Do I understand these are not listed for electrical fires in the UK? (Water mist-distilled water spray, that is). Over here, we use Halotron-1 and FE-36, with small FM-200 extinguishers being used in marine applications. It creates such a nightmare for us service people. Halotron has to go to one company to be recharged, FE-36 to another (Who must be an Ansul distributor as only they make these here), never come across an FM-200 portable, but I have heard talk of our military having interest in these to replace the existing Halon 1301 2-3/4 lb. extinguishers used in tanks and aircraft.

Any more questions, please ask.

[RFPS]

Hi Wallace,

To respond to your points in relation to CO2 extinguishers, in Ireland & the U.K. while the first hydrostatic test is required after 10 years, subsequent tests are required every 5 years.  Also while most AFFF extinguishers have passed conductivity of discharge tests, they are not marked as being suitable for use on electrical fires.  I recall that Anthony B previously posted about this very issue.