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  • Several Regions have held meetups already, but others are being planned or are evaluating the interest. The Calgary Area Meetup is set for Saturday July 12th at 10am. The signup thread is here! Arbutus has also explored interest in a Fraser Valley meetup but it seems members either missed his thread or had other plans. Let him know if you are interested in a meetup later in the year by posting here! Slowpoke is trying to pull together an Ottawa area meetup later this summer. No date has been selected yet, so let him know if you are interested here! We are not aware of any other meetups being planned this year. If you are interested in doing something in your area, let everyone know and make it happen! Meetups are a great way to make new machining friends and get hands on help in your area. Don’t be shy, sign up and come, or plan your own meetup!

Auto ignition of oily rags

House in Calgary just burned down, rental. They are saying it started with a bunch of Pete, potting soil, rags and stuff stacked against the side of the house in direct sunlight. My wife’s coworkers daughter was renting a room in the basement everyone got out. Night owl roommate smelled smoke saw the fire and got everyone out. No working smoke detectors. The pictures are pretty sad. Tough to look at. I worked a summer doing fire recovery years ago. It got to me seeing the destruction and loss, had to quit.
 
A friend of mine lost his workshop about 10 yrs ago...
It was a barn originally, converted to a shop after he bought the property...
Whether he was aware or not, I can't say...but there was a smaller shack attached to it...and hay bales or something stored within...
He lost everything...the building, his 2 post hoist, all his tools, a flat fender Willys, an autocross prepped VW Rabbit, old bicycles from his childhood and so on...
Thankfully his family and pets were safe...
But it was heartbreaking watching it go up...it's tough seeing a friends hobbydom go up in smoke...
If not for his wife being an insurance broker, he'd be up the creek without a paddle...
She'd made sure everything was documented and covered.
When I worked for Napa, he reached out to me, and I got the sale to replace his hoist...
That new shop, was a haven for us VW gearheads for a long time...he still has an open invite to me, personally, to use his shop if I'm ever in dire need...
I've only called that favour in twice...
Needless to say...my next property will be thoroughly checked over ... as it's gonna be very rural an probably in the middle of nowhere Kootenay Boundary
 
skippyelwell said:
I was just about to say that linseed oil and other plant based oils are usually the culprit, petroleum oil soaked rags don't oxidize so don't burst into flames like other oils. If they did my shop would have burned down decades ago.

Like @Tom O , in woodworking class in high school a fire fighter came to our class one day to talk about the subject so what I just said above is 50 yr old intel, take for what it's worth.
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We dealt with a LOT of oily rags in my early years in the CF, as we had a fleet of Grumman Trackers, that had Wright 1820 9 cylinder radial engines, that spat oil out over most of the exterior surface on every flight, which we washed down at days end, using bundles of rags soaked in "Aircraft Wax", mostly petroleum based solvents, and then had to sort and deposit all used rags in the fire resistant containers for the purpose. It was part of routine, and we all had it POUNDED in to us, that you did not leave dirty rags in any other containers, under any circumstances that did not include directly incinerating them.

Linseed oil came up often in the discussions too, as being a particular risk, and the few guys I knew that actually had to deal with spontaneous fires, were all hobby woodworkers.
 
Has anyone put a sprinkler system in their workshop? I live in a house that is attached to 4 other houses and I have this picture in my head of all of the houses burned down because of some stupid thing I did or didn't do. I'm very careful, but careful only goes so far.
 
Maker Mike said:
Has anyone put a sprinkler system in their workshop?
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No sprinkler but I have a clean agent suppression system in my shop!

Sounds like you are a diligent guy, I'd be more concerned about the other three houses doing something stupid and causing your place to go up with them.
 
What type of agent are you using? We have used CO2 and Halon in the power industry, not sure if there are other agents out there. It would prevent damage to equipment over a water sprinkler system. I'm not worried about a fire while I'm in there so I suppose no one would suffocate if a CO2 system was put in.
 
One of the fire systems we put in a couple garages was the Elide fire balls. They work. Easy to install. Basically install and forget about em. I'm thinking of putting them in my garage. They are a chemical suppressant so likely to damage things but way better then fire taking the structure.
 
djberta said:
One of the fire systems we put in a couple garages was the Elide fire balls. They work. Easy to install. Basically install and forget about em. I'm thinking of putting them in my garage. They are a chemical suppressant so likely to damage things but way better then fire taking the structure.
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First I ever heard of them. I bet some characters call them eddy balls to connect them with matches.
 
smokey-bear.jpg


Could easily change "forest" to house, shop, etc.

Every shop I was in the majority of staff seldom cleaned/maintained their work area. And it seemed most disliked the guy who ruled with an iron fist and insisted on keeping things meticulous.

Even the cleanest shop with well-maintained equipment can be at risk but you're going to greatly reduce that risk. IMO that's the place to start.
 
Elektrishun said:
Not necessarily. My father-in-law lived until he was 94. His shop looked like a bomb went off. It got so bad there was no room to work. I guess that's a form of prevention, too.
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Just sayin, I'd rather die early than become a filer with a neat tidy shop. I'd always be hiding in a corner afraid of my shadow getting nothing done.
 
Susquatch said:
Just sayin, I'd rather die early than become a filer with a neat tidy shop. I'd always be hiding in a corner afraid of my shadow getting nothing done.
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Bit of an extreme take but ok.

Some people would argue you can get more done in a shop that is clean and organized.

My first journeyman never kept a clean/organized work area. One of the first things I did when we finally had a slow work day was organize the room where he kept tools and supplies. He appreciated it. And we found all the tools that we already bought replacements for.
 
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