Author: Clifford Dow <cdowjr@...> Time: Fri Jan 18, 2002 8:09 am PST Link
SHOP SAFETY:
Last summer while adding an addition on my home I had
a bag of trash including oily rags in a plastic trash
barrel. I just happened to toss it out side right in
front of my garage bay door. I went upstairs and
flipped on the AC shut my bedroom door and took a nap.
When I woke up several hours later, the bag and
bucket were a pile of molten goo on my driveway. It
was a classic case of spontaneous combustion. Had
that container been in my new addition – it surely
would have burned the house down and since the smoke
detectors were not yet hooked up on the new addition,
quite a fire would have built up before I woke up. If
you are at work, home smoke detectors just buzz and do
nothing to put out the fire.
I have since replaced all of my plastic trash buckets
with metal ones. As long as a metal trash container
is not pushed up against a wall, one could have quite
a fire before it took out your home or garage. It
would be sad to spend all that time building an RV
only to have it burn up due to one oily rag - or some
dingbat friend who tossed a cigarette butt in the
trash.
Also, don’t think your homeowners policy will cover
your RV project. Most will NOT! (I’d like to start an
insurance company with a slogan “We Insure, Not
Exclude!”) Get the NationsAir builders policy -
$350/yr – covers $25,000 to $75,000 depending on how
much you have done on the project.
Cliff Dow, JR.
cdowjr@y...
Maine RV-7A Builder
PS - don't just read the e-mail - DO what needs to be
done!
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Author: Paul Besing <azpilot@...> Time: Fri Jan 18, 2002 8:22 am PST Link
A similar thing happened to me several months ago in
the hanger. I was using a torch, and had lit it with
a match. I put the match out, and threw it in the
trash can (duh). How much could a match that had been
put out do? About 10 minutes later, I was leaving the
hanger for lunch. I was shutting the hanger door, and
out of the corner of my eye, I saw something
moving...it was smoke! My trash can had fiberglass
and various materials in it. A huge flame came up out
of it. The trash can was underneath my work bench, so
flames were hitting the underside of the top of my
work bench and coming out the sides. I managed to
kick the can out from under there, and luckily we have
to have a fire extinguisher in our hangers (city
code). It was put out without incident (other than a
melted plastic trash can).
Just another example of how easily things can start
fire. Had I not seen that, my airplane and others
around me could have been destroyed. Even if the
sprinklers came on, all of my tools, plans, manuals,
etc would have been burned.
Needless to say, I will be much more careful with
materials that we use when building airplanes, as well
as ALWAYS having a fire extinguisher near by.
=====
Paul Besing
RV-6A 197AB Arizona
http://www.lacodeworks.com/besing
First Flight 7/22/01
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