Highly volatile with a 200m exclusion zone if there is an incident - simple answer is get it off site and use an alternative product.

SBH

External storage cage 3 m apart for fuel gas and oxidising gas. Preferably not against the building wall ( but you may not want it against boundary fence either). You can reduce distance by having a fire resisting wall between cages.

Internal fixed to a trolley is fine, You do the annual checks. After 4 years I would start questioning if the regulators and flash back arrestors /spark arrestors need replacement as they have a life of around 5 years. Regulators should have a date stamp on them, if no date I would say they are probably over 10 years old and should be replaced.

You can use Oxy/ propane with cutting equipment ( note different hose and regulator required specifically for propane)

Chris

my policy has always been: if you find bits of kit which have a significant risk attached to their use or storage get the “users “, to justify keeping them. Just in case is not a reason: It’s an excuse not to do something.

Not always though John.
If there were no uses for Oxy-DA then it would have become extinct, and it hasn't.
There are some issues that it is perfectly suited for.

Also have a chat with your insurers and fire brigade, they will generally offer some good advice.

Regards

Done to death.
I have been in the welding game for nearly five decades.
I have Oxygen/Acetylene equipment, both welding and flame-cutting, for all that time.
I have ****** NEVER ****** seen an acteylene cylinder fire/explosion in all that time.
Industry, being in the make-things-to-make-money game, tends to not use things that are inefficient or useless. They still use Oxy/Acetylene.
I'll tell you one good (very good if you work in confined/enclosed/underground) reason to use acetylene: It's lighter than air. Unlike propane.
Miffed at myths:

http://proactivegassafet...lene-cylinders-the-myths

So, if you don't know what you're talking about; don't talk about it?
You want to flame-cut with propane, please do so. Not me.

You want a valid reason for not keeping something that is not being used?
Try: Cost. Cylinder rental, for one!

I would not doubt the accuracy of what John says above, and definitely wouldn't jump on the ban it from site/use bandwagon. But it thought it might be worth adding that I have been unfortunate enough to see an acetylene cylinder explode (or more accurately the consequences) due to faulty or incorrectly fitted flashback arrester (can't quite remember which) and it is not a pretty sight, fortunately the operator survived, but lost one leg and had his other shortened by several inches due to the amount of damage to the bone.
Clearly very dangerous stuff if used or stored inappropriately, but then isn't a large proportion of what we do? Surely that is our collective role in the provision of sensible advice to control risks to our colleagues/clients Health and Safety.

OK,
Kevlar & safety helmet on.

This is another reason H&S gets a bad name IMHO.

OK DA is dangerous, so is a delivery van.

I bet delivery vans kill more people in the UK every year and cause more damage and injury too than does DA.

I don't follow what has happened since 1982/6 when I was an apprentice and respect for DA was drummed into me sometimes with a steel rule.
Perhaps the old ways were the best!

I can, I think, appreciate, but never agree with, the get rid of it coz it’s dangerous brigade.

As H&S advisors, if one is not fully familiar with the materials, product, process, procedure etc. and competent to do the work and deal with the product, process, procedure that one is looking at then you should be looking to external more competent advice.

Please, just look at the posts I make on here.

I may ask questions on, say a post related to skin conditions, however there are members here, one I can think of specifically who has forgotten probably in the last year, more than I have ever known about skin conditions of the hands, dermatitis of the hands, gloves, breakthrough times, chemical effects on the skin etc. (you know who you are!). I suspect that others can guess who I am talking about.
I don’t recall this person challenging my opinions & posts on say BS7671 issues.
I am not for a minute suggesting that the person is not competent to give some general and basic advice, however, it seems that they know their limits.

Most of the dangers from DA come from poor “housekeeping”, i.e. user error.

Now when I was an apprentice I HAD to learn the makeup of the interior of a DA cylinder, and be able to draw it and label it, from memory, in an exam. We had to know the safe pressures for use, FROM MEMORY.
Why, IMHO so that we understood what could go wrong, why it would go wrong, and what we needed to do to keep OURSELVES safe.

I still have a workshop unit, and yes we have oxy-da in there, rarely used.
It is in a large shared building split up into smaller units.
A year, perhaps two ago, there was a fire in an adjacent unit.
FRS attended, as did the other services, along with the majority of those renting units in the building.
I advised a senior FF that there was DA in my unit, they were not overly worried about this.
OK, the fire was in an adjacent unit, yes it was a masonry wall between.
In the end, yes we did remove the oxy-da on the trolley, but there was none of the sort of panic being suggested.

There are many dangerous things in this world, yes risks and hazards should be minimised, but don’t just “ban” things because they might be a hazard.

Please.

quote=JohnMurray]
Using a regulator that is not built for use with acetylene carries a very real danger!

Whilst acetylene and propane are both flammable gases and are widely used for cutting & welding purposes, the gases have different properties resulting in the manufacture of specific equipment designed to be compatible with the gas in use.

Not to get into a tit for tat debate, I will offer my advice to the OP.
So… conduct a risk assessment to assess if you need to have the welding equipment, taking into consideration how many times it has recently been used and the cost of the hire of the equipment, only you can make this decision.
If… you do decide to keep it – due to its infrequent use, I would store the bottles outside in a secure cage away from the building. When it is needed – then connect the pipework, use it then dismantle it and restore the bottles back to the outside cage. Hopefully, this will be an appropriate control for the risk and will also work well for the FRA.
The rational for my advice is, few years ago, I was involved in a car workshop fire involving an acetylene bottle that was also on fire in the workshop at Phoenix Retail Park, the emergency services closed down the Retail Park, local roads and Glasgow airport for a short time and the plane’s to the airport were diverted, not only because of the acetylene fire but also the smoke.

John - I am not sure why you feel the need to be so aggressive in your response. Risk assessing should surely consider safer ways of carrying out a task to reduce that risk - that's all I was saying. If (and only if) a task can be completed with propane, why use acetylene as the instability issues and weight of the bottles does increase risk.

I accept you (like the dinosaur I mentioned in my post) have been in the game for almost 50 years AND you have never seen an acetylene cylinder explode. This is a worrying methodology for determining control measures.

Substituting to a lower risk method of completing a task (and as you say a cheaper method) isn't rocket science. But I have found many more experienced engineers reluctant to give up acetylene even though in some cases, there's no need to keep it.

I fail to see weight as an issue. The commonly used acetylene is around 80KG, the commonly used (industrial)(not fork truck) propane is around 100KG.

So, if you are going to use propane in a heating situation, such as flame cutting, you are not going to use the smaller sizes; because then you are going to run into exceeding the maximum withdrawal rate (if an automatic flame cutter is being used cutting thick plate, it may even be necessary to have two cylinders combined)

Propane is heavier than air, acetylene lighter.
The risk of explosive decomposition of acetylene is extremely small, and for every explosion [few] featuring acetylene, there are more featuring propane.


The vast majority of accidents involving acetylene are as a result of poor, or none-existent, training (where have we all heard that before). few accidents are in reasonable engineering companies, because they use trained people (welders/fabricators), not so the back-yard jobbies...

As for me, for flame-cutting manually I would prefer to use Oxy/Acet, to the extent that I would not use Oxy/Prop because it is rubbish. If the firm wants to use that, then they can get someone else to do it. Or splash-out on a plasma cutter !!

If used for welding/brazing, then propane is not even in the race.

You will still need separate storage anyway, and no matter what it is, if it's used very infrequently: It should not be kept in the premises.

Nothing is safe. Life is a compromise between birth and death !!

Infrequent use.
No justification for inside storage (irrespective of gas used)
The BCGA has storage guidance available from this webpage: http://www.bcga.co.uk/pages/index.cfm?page_id=20
If it hasn't been used for four years, and the hoses have not been changed, they should be changed now!!

Paul I think this is the revised guidance that you are talking about.

http://www.boconline.co..../acetylene-guidance.html

The commonest regulator problem is not an internal fault, but a leak around the bottle outlet/regulator input flange (usually solved in the workplace, wrongly, by wrapping PTFE tape around the regulator thread) (the correct solution is to inspect both bottle outlet and regulator inlet stem seal for damage or obstructions. If damaged bottle seal, mark CLEARLY and put aside. Tell the company. If damaged regulator stem, get a new regulator. If obstruction/s are present, clean and re-assemble and test (soapy water, not oil!))
The next is/are leak/s around the thread where the input stem enters the regulator body, usually caused by either the regulator having been bashed by something, and the stem bent: Or leaks around the output into the backflash preventer, again caused by impact/excessive tightening. Don't straighten: Replace.
Failure of the internal diaphragm is rare and usually results in a gas flow through the rear of the regulator, which is provided for by a hole being available for release. A stainless diaphragm has around 10,000 on/off cycles before failure, a plastic one around 25,000 on/off cycles.
The regulator output pressure, or flow-rate, is set via an adjuster....behind that is a spring, it is not unknown for severe corrosion of the spring to occur in sets used outside....
In fact, no repairs should be attempted on a pressure or flow regulator.
Cheap regulators are not cheap because the manufacturer is having a sale!

Thanks John - thats most helpful.

Toe, I said get rid cos its not been used for 4 years, my assessment of risk says its a hazard that we dont need so get rid.