Written by Rickdatech

Fires are the bane of making biodiesel. When they happen they can be devistating. The three most important safety rules are "don't process in your home", "keep combustibles to a minimum", and "properly dispose of oily rags".

Not processing in your home logically includes not processing in your shop or garage. The best place is in a disposable shed away from buildings.

Keeping combustibles to a minimum is harder than you might think. Try anyway. Don't forget that we are making fuel. The more fuel we have on hand, the bigger and hotter the fire and the harder it is to put out.

Spontaneous combustion is a real threat and serious. I've read report after report of oily rags bursting into flames. The threat extends to wood chip filters and fiberous insulation on heating tanks.

The problem is that fires most often happen when we are not arround. Automatic Fire extingusiners can be a way to offer some protection when we are not arround. A ceiling mounted fire extinguisher complements our regular ABCDK wall mounted manual fire extinguishers. You should have one by every door in your biodiesel shed.

The 12KG "Flame Defener" is available from amazon.com for about $170 US. It is ceiling mounted and heat activated, so you want to mount it above your processor.

Griotsgarage.com also offers a 12kg version for about the same price.

Amazon.co.uk offers a 10kg version for those in the UK.

Related Links:

Infopop Automatic Fire suppression Thread - 2006