Posted By tejuken Dear All, I have just completed a risk assessment for a small sport club. It was identified that only Powder extinguisher is available. And to my understanding Powder extinguisher is suitable for all types of fire. According to the Regulatory Reform(Fire safety) Order 2005, it requires premises to be equipped with appropriate fire fighting equipment. Please, is the powder extinguisher on its own enough or additional water and CO2 extinguishers are required for a small sport club? Your response would be highly appreciated. Looking forward to hearing from you

Posted By SBH They will cause a mess if set off though

Posted By GeoffB4 The powder damage repair cost more than the fire damage at one small office. Why do people use powder in office environments?

Posted By Larry Change the Environmental Policy then! In my opinion it’s a very flawed policy. My reasons for that claim are: - You cannot change the amount of carbon in the world. It’s fixed. So using a CO2 extinguisher as going to have an environmental aspect, not impact. I suspect that the policy has been written by someone who is confused by one or more of the following topics and does not understand them: 1. The carbon cycle. 2. Halon. There is no time to cover the subject fully so I will look at it in basic layman’s terms only. Consider the full impact of CO2. It’s naturally occurring and when it’s separated/extracted from the air then, yes energy such as electricity is used, so there is a small indirect environmental impact. The carbon in the CO2 is not actually created when the fire extinguisher is filled. To give you another example, when a coal fired power station burns coal, the carbon (C) in the CO2 comes from the molecular changes during combustion, mainly released from the coal. Carbon is released in the form of CO2, but the amount of carbon does not change, it cannot because the carbon cycle is fixed, it just changes state. As already stated all that happens when a CO2 extinguisher is filled, is that CO2 is extracted from the air around us. So “in theory”, if we all just used CO2 extinguishers in the world, then there would be a tiny wee bit less CO2 out there warming the Earth, because it would be locked away in our fire extinguishers (in liquid form, I might add). Dry powder on the other hand is partially manmade and. 1. More energy is used in the powders manufacturing process. 2. It will trigger asthma attacks, so more drugs may need to be manufactured. 3. It’s a fine powder dust, which will enter the blood stream via the lungs and it’s a very powerful Laxative. So more trees are needed to make more toilet paper and more bleach/wash powder needed for accidents. 4. All food is contaminated for the reason above, so more waste. 5. All electrical equipment especially if staff use vacuum cleaners to clean the powder up will be only fit for the scrap heap. Again, more waste. IMO. A CO2 extinguisher is more environmentally friendly than powder. However, remember. What is even more environmentally unfriendly is letting a fire burn the place down. So let your risk assessment, (undertaken by a competent person), determine your type of extinguisher. Not some flawed EMS Policy Top tip: Never use a dry powder fire extinguisher and a sleeping pill on the same day! Larry G x

Posted By Paul Leadbetter Vrick As Larry has explained above, the CO2 in extinguishers is extracted from the atmosphere by refrigeration; there is thus no direct environmental impact, unlike the burning of fossil fuels. An environmental lobby group made a similar error when trying to get stubble burning by farmers banned. As the crops had fixed atmospheric carbon during their growth, burning the stubble merely released into the atmosphere carbon that had only recently been removed from it; net effect - zero. Paul

Posted By Larry Yes. You are using CO2, but the point is that you are not directly producing it or increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (the exception being the small amount of power required to extract the CO2 from the air). I hope that this does not sound pedantic but with your theory you need to now consider: - 1. Banning water fire extinguishers. Why? Because it (like CO2) is all around us and you are promoting the use of another natural product. 2. Ban all fizzy drinks and beer etc. They also use CO2 (in vast amounts) to put the fizz in fizzy drinks. Larry G x

Posted By Larry Second thoughts. Don't ban beer. The current Mrs Larry has just been shopping and got several bottles of falling down juice. Made from honey and not sugar. It is my sworn duty to free and liberate the CO2 held captive from those bottles tonight whilst watch BBC1 Panic-orama. Local product too I may add. Now that is what sustainability is all about. Sweet! Larry xox